This season, Yoán Moncada narrowly surpassed Kris Bryant as the most valuable Chicago third baseman in 5×5 Roto value. Figuring out whether he is likely to keep the crown in 2020 is not an easy task.

Even though Moncada made 75 fewer plate appearances than Bryant did, as he missed three weeks in August with a strained hamstring, he outearned his North Side counterpart, $18.0 to $17.0. Moncada made up deficits of 25 runs and six homers by driving in two more runs, stealing six more bases and, most important, hitting .315, which gave him a 33-point advantage in batting average. He improved in every category, other than steals, but Moncada’s surge from a .235 batting average in 2018 played the biggest role in catapulting him into the top 10 at third base (he ranked ninth and Bryant ranked 10th).
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When I wrote my article on disappointing 2019 hitters, the data diverged from expectations in one subset of hitters. Injured players dominated the list but they also saw a huge drop in their production to the tune of about 100 points of OPS. While the season-to-season OPS values are never exactly one-for-one, a 100 point dropped is huge especially since the league’s overall OPS jumped 30 points last season. I needed to dig in.

It’s going to get a little nerdy as I have to explain how I examined the data. To try to minimize the pre and post-injury production from the investigation, I only looked at players who were placed on the IL in March or April. Little if any of their production should have been before the injury. A second reason was to help project hitters who are dealing with offseason surgeries (e.g. Adalberto Mondesi). So, over the past 10 seasons, 627 hitters met these criteria.
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It’s time for the final installment of “Why We Missed”. The breakout pitchers and hitters are done along with the disappointing pitchers so it’s time to dive into hitting busts.

To determine who disappointed, I collected the information on any hitters who saw more than a $10 decline in value from their draft-day price. I didn’t want to just use the difference in ranks because the gap from #1 to #15 could be over $10 but the difference between #250 to #300 might just be $1. I only analyzed the hitters who had a positive draft day value.
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Yesterday, I reviewed my pre-season stolen base upside guys, comparing my Pod Projections to Steamer. I didn’t fare too well, coming closer than Steamer on just one out of five. Today, I hope to perform better, as I review my stolen base downside guys, comparing my PA/SB forecast to Steamer’s. Let’s find out how I did.

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The brilliant Astros rookie DH Yordan Alvarez is a near-lock to win the AL Rookie of the Year next month, but he has labored through the playoffs with just a .171/.227/.244 and a lone RBI in 44 PA. After posting a .313/.412/.655 line with 27 HR and 78 RBI in 369 regular season plate appearances, he was expected to a key part of the deep Houston lineup.

Instead, he has started to move down in the lineup (5th in the first 7 games; 6th or 7th in 4 since) and will likely be an easy sit for the Astros for the games in Washington. He may have sat anyway, but if he was raking, it would’ve at least been a tough decision. So what have the Rays and Yankees done to slow the electric rookie?

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Though they have different types of fantasy appeal, Whit Merrifield and Eduardo Escobar have a few things in common. Both were late bloomers, and both will turn 31 before the start of spring training next year. Both players qualified to be eligible at second base in fantasy leagues in 2020. They will also head into the coming season having accrued nearly the same value in standard 5×5 Roto leagues in 2019. Escobar ranked fifth among second basemen with $20.8 in value, while Merrifield was one spot behind him with $20.3 in value.

Despite being at the same point on the aging curve, Merrifield and Escobar will enter 2020 on different trajectories. Nearly across the board, Merrifield’s skill indicators held steady, and he improved as a run producer, but because his stolen base total plunged from 45 to 20, he lost $5.3 in value. He also fell from ranking second in Roto value at second base in 2018. Meanwhile, Escobar added $9.2 in value, increasing his home run total from 23 to 35, his RBI total from 84 to 118 and his run total 75 to 94. These surges far outstripped the slightly more than 10 percent increase he achieved in plate appearances in his first full season with the Diamondbacks.
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A couple of weekends ago at BaseballHQ‘s First Pitch Arizona conference, The Athletic’s Eno Sarris and I talked about hitter metrics most descriptive and/or predictive of power. In Eno’s presentation, he included a quip from analyst Hareeb al-Saq:

“Knowing barrels on top of average EV [exit velocity] tells you a lot. Knowing average EV on top of barrels tells you a little.”

Eno was surprised by this finding — that barrel rate is a more beneficial metric than average EV, or even EV on a certain type of batted ball event (BBE), such as fly balls and line drives. Incidentally, this is something Al Melchior and I researched last year for which we reached the same conclusion: barrels, whether as a percentage of batted ball events or plate appearances, correlate more strongly than average, maximum, or fly ball/line drive EVs did to common power metrics such as home runs per fly ball (HR/FB), isolated power (ISO), or hard-hit rate (Hard%).

However, it made more sense to Eno when I articulated that calculating barrel rate is simply the act of isolating a hitter’s most-optimal batted ball events. In other words, the inclusion of launch angle (LA) adds another explanatory dimension to EV. In my head, it’s like having two separate circles — one for EV, the other for LA, each containing every individual batted ball outcome from the season — and overlapping them. The overlapped portion of the Venn diagram signifies barrels, and it changes in size depending on the quality of the batted ball events.

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Since I publish my own projections, I like to compare the completed set to Steamer to see which players and stat categories we disagree on the most. So in mid-March, I compared my stolen base projection over 650 plate appearances, using an implied PA/SB forecast, to Steamer’s and then discussed the five hitters I was most bullish on. Let’s find out how those hitters actually performed and which projection system was closer.

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Last week, I reviewed an article I published in the preseason discussing the breakouts from 2018 and whether I felt they would be a 2019 bust or were for real. Today, I will be reviewing the 2018 busts. Like for the breakouts, I discussed seven busts from 2018 and determined whether or not they would remain a bust (meaning earn similar depressed fantasy value) or rebound.

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Heading into the season, I published my first piece on previous season breakouts with a verdict on whether I believe the hitter is for real and will repeat or come close, or will be a bust in the following season. I discussed seven hitters in the inaugural edition, all of whom earned at least $13.90 more than in 2017. Let’s find out how my calls did.

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