With about a quarter of the season now in the books, let’s dive into some Statcast data. We know that power could ebb and flow each month and we have witnessed time and time again a hitter whose power is down early, but ends up going absolutely bonkers at some point and making up for the slow start. One of the best, most easily calculable metrics is barrels per fly ball + line drive rate. The problem with the barrels per batted ball event on the Statcast leaderboard is that it counts all batted ball types. It therefore ends up punishing ground ball hitters and doubly benefiting fly ball hitters. While that’s fine if you want to project isolated slugging, it’s a flawed metric if we only care about HR/FB rate. Barrels per plate appearance is even worse, as batters are now punished for walks and strikeouts, as those particular times to the plate failed to result in a barrel…well, duh! So Barrels/FB+LD it is.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, I identified and discussed the hitters who have enjoyed the largest spikes in fly ball rate, firmly entrenching them as new or more senior members of the fly ball revolution. Today, let’s find out which hitters have departed the revolution as their fly ball rates have plummeted.

Read the rest of this entry »

For the second straight season, Matt Carpenter is off to a rough start and has fantasy managers questioning whether they should hang on or cut bait. At this time last year, he had an impossibly bad .165/.320/.320 line and when paired with a preseason shoulder injury, he seemed ripe for a cut. At least, my dumbass thought so. Despite some positive underlying metrics, I was concerned that his shoulder would prevent him from really breaking through and thus suggested benching or cutting him in 10- and 12-team formats.

Whoops.

Read the rest of this entry »

5/7/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

Follow us on Twitter

• @sporer – Host
• @justinmasonfwfb – Producer/Co-Host

GET THE SLEEPER & THE BUST T-SHIRT FROM ROTOWEAR!

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS, INJURIES, RUMORS

• David Price to IL (3:45)
• Matt Olson back Tuesday? (6:15)
• Shohei Ohtani back Tuesday! (11:58)

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

It’s becoming a fly ball happy world, as fly ball rate now sits at its highest mark since 2010. The revolution is showing no signs of slowing down. So let’s find out after the first month which hitters have increased their fly ball rates the most. I’ll list everyone who has boosted their marks by at least ten percentage points (40% to 50%).

Read the rest of this entry »

While we stress “small sample size” so often early in the season to the point that y’all probably tune out at this point, it could yield some fun stats, both weird and extreme. Let’s dive into some of the most interesting extremes after the first month.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Paul Sporer had some highly encouraging things to say about Hunter Dozier in his piece on early batter breakouts. Paul noted that Dozier has radically changed his approach in the early going, and with another week’s worth of data to consider, at least one of his changes remains staggering to ponder. Last season, Dozier was more aggressive than the typical major league hitter, swinging at 50.1 percent of the pitches he saw. Just over a month into this season, he has become extremely selective, lowering his Swing% to less than three-fourths (37.0 percent) of what it was in 2018.

The improved production that we have seen from Dozier — the higher walk rate, lower strikeout rate, higher Avg and OBP and possibly also the increased power as well — can all be traced back in part to this one change in approach. It’s still early enough in the season that it is more than reasonable to ask if his improvement is for real. If we answer that question by looking at the peripherals that underlie Dozier’s improved fantasy stats, we’d have to say it does look real.
Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I calculated my xHR/FB rate equation to identify and discuss 11 hitters who have most underperformed their xHR/FB rate marks. Today, I’ll look at the overperformers.

Read the rest of this entry »

With about a month of the season in the books, it’s time to start calculating my various xMetrics. We’ll start by calculating hitter xHR/FB rate and comparing it to his actual mark. Today, I’ll look at hitters who have most underperformed their xHR/FB rates, suggesting significant upside over the rest of the season assuming they sustain such underlying skills. In an attempt to reduce really small sample size weirdness, only batters who have hit at least 20 fly balls will be listed and discussed.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, I shared some early Statcast statistic trends and compared them with historical marks going back to 2015. Unfortunately, I compared April 2019 numbers to full season marks from previous seasons, which wasn’t exactly apples to apples. I have corrected that error and spent some time collecting data only through the end of April for all previous seasons. So let’s try this again.

Read the rest of this entry »