5 Hitters With Major HR/FB Downside

Yesterday, I whipped out my xHR/FB equation and compared its calculation to every player’s actual HR/FB rate to come up with a list of eight hitters destined for a HR/FB rate spike off their 2015 marks. Today I visit those on the opposite end of the spectrum, the guys who outperformed their xHR/FB rates the most.

Before we dive into the list, I want to caution you about how you interpret the component data. First, remember this this is backwards looking and descriptive, not predictive. The hitter’s average absolute angle is much less stable from one season to the next, so if their xHR/FB rate was boosted or deflated by a high or low mark there, don’t get too worried about that player this season. More troublesome is a significant change in batted ball distance and standard deviation of distance, to a lesser extent.

With that caveat out of the way, here are your five hitters with severe HR/FB rate downside, compared to their 2015 marks.

5 Hitters With Major HR/FB Downside

Name	Flyballs + HRs (won’t match FG!)	Avg Distance	Avg Abs Angle (AAA)	SD Dist (SDD)	xHR/FB	Actual HR/FB	Difference
Chris Colabello	50	283.7	19.9	66.0	17.1%	23.4%	6.3%
Michael Conforto	44	290.2	20.0	46.7	11.3%	17.0%	5.7%
Khris Davis	83	303.7	18.7	60.9	19.6%	24.5%	4.9%
Carlos Correa	65	294.3	22.5	63.1	19.9%	24.2%	4.3%
Hanley Ramirez	58	276.5	20.9	63.8	14.9%	19.2%	4.3%

Nobody expected Chris Colabello to wOBA .381 and earn significant value in AL-Only leagues, even despite amassing just 360 plate appearances. But, with the potential for lots of playing time and the real possibility he opens the season hitting fifth behind high OBP guys, there will be many that remain a fan. That batted ball distance is barely above league average and only a high SDD saves him from a low teens xHR/FB rate. Playing half his games in Toronto certainly helps, but he’s no 20% HR/FB rate guy. With Michael Saunders back and returning to left field, only 1B/DH at-bats are open, which he could lose to Justin Smoak if he doesn’t keep that power up. He may be too expensive for the risk.

So, Michael Conforto completely skips Triple-A, jumps straight from High-A to Double-A to the Majors in 2015 and then proceeds to post an ISO higher than he had at any previous level. That doesn’t happen often, especially from a Triple-A skipper. Though he obviously showed no issues adjusting to MLB pitching after hopping from Double-A, the lack of that experience still concerns me. After all, we’re still talking about just 194 MLB plate appearances. The problem here with regards to his xHR/FB rate is that puny SDD. The mark actually ranks 320th out of the 328 hitters on my spreadsheet! That’s bad, and surprising. The correlation between distance and SDD in this data set is about 0.50, so you don’t typically find such large discrepancies.

Since it’s clear that Conforto does have power, one would assume his SDD rises next season. But since the SDD does have a respectable year-to-year correlation of 0.50, it’s no guarantee his surges. That risk is highly unlikely to be baked into his draft day price and I’m guessing he’ll get a lot of sleeper love.

Khris Davis continued his Jekyll and Hide act. He debuted in 2013 with a bang, swatting 11 homers in just 136 at-bats for a huge 28.95 HR/FB rate, then fell back to Earth in 2014 by posting just half that mark, before rising back from the ashes in 2015 into the mid-20% range. I considered excluding him from this list because he certainly has the distance, it’s just the AAA holding back his xHR/FB rate. Though his SDD is only slightly above average itself. But his AAA was below average in 2014 also, so it might just be his level.

I apologize for saying anything negative about Carlos Correa, but despite what you may have read, it’s not all sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns. Correa made an earlier debut than expected and enjoyed a fantastic one. And he was only 20 years old for the vast majority of the season. But he had no business posting a mid-20% HR/FB rate. Not only was that well above any mark he had posted in the minors, it was above what his components suggested he should have finished at. He’s currently being selected sixth overall on average in NFBC drafts. SIXTH!!!!! A 21-year-old with 432 MLB plate appearances to his name. Do you realize how absurd that is? Can he earn that value? Sure. But there’s so much more downside risk here at this price, which factors in absolutely none of it.

Even through the injuries, somehow Hanley Ramirez managed to post a HR/FB rate that ranked third highest of his career. But his distance was actually his second lowest mark since 2007, the first year I have data for. Something clearly doesn’t add up. One might argue that his distance was suppressed by the shoulder injury and whatever other maladies he may have been playing through. This is probably true, but his distance is moot if we already know his HR/FB rate. He’ll have to dramatically improve the distance to legitimately post another 19.2% HR/FB rate this season. At age 32, I wouldn’t bet on that happening.

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For some reason, this downside list was much more difficult to cobble together than the upside list. As you’ll see in the entire list below, the guys at the top of the outperformers list are all top tier home run hitters who posted near 30% HR/FB rates, but still deserved marks in the low-to-mid 20% range. Since formulas generally do poorly at the extremes, xHR/FB will almost always hint at regression for the league leaders. Obviously, you should expect some regression for Pedro Alvarez, Chris Davis, Giancarlo Stanton, and Nelson Cruz, but writing about that isn’t very beneficial. We all know not to project another HR/FB rate that high, even if they have proven capable of posting one when everything goes right.

HR/FB Downsiders

Name	Flyballs + HRs (won’t match FG!)	Avg Distance	Avg Abs Angle (AAA)	SD Dist (SDD)	xHR/FB	Actual HR/FB	Difference
Franklin Gutierrez	30	315.9	18.4	62.7	23.2%	35.7%	12.5%
Pedro Alvarez	71	307.6	18.1	66.8	22.5%	32.5%	10.0%
Chris Davis	122	313.8	22.4	58.3	22.9%	29.4%	6.5%
Giancarlo Stanton	60	323.2	16.3	67.3	25.8%	32.1%	6.3%
Chris Colabello	50	283.7	19.9	66.0	17.1%	23.4%	6.3%
Michael Conforto	44	290.2	20.0	46.7	11.3%	17.0%	5.7%
Tucker Barnhart	30	250.0	19.2	38.8	0.0%	5.5%	5.5%
Tim Beckham	32	279.6	20.3	65.4	16.0%	21.4%	5.4%
Nelson Cruz	103	304.2	22.5	70.0	25.0%	30.3%	5.3%
Khris Davis	83	303.7	18.7	60.9	19.6%	24.5%	4.9%
Carlos Correa	65	294.3	22.5	63.1	19.9%	24.2%	4.3%
Hanley Ramirez	58	276.5	20.9	63.8	14.9%	19.2%	4.3%
Mike Trout	114	293.4	22.4	67.7	21.4%	25.3%	3.9%
Justin Smoak	52	286.5	26.4	67.6	21.5%	25.4%	3.9%
Jeff Francoeur	57	272.0	19.9	56.0	10.3%	14.1%	3.8%
James Loney	70	244.5	22.2	42.5	0.0%	3.7%	3.7%
Mark Teixeira	92	292.7	23.6	62.8	19.9%	23.5%	3.6%
Steven Souza	51	290.1	22.3	58.3	16.9%	20.5%	3.6%
Russell Martin	84	291.3	21.0	60.4	17.4%	20.7%	3.3%
Alejandro De Aza	64	264.7	18.9	47.5	4.7%	8.0%	3.3%
Dustin Pedroia	71	279.3	18.2	47.5	8.1%	11.3%	3.2%
Billy Burns	61	239.6	19.9	52.7	1.0%	4.1%	3.1%
Miguel Montero	66	294.5	16.7	57.1	14.9%	17.9%	3.0%
Danny Valencia	54	291.0	20.0	67.0	19.4%	22.2%	2.8%
Joey Votto	92	300.6	18.2	61.4	18.8%	21.6%	2.8%
Chris Carter	95	289.0	16.7	63.8	16.1%	18.9%	2.8%
Ryan Howard	84	288.6	19.8	60.8	16.3%	18.9%	2.6%
Kyle Schwarber	53	307.5	19.7	62.5	21.6%	24.2%	2.6%
Albert Pujols	146	286.5	19.5	60.1	15.3%	17.8%	2.5%
Zack Cozart	41	281.8	21.8	47.7	10.5%	12.9%	2.4%
Carlos Ruiz	41	250.3	20.1	43.4	0.1%	2.5%	2.4%
Bryce Harper	99	298.8	23.1	72.7	25.0%	27.3%	2.3%
Miguel Sano	56	298.8	21.4	72.7	24.2%	26.5%	2.3%
Billy Hamilton	64	241.2	18.9	53.4	1.1%	3.4%	2.3%
Evan Gattis	116	289.0	19.6	54.3	13.8%	16.0%	2.2%
Mike Aviles	51	256.2	20.7	47.9	3.6%	5.7%	2.1%
Carlos Gonzalez	97	301.5	19.6	72.1	23.8%	25.8%	2.0%
Ben Revere	84	245.3	16.2	48.0	0.0%	2.0%	2.0%
Ryan Braun	80	300.5	21.1	57.3	18.5%	20.5%	2.0%
Hank Conger	37	281.7	23.9	59.6	16.1%	18.0%	1.9%
Yan Gomes	67	268.2	16.1	60.8	9.4%	11.3%	1.9%
Edwin Encarnacion	135	283.7	20.8	67.6	18.1%	19.9%	1.8%
Shin-Soo Choo	83	296.9	22.5	54.0	17.0%	18.8%	1.8%
Travis Shaw	52	283.8	22.6	60.1	16.1%	17.8%	1.7%
Devon Travis	30	296.5	22.9	46.7	14.3%	16.0%	1.7%
Jason Castro	64	271.0	21.9	56.6	11.3%	12.8%	1.5%
Dee Gordon	57	251.3	18.7	51.4	2.8%	4.3%	1.5%
Justin Bour	71	289.2	21.8	67.7	20.0%	21.5%	1.5%
Paul Goldschmidt	96	310.6	19.8	58.4	20.9%	22.3%	1.4%
Jackie Bradley Jr.	42	292.1	21.4	57.1	16.5%	17.9%	1.4%
Nori Aoki	35	268.6	20.9	46.7	6.4%	7.7%	1.3%
David Ortiz	124	300.8	19.0	61.2	19.1%	20.4%	1.3%
Kole Calhoun	115	283.2	18.9	60.7	14.4%	15.7%	1.3%
George Springer	60	294.5	19.2	61.0	17.5%	18.8%	1.3%
J.D. Martinez	142	303.6	21.0	58.1	19.6%	20.8%	1.2%
Ichiro Suzuki	41	243.1	18.3	41.8	0.0%	1.2%	1.2%
David Murphy	72	269.9	18.0	55.5	8.7%	9.7%	1.0%
Wilmer Flores	100	261.8	20.2	60.0	9.5%	10.3%	0.8%
Mike Napoli	82	287.6	20.4	55.0	14.1%	14.8%	0.7%
David Peralta	60	295.7	18.8	59.2	17.0%	17.7%	0.7%
Adonis Garcia	36	289.4	27.7	62.7	21.0%	21.7%	0.7%
Delino DeShields	65	241.3	19.6	53.1	1.3%	1.9%	0.6%
Francisco Lindor	59	275.2	22.4	56.3	12.4%	13.0%	0.6%
Jose Altuve	133	273.7	20.0	45.9	6.9%	7.4%	0.5%
Welington Castillo	60	296.7	18.6	62.2	18.3%	18.8%	0.5%
Tyler Moore	31	279.4	19.7	48.7	9.3%	9.8%	0.5%
Gordon Beckham	39	259.3	27.6	52.3	9.4%	9.8%	0.4%
Logan Forsythe	118	277.1	19.5	50.6	9.3%	9.7%	0.4%
Yoenis Cespedes	147	290.9	20.3	64.0	18.3%	18.6%	0.3%
Geovany Soto	35	290.2	22.6	61.1	18.1%	18.4%	0.3%
Brian McCann	115	283.6	21.3	58.1	14.7%	14.9%	0.2%
Carlos Perez	45	265.2	19.1	46.9	4.7%	4.9%	0.2%
Eric Hosmer	93	283.4	19.0	61.7	14.9%	15.1%	0.2%
Alex Guerrero	43	299.1	21.9	53.4	17.0%	17.2%	0.2%
Michael Cuddyer	56	279.5	21.2	52.5	11.5%	11.6%	0.1%
Jose Abreu	89	304.4	21.6	56.8	19.6%	19.7%	0.1%
Joey Butler	30	280.7	30.8	67.5	22.1%	22.2%	0.1%
Eric Sogard	59	249.8	16.8	49.5	0.8%	0.9%	0.1%
Clint Barmes	42	251.4	21.8	51.2	4.2%	4.3%	0.1%
Matt Carpenter	137	284.7	19.6	62.1	15.7%	15.8%	0.1%
Chris Young	57	274.0	23.2	55.1	12.0%	12.1%	0.1%
Alexei Ramirez	87	264.9	18.0	53.2	6.5%	6.6%	0.1%
Andrelton Simmons	64	266.1	16.2	47.2	3.7%	3.7%	0.0%