08/25/20

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

NOTABLE TRANSACTIONS/INJURIES/RUMORS

• Jack Flaherty & Blake Snell deal (1:50)
• Mike Clevinger/Zach Plesac update (4:34)
• Aaron Civale excellent again (10:00)
• Merrill Kelly 켈리 scratched then IL’d (14:35)
• Casey Mize & Tarik Skubal after 2 apiece (16:53)
• Rockies SPs: Freeland/Castellini/Senzatela have been best; Marquez/Gray worst (20:02)
• Justin Verlander update (27:49)
• Ke’Bryan Hayes, Leody Taveras, Ian Anderson up (31:00)

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Ominous title, I know, but in all fairness: Jose Altuve sports a paltry .207/.267/.322 (65 wRC+) line. The former consensus 2nd-overall pick who hit .298 with a career-high 31 home runs last year may seem like an unlikely collapse candidate on the surface.

Unfortunately, the cracks began to show last year. For one, Altuve all but stopped running; when he did run, he fared poorly, succeeding in only six of 11 attempts. Moreover, his .298 average, while excellent, was a far cry from his best (.346) and post-breakout five-year peak from 2014 through 2018 (.331). These are the obvious signs of wear.

A lightly critical evaluation might have concluded Altuve would still be a valuable commodity in 2020. Average draft position (ADP) data confirms this suspicion; a post-pandemic-onset ADP of 40.12 (37th overall), per the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC), ain’t nothing to sneeze at.

Yet my work on launch angle tightness in December, while illuminating and fun to research, shone a spotlight on an interesting and very specific data point: Altuve.

A tight launch angle (small standard deviation) is not always good, and a loose launch angle (large) is not always bad, but by and large the overall trend holds. Perhaps a more effective way to use tightness is to compare it historically for each player. While Altuve never had elite tightness, it was consistent, and he was an elite hitter, and that’s all that mattered. So it alarmed me to see his launch angle loosen up in 2019:

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When you hear – or in this case read – the word “slapdick”, you likely put the word “prospect” on the end of it and think about Blake Snell’s raw and real reaction to the Tommy Pham trade to San Diego. From there, you likely think about the prospect in question, Xavier Edwards, and then the main return for the Rays, Hunter Renfroe. It takes a while for you to consider Jake Cronenworth, if you even associate him with that deal at all.

The 26-year old super-duper (you get the “duper” added when pitching is part of your skillset) utilityman got some run in the analysis of the trade, but more because he hit and pitched for the Rays Triple-A squad last year than anything else. He had his believers to be sure with our own Alex Chamberlain and Brad Johnson being among them in their Peripheral Prospects series, though he was unquestionably under the radar in this deal. He enjoyed the rabbit ball in the minors last year as it aided him to a 147 wRC+ with 10 HR and 12 SB in 406 PA. He struck out just 15% of the time and walked at a 12% clip.

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Yesterday, I identified and discussed the hitting leaders in Max Exit Velocity (MEV). While acknowledging that MEV doesn’t tell the entire story you want it to, it’s always a positive to see a higher MEV versus a lower one. Today, let’s check in on the laggards. Naturally, a lot of these are obvious, so I’ll discuss the interesting names.

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Let’s continue perusing our new Statcast leaderboards by checking in on the Max EV (MEV) leaders. This metric is fairly simple to understand — it’s the maximum exit velocity the hitter has recorded on a batted ball this season. Just like I shared when discussing HardHit%, there are caveats for this metric. We don’t know what batted ball type the MEV was achieved. The hope is that it’s a fly ball, so the metric could hint at a batter’s HR/FB rate potential, but that isn’t necessarily the case. We also don’t know how out of character the MEV — is the batter consistently hitting balls nearly as hard, or is this particular EV a clear outlier with the rest of his EV values? Anyhow, clearly all else being equal, hitting the ball harder is better. So with all those caveats and questions out of the way, let’s check out the leaders and discuss the interesting names.

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Yesterday, I shared and discussed the top 10 hitters in Statcast’s HardHit%, a metric now available right here on FanGraphs. Once again, a breakdown of HardHit% (HH%) by batted ball type would be ideal, so this is not a complete analysis. But an overall HH% tells us most of what we want to know, even if it could deceive here and there. So let’s check in on the bottom group in HH%. I want to highlight the surprises, the hitters you would expect to rank much better, and will ignore the guys we expect to be near the bottom.

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Statcast metrics have arrived! So let’s dive right in, starting with the HardHit% (HH%) leaders. As per Statcast, a batter’s hard hit rate is the percentage of batted balls that were hit at 95 MPH or more. While this data would be even more useful if broken up by batted ball type (we care far more about hard hit fly balls than hard hit pop-ups or grounders), the metric still gets us most of the way there. So let’s check out the top 10 leaders and see if we find any surprises.

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One issue I’ve had with pick up articles in the past is that so few ever recommend anyone to cut so which is arguably tougher than recommending who to pick. Sure, a player in question should probably be on a roster, but should it be your roster? I have a group of interesting free agents but also a player at each of those positions who you can consider cutting as well.

This article is designed mostly for 10- and 12-team leagues as a lot of these guys aren’t available in 15+ teamers and the recommended cuts are likely worth giving a bit more time to in deeper formats as well. I’m using ESPN’s roster rate for guidance.

Here are the picks for volume 3:

Available Under 40% | Cuttable at 60%+

• C Pedro Severino – 30% | Mitch Garver – 77% (the cut recommendations at this position are for 1-C formats)

I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact that the Orioles offense is 2nd in wRC+, but in the meantime I’m considering Severino a pickup. He had a mini breakthrough last year with 13 HR and 3 SB in 341 PA with his best work coming against lefties (.273 AVG, 8 HR, 109 wRC+) and he’s amped it up a level this year. Strong work against righties is driving his fast start as he’s hitting .350 with 2 of his 4 HR against them in 40 PA.

I bought in on Garver’s 2019 breakout. Obviously, I didn’t think he’d hit 31 HR per 359 PA, but I saw him remaining a stud hitter as part of that excellent lineup. Instead, he’s off to a nightmarish start with a .167/.280/.238 line that includes just 1 HR and 2 RBI. I’m not completely out on him and of course I’d rather not cut him, but it’s hard to hold a dead weight catcher in 1-C leagues when many viable options sit on the wire. Garver is striking out more, but his swinging strike rate isn’t up much (1 pt to 9%) and his chase rate is actually down 7 points to 13%. He’s swinging and missing more in the zone which is fueling his 36% K rate.

Again, these cut candidates aren’t really “must cuts”, but rather guys who could be let go if you’re offense is really struggling, and you need to cut some of the dead weight.

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Yesterday, I identified and discussed the hitters who have increased their FB% by at least 10% compared to last season. That’s a good thing for the hitters’ home run potential, assuming all their other metrics remain stable. Today, we’ll look at the decliners, those hitters whose FB% marks have fallen the most versus last season. While this might raise their BABIP expectations, it’s bad news for their home run potential, unless their FB% reverts back to previous levels.

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Besides earning more playing time, there are only three skills-based methods to hitting more home runs — striking out less frequently, which means more balls put into play, hitting more fly balls, which means more chances for a batted ball to jump over the wall, and hitting a higher rate of those fly balls over the wall, which is represented by HR/FB rate. Of the three, the middle skill of hitting more fly balls is possibly the ideal skill you want to see from your early season home run surge. That’s because batted ball type distribution is more of an approach or decision by the hitter rather than an actual improvement in talent. We need a much larger sample to determine if talent has changed, but a hitter could seemingly wake up one day and decide he wants to uppercut the ball more in an effort to hit for more power. You can’t decide to strike out less or hit more fly balls over the well, though I’m sure all hitters wish they could!

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