Asdrubal Cabrera’s Power Surge May Not Be Repeatable

Asdrubal Cabrera has had a number of up and down seasons in the past few years, and from my outside perspective it seems to be, at least in some part, related to a significant quadriceps injury he suffered in 2013 (view the video). Cabrera entered the 2013 season as a two time All Star shortstop, and during the first two months he was off to a pretty standard Asdrubal Cabrera type season: above average offense and mediocre defense.  After this injury, from which he missed three weeks of playing time, he languished offensively for more than two entire months.  From June 26th, the day he returned, until September 4th, he produced a miserable .221/.276/.329 line with .267 wOBA and 65 wRC+. From September 6th on, he went back to his more standard .272/.330/.519 with .368 wOBA and 134 wRC+.  With the benefit of hindsight, we can all agree he likely came back from his quad injury too soon. 

The struggles of the 2013 season may have prepared Cabrera for his 2016 campaign, as it turned out to be very similar to 2013 in many ways.  During spring training, Cabrera suffered another quadriceps related injury, this time to his patellar tendon, the bit that connects your kneecap to your lower leg.  This injury served to plague him throughout the season, leading him to the disabled list in early August after suffering what, to me anyway, looked like a potentially serious injury (view the video).  Similar to 2013, Cabrera came back from this injury exceptionally quickly, this time missing only 18 games, but, unlike 2013, this time came back with a fury. And a new hair color.

Immediately upon his return from the DL, Cabrera became one of the greatest hitters in MLB for about a 5 week stretch from August 19th to September 26th during which he bat .367/.431/.703 with a .470 wOBA and .202 wRC+. He hit 10 home runs, scored 22 runs, and knocked in 28 RBI during this stretch. He was the life of the Mets offense, the leader of the ball club, and a force to be reckoned with on both sides of the plate. It was tremendous to watch as a fan.

In terms of fantasy value, Asdrubal Cabrera slots 14th-15th place among shortstops in 2016 according to Brad Johnson’s end of season rankings, right around Addison Russell and Brandon Crawford.  You can stretch a little and compare him to Marcus Semien as well, which is particularly satisfying for me, considering I had all four of these guys manning my shortstop positions on my various teams. Anywho, Cabrera settled in as a solidly above average, albeit not quite great shortstop in 2016. In large part thanks to large spikes in both batting average and home runs. However, he suffered from ‘my team has a bad offense’, which limited his RBIs and Runs scored. Which might change in 2016?  Hey it couldn’t get much worse.  The Mets had an historically bad offense for most of the year.  Any boost at all in their offense could help Cabrera establish a bit more fantasy value.

Going into the 2016 season, ZiPS projected Cabrera to hit .258/.315/.421, which was a step down from his 2015 season. It made sense to pull in the reigns on his projection, considering his 2013 and 2014 seasons were so weak.  His xStats for the 2016 season turned out to be .256/.315/.430.  Perfectly in line with that ZiPS projection.  However, his game performance was actually .280/.336/.474, a pretty large disparity. There was a similar difference between his 2015 xStats- .238/.291/.445 and his 2015 stats- .265/.315/.430.

Below I have concocted two rather large tables (I’m sorry for their size) which detail the exit velocity, launch angle, and the probabilities of similarly hit balls landing as singles, doubles, triples, or home runs.  These are all of the batted balls that had even the slightest chance to go over the fence.  I’ve included the value hit metric, and if you change the sorting order you’ll see that it isn’t directly tied to either vertical launch angle or exit velocity, but rather particularly beneficial combinations of the two plus the horizontal angle.  Even still, exit velocity definitely helps quite a bit.  

Anyways, he had 39 batted balls which this system identified as having a chance to leave the park, ranging from a 3.7% to 100% chance. Of these, 15 registered as home runs, which is roughly 38% of the total. Another 10 were doubles, two triples, and one single, for an overall batting average of .718 and a slugging of 2.231.  When I add up the ‘expected’ results it comes out to .8 single, 6.5 doubles, .8 triple, and 17.7 home runs. Which is a .660 expected average, but still the exact same 2.231 slugging.  Cabrera averaged 100.7 mph on these batted balls and he registered 25 value hits (64.1%).

As for the 2016 data, you can probably notice there are more batted balls listed.  There 53 as opposed to the 39 in 2015. Of these 53, 23 are home runs (43%), 10 doubles, 1 triple, and 3 singles for a .698 average and 2.226 slugging.  The expected results sum to 1.8 singles, 11.4 doubles, 1.9 triples, and 18.7 homers. An expected .638 average and a 1.983 slugging. The average exit velocity is 99.9 mph with 32 value hits (59.2%).

Yes, Cabrera hit more balls that had a chance to leave the park in 2016, but they were, on average, of lesser value per hit.  It is true that Cabrera had an overall rise in exit velocity in 2016, he went from 88.6 to 89.5 mph, but the majority of this increase came in the form of batted balls that land for singles and doubles as opposed to home runs.  It appears, perhaps, a few of the home runs he hit this season may have come from some degree of luck.  For example, these two from August 26. They both just barely cleared a section of fences the Mets recently moved in. 

Conveniently, you can see their odds in the chart above, 25% and 14% respectively. These odds aren’t terrible, a 1 in 4 and 1 in 7 shot to be a home run aren’t so bad.  The success he had this season is within the range you’d expect based upon the value of his batted balls, but he is on the high side of what you’d expect.  The mean success rates suggest, given a large enough sample, his performance would have likely dropped down to an OPS around the .740 mark, a wOBA around .320. His performance increased in 2016, there is no doubt about that, but it was a small change. Maybe 5-10 points to average and slugging, not the 30 points we witnessed during the course of the season. I question Cabrera’s ability to maintain this power surge. Then again, I was worried prior to the season, and he proved me wrong. So, maybe he’ll do it again in 2017.  For now, though, I am going to average his xStats and ZiPS and assume Cabrera’s 2017 season will be roughly .257/.315/.426.