5 Hitters With Major HR/FB Downside – A Review

The 2016 preseason recaps continue and we’re going to move to hitting for the rest of this week. In late January, I used my xHR/FB rate equation (which is likely to get an overhaul this offseason) to identify five hitters with major HR/FB rate downside. Let’s find out how the group performed.

It’s important to remember that the league HR/FB rate jumped from 11.4% to 12.8%, which was the first time it jumped above 11.4% going back to 2002, the first year we have this data.

So you probably didn’t need an xHR/FB rate equation to figure that Chris Colabello wasn’t going to match his 23.4% mark from 2015. And even a 17.1% mark would have been excellent and in that strong lineup, would have made him a valuable fantasy asset. Instead, he was terrible in 32 plate appearances to open the season and then was suspended 80 games for PED use. Upon return, he was sent to the minors and never returned. He only ISO’d .108 in 153 Triple-A plate appearances, so it’s likely his HR/FB rate would have collapsed had he not been suspended and remained with the Blue Jays all season.

Michael Conforto was a popular sleeper choice heading into the season given his strong performance during his MLB debut in 2015. I was already skeptical given that his ISO was well above what he had posted at any stop in the minors, and he completely skipped Triple-A. On top of that, his standard deviation of distance was embarrassingly low, meaning that he rarely hit any bombs and didn’t vary the distance of his fly balls. That’s a bad sign for future home run output. His power fell this year to a level that appears much more sustainable, with a HR/FB rate just above his xHR/FB rate posted last year.

I mentioned that I considered excluding Khris Davis from my list since he had the distance, it was just his average absolute angle (or where on the field his fly balls were generally being hit), that suppressed his xHR/FB rate. But the fact that he was also moving from a highly favorable park for power to one that suppressed power made him an even stronger candidate to experience a HR/FB rate decline. That didn’t happen, as his HR/FB rates sat anywhere from the mid-20% range to the low-30% range after a slow April. Considering the leaguewide power surge, his HR/FB rate moved in sync, but I was still surprised.

Welp, Carlos Correa was one of the most divisive players from a fantasy perspective heading into the season. He displayed power never really shown in the minors, and his all-category contributions made him a first rounder in 2016 drafts. And while he certainly delivered lots of value, it wasn’t first round value, as his HR/FB rate did indeed slide as expected, to even lower than his xHR/FB rate mark. His next challenge is getting that fly ball rate above 30%. If he does, he’ll have a much better shot at 30 homers and turning his owners a profit in 2017.

Hanley Ramirez’s distance and HR/FB rate were complete mismatches in 2015, which was odd considering he battled injuries during the year, which you would figure would hamper his HR/FB rate. Though you would assume better health would benefit his HR/FB rate this year, you really would have wanted to start with a baseline closer to his xHR/FB rate of 2015. Instead, Hanley bumped his HR/FB rate to a level that tied his career high set in 2013…all at the age of 32! I certainly didn’t see that coming. Given his injury history (though first base certainly helps shield him), age, and best fantasy performance in years, I’d bet he’s overvalued next year.

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So of the five batters listed, three of them experienced significant declines in HR/FB rate and resulted in a loss compared to their draft day cost. The other two saw increases off of last year’s HR/FB rate marks consistent with the league spike, so those are definitely losses.