Since the end of the regular season, I’ve been helping various publications write player previews for the upcoming season. During the process, I kept a list of hitters who I felt there may be reasons to adjust their talent projections. I’ve found that even when I normally deep dive into hitters, I come up close to the standard projection and wasted my time. I found I’m better off focusing my effort on pitchers. I can’t afford to ignore hitters, though. I’m now going to analyze these few in detail over a series of articles to see if their projection holds up or do I need to adjust it.

For some of the hitters, the reason behind the talent change (e.g. injury) is obvious. For others, I don’t remember the exact reason. Oops. I’m going to start working my way through them starting with the ones with the highest ADP.

Note: I’m only dealing with the player’s talent. Projecting playing time is an entire separate fiasco.

Justin Turner (109th in NFBC ADP)

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Yesterday, I devised a new expected strikeout rate for pitchers and used it to identify qualified starting pitchers who over- or under-performed in 2018. I’m reluctant to make out the exercise to be more than it is. I simply wanted to take the most intuitive approach to describing a pitcher’s strikeout rate (K%): by using the plate discipline exhibited by opposing hitters. Today, I seek to do the same for hitters. I can tell you now the discussion will be much more qualitative than quantitative.

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Yesterday, I identified and discussed the hitters that increased their barrels per true fly ball rate (Brls/TFB), a metric that makes up one of my xHR/FB rate components. Let’s now take a gander at those whose Brls/TFB rates declined most from 2017 to 2018. We’ll limit the list to declines of at least 10%.

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A year ago, I introduced the newest version of my xHR/FB rate equation. One of its components is barrels per true by ball rate (Brls/TFB), which divides the Statcast Barrels count by fly balls – pop-ups. The use of true fly balls, rather than the batted ball events (BBE) count the Baseball Savant leaderboard shows us, pits all types of hitters on the same playing field, instead of unfairly penalizing extreme ground ball hitters or benefiting extreme fly ball hitters.

Let’s take a look at all hitters with at least 30 true fly balls that increased their Brls/TFB rate by at least 10%. Then I’ll discuss the interesting names.

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About a week and a half ago, Jurickson Profar was traded to the Athletics, in a move that surprised me. After he finally enjoyed his first full season, and a solid one at that, now the Rangers are sending him away?! Too funny. I still remember when he was an uber-prospect many, many years ago. How might the move to Oakland affect his performance? Let’s check the park factors.

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Yesterday, Indian-for-life Michael Brantley signed a two-year deal with the Astros. Paul Sporer analyzed the implications for the Astros. Now let’s find out how the change in parks might affect his performance.

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Last Thursday, the Mariners were involved in a fun three team trade, bringing Edwin Encarnacion to the Northwest. Though how long he remains there is anyone’s guess. First, there was a report that Encarnacion was going to be flipped to the Rays, but then soon after word was that he wasn’t going anywhere. So let’s pretend he’s now in Seattle for good. How might the change in parks affect the soon-to-be 36 year old? Let’s check the 2017 park factors.

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The Indians, Rays and to everyone’s surprise, Mariners made a trade last week with the following final results:

• Rays get Yandy Diaz and Cole Sulser
• Mariners get Edwin Encarnacion, 77th pick, and $5M
• Indians get Jake Bauers, Carlos Santana, and $6M

For my analysis, I’m going to focus on just Diaz and Bauers. Both have shown great potential but their minor league results have not yet translated to the majors.

Yandy Diaz (NFBC ADP Rank: 475)

With Jason Kipnis and his $17M contract likely to play second and Jose Ramirez at third, Diaz wasn’t guaranteed to play in Clevland. He is now in Tampa.

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The flurry of trades and signings has continued, this time with the White Sox getting into the action. The Pale Hose traded a minor leaguer to Cleveland for first baseman Yonder Alonso, despite the fact they already possessed a perfectly good first baseman who they don’t intend to trade. But whether Alonso or Jose Abreu play first and the other DHs doesn’t really matter, except during interleague games, which means it’s likely that Alonso will lose some plate appearances. How might the move from Progressive Field (Cleveland) to Guaranteed Rate Field (GRF – Chicago) affect Alonso’s offense? Let’s check in with the 2017 park factors.

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On Wednesday, the Angels signed Justin Bour to a one-year deal. After a mini-breakout in 2017 when he hit .289 with 25 homers, his batting average dropped to .227 with only 20 home runs in more plate appearances last season. This signing made perfect sense for the Angels who will have Shohei Ohtani rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and Albert Pujols being a member of the walking dead. Overall, this move just about killed what little value any fantasy the three had in weekly leagues but could make them sleepers in daily lineup leagues.

The biggest key is to understand the risk behind each player and let’s start off with the one who has the most questions surrounding him, Ohtani. He’s also considered a safe pick by some analysts. According to reports, he should be able to contribute sooner than the normal nine to 10 months timeline for most hitters returning from the surgery because he’ll only DH.

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