The offseason always gets my mind wandering and looking for coincidences that eventually lead to projection adjustments. In my contemplations, I stumbled on Christian Yelich and David Peralta exceeding expectations while posting groundball rates over 50%. To maintain this high groundball rate, they must use a fairly flat swing. This information by itself is completely useless but when combined with the latest pitching trend of high fastballs, I thought I may have something. I decided to mash these two ideas together to see if groundball (i.e. level swing) hitters are beating their projections as the league throws more high fastballs. For those wanting the condensed version, they don’t. For those who like numbers, continue.

Pounding the top of the strike zone helps to limit the damage done by hitters with positive launch angle swings. A high straight pitch means the bat’s barrel has limited time in the area of solid contact. Pitchers have figured out the greatness of the high fastball and have been throwing it more.

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Yesterday, I reviewed the first preseason Pod vs Steamer projections article, beginning with the hitters I projected for home run upside. Today, we’ll flip to the other side, as I review the home run downside guys. Hopefully I perform better than my upside guys!

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A fun activity for me each preseason is comparing my Pod Projections to the Steamer projections. While the forecasts in various categories for most players are negligible, of course there are some that are wildly different. One comparison I made was looking at which hitters I projected for more homers than Steamer. However, rather than compare the raw home run total, which is greatly influenced by the at-bat projection, I computed each projection’s AB/HR ratio. So let’s find out how the guys I identified as having AB/HR upside performed.

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As has now been an annual tradition, I published a series of Pod Projections before the season begin, and then compared my projection to the rest of the systems available on the player pages. We’ll start the reviews with Whit Merrifield, who came out of nowhere in 2017 to become a fantasy stud, swatting 19 homers and stealing 34 bases. Let’s see how he performed compared to my projection and the computer systems.

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Looking back, Jesus Aguilar had so many forces working to hold down his pre-season value, I’m amazed some teams rostered him (566th in NFBC ADP). While he had the tools for a breakout, it’s tough to find actionable pre-season moves to prevent similar players from slipping through the cracks. Once he got the opportunity to play, owners should have jumped in to roster him.

The first item to consider in the miss is that Aguilar’s projections weren’t glowing. Of all projected hitters in our pre-season depth charts, he came in at 245th by OPS. Not the best ranking for a 1B, especially compared to his teammate Eric Thames.

Here are the pair’s various OPS projections coming into the season.

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Every season a few hitters come out of nowhere to become major fantasy contributors. And by nowhere, I mean no one targeted them at all during draft season, even in 50-man roster draft-and-holds. This past season, Max Muncy, Joey Wendle, and Luke Voit provided fantasy production for nothing. An interesting trait for each of these hitters is that savvy teams targeted them in trades before the breakout. In recent seasons, these breakouts include Chris Taylor. Jose Martinez. and Jesus Aguilar. While the general public doesn’t have the same resources, scouts, and data as major league teams, I found the general traits some teams are looking to acquire.

I asked for help in creating the list. I end up with many responses but I wanted productive hitters on no one’s radar. I removed a suggestion if the hitter was on any top-100 list (e.g. John Hicks) or if they were ever an MLB regular (e.g. Scooter Gennett). In the end, 12 hitters made the cut: Chris Taylor, Max Muncy, Luke Voit, Joey Wendle, Jose Martinez, Jesus Aguilar, Teoscar Hernandez, Adam Duvall, Daniel Palka, Eugenio Suarez, Mitch Haniger, and Justin Turner.

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In the #2earlymock drafts run by our own Justin Mason, Javier Baez is going 17th and Trevor Story is going 20th among all hitters. The picks are quite high considering Baez was the 58th hitter taken, and Story was 65th in NFBC drafts last year. The pair didn’t have must-draft preseason hype and their suspect plate discipline limited their perceived value. Both exceeded all expectations as they came in at 6th and 7th overall this year. This was a huge miss by the industry and I’m going to see if some traits point to why some low plate discipline players break out and others don’t.

For every Baez and Story, other bad plate discipline hitters failed like Byron Buxton (.383 OPS), Chris Davis (.539 OPS), Miguel Sano (.679 OPS) and Jonathan Schoop (.682 OPS). No obvious difference stood out. While Chris Davis is old, Buxton, Sano, and Schoop should be in their primes. To find out who may break out, I decided to start with the 2018 Bad Plate Discipline Class.

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Today I continue with my recaps, this time reviewing my early January post touting six home run sleepers. I compiled the list by initially sorting the 2017 Brls/BBE leaderboard in descending order and identifying sleepery hitters. Let’s see how they performed.

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Many September performances can be glossed over because of how many people are checked out on baseball or zeroed in on just their players as they chase down a title. Some just dismiss the month entirely because of the expanded rosters, though I find that quite ridiculous as plenty of players put up their numbers against quality arms in the midst of pennant chases. Here is a standout September from each AL team from a player who could be worth paying attention to in 2019 as well.

AL EAST

Renato Nunez, BAL | 5 HR, .313 AVG in 85 PA

Nunez was a noteworthy prospect in Oakland, but never really clicked and wound up getting waived. After a quick stint in Texas, he ended up in Baltimore where he put some things together in a 60-game run. He closed with a big September and now enters his age-25 season with a chance at a full time role.

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Touring the league to highlight a player per team whose efforts could’ve slipped past your radar.

National League

Johan Camargo, ATL | .272/.351/.456, 18 HR, 75 RBI

Put up quality offensive effort with dual eligibility at 3B and SS.

Adam Eaton, WAS | .298/.393/.410, 9 SB in 92 G

Posted his normal season production, but it might’ve been missed with just 92 games.

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