Adalberto Mondesi Dons Red Sox

If you’ve followed my Tout Wars auctions and LABR in recent years, you would know that I can’t seem to quit Adalberto Mondesi. His tantalizing combination of speed and power make him a potential top 10 fantasy player. Unfortunately, health issues has ensured that has never happened. After being limited to just 54 plate appearances last year due to an ACL tear that required surgery, I thought this was finally the perfect opportunity to move on. Sadly for my auction budget and early round pick, Mondesi was traded to the Red Sox on Monday. Having not yet looked at the park factors, my knee-jerk reaction is that this is great for his fantasy value. Rather than speculate without the data, let’s actually compare the park factors of his old and new homes and find out if this move actually is a positive.

Welllll, this is an interesting mix! I had no idea Kauffman was such a BABIP friendly park. As a result, the comparison isn’t the clean sweep for Fenway I assumed it would be. Let’s dive into the individual factors.

First, we begin with the non-home run hit type factors. Fenway is known for its BABIP-inflating abilities thanks to the Green Monster and quirky outfield dimensions. However, it only marginally boosted switch-hitter singles last season. On the other hand, Kauffman was the third best park in baseball for singles last season overall and for left-handers. Since singles are the most frequent hit type, and therefore drive BABIP most, let’s check Mondesi’s home/away BABIP splits. Sure enough, he has posted a massive .356 BABIP at home, versus just a .300 mark away. Of course he likely plays better at home like most, but this is more than just playing better at home. Mondesi has clearly benefited from Kauffman’s BABIP-boosting abilities.

Moving along to doubles, now we find Fenway taking the cake. The park was far and away the best for left-handed doubles last year. What part ranked second? Kauffman of course! So while there’s definitely a difference in these factors, Mondesi isn’t going to see as much of a doubles boost as a hitter coming from nearly every other team. Interestingly, while Mondesi has hit more doubles at home in his career, it was only by a small margin of four. So he didn’t benefit significantly, despite the high doubles factor. Triple factors are next and we find similar factors. Even with a high triples factor, Fenway isn’t close to the best triples park in baseball. Yet, it’s still strong and inflated them, and did so more than Kauffman, which also solidly boosted triples. Mondesi didn’t seem to benefit at all from his home park’s triples factor, as he hit 10 triples both home and on the road during his career.

Based solely on the park factors, Mondesi’s projection should probably reduce his singles forecast, but bump up his doubles and triples. That should lead to a higher ISO, but perhaps a slightly lower BABIP.

Next up is home runs, where we find two parks that suppress them for left-handed and switch-hitters. Fenway is better for right-handed home runs, but Kauffman is challenging regardless of which side of the plate a hitter stands. Surprisingly, Mondesi has posted a higher HR/FB rate at home than on the road in his career! It’s not a massive difference at 13.5% to 11.6%, but that’s certainly meaningful. I would still expect his HR/FB rate projection to rise with the move, but perhaps he wasn’t as affected by whatever is driving the low park factor here as much as the average hitter.

We hop on over to the strikeout and walk factors and learn that Kauffman actually tied with Coors Field for the lowest strikeout factor last year. That’s big for hitters! Mondesi posted a 28.8% strikeout rate at home, which is still high, but an even worse 31.6% mark on the road. Fenway also slightly reduced strikeouts, but not as dramatically as Kauffman. I would slightly bump up Mondesi’s strikeout rate projection due to the move. The walk factors are fairly similar, with Fenway falling neutral and Kauffman slightly suppressing them. Mondesi rarely walks no matter where he’s hitting, but did walk more often at home. I wouldn’t alter his walk rate forecast.

The batted ball type factors are next. The ground ball and fly ball factors are fairly similar, though I’m not sure how Kauffman can inflate every batted ball type! That doesn’t actually make mathematical sense, but given that the factors are close to Fenway’s, Mondesi’s distribution between grounders and flies shouldn’t be impacted much. He has posted a higher GB% and lower FB% at home, which somewhat matches with those factors as the park inflated grounders more than flies.

More important are the line drive and pop-up (IFFB) factors. We now discover what’s driving the high singles factor at Kauffman, as it’s also tied with Coors as the best park in baseball for line drives. Fenway was just neutral last year. More line drives should result in more hits and a higher BABIP. Also helping BABIP at Kauffman was a suppression of pop-ups. Fenway, on the other hand, inflated them. Mondesi did post a slightly higher LD% and lower IFFB% at home, so we might expect those gaps to narrow now as a member of the Red Sox.

Finally, we end up on the 5-year Basic run scoring factor. Fenway ranked in a tie for second most favorable hitter’s park in baseball over that time period, thanks to its BABIP-inflating abilities, especially doubles and triples. Meanwhile, learning that Kauffman actually rated as the fourth best hitter’s park in baseball was shocking. I was quite sure it was very pitcher friendly, but that’s mainly due to knowing it was tough on home runs. Like Fenway, it makes up for its home run suppression by increasing hits, especially extra-base hits.

So overall, this isn’t the slam dunk big boost to Mondesi’s projection I originally expected. He should hit for more power, even though he had posted a higher HR/FB rate and ISO at home than on the road while with the Royals. But the BABIP boost I figured he would enjoy shouldn’t be forecasted. If anything, his BABIP forecast should be reduced.

There will be two factors driving his fantasy value this year. Obviously, one is his health. Returning from major surgery not only could affect his hitting, but also affect his stolen base effectiveness, and even his willingness to attempt a steal. The second is how often he’ll run from a team philosophy perspective. It’s one thing to slow down due to injury recovery, it’s another to slow down because the Red Sox don’t see the value in attempting 60 steals in a season. So, I don’t actually think this trade affects Mondesi’s fantasy value much. Sure, he moves to a better offense, but if he hits ninth, it’s not going to make a dramatic difference, since a hot streak could move him up toward the top of the Royals lineup, whereas there’s less of a chance of that happening as a member of the Red Sox.

The biggest question for me is do I dare rostering him again?!