Disappointing 2018 Studs: Altuve, Stanton, & Bellinger
Batter production can roller coaster up-and-down during a season and many times the player’s production eventually stabilizes at an expected level. But sometimes a hitter intentionally or unintentionally changes his plate approach to achieve a new talent level. I’m going to examine three top hitters, Cody Bellinger, Giancarlo Stanton, and Jose Altuve, and why their struggles are caused by changes in approach.
Over my years of research, I’ve found three main items which point to a true talent change, swinging at pitches out of the strike zone, hitting pitches in the strike zone, and groundball rate (verified with launch angle). When one of these items change, the hitter’s production should also change. Luck could still be a factor in the short run but given enough time, there will be a new output level.
The 28-year-old Stanton is getting the trifecta of issues killing his value. His groundball rate (49%) is at a career high. His strike zone contact rate (64%) is at a career low. The outside swing rate (34%) is not a career worst, he bested it once in 2012 (36%). No wonder he’s struggling with his OPS dropping from 1.007 last season to a career-worst .800 this season.
Stanton’s breakout 2017 season was fueled by huge improvements in his walk and strikeout rates (.52 BB/K) from the previous season (.36). He has given up all those gains and some more this season (.29 in 2018). His lack of plate discipline has him with his worst strikeout (31%) and walk (9%) rates since his rookie season.
The groundball rate is even more disturbing since most of Stanton’s value is tied up in his ability to use his raw power to turn fly balls into home runs. Groundballs don’t go over the fence. This season’s groundball rate continues an upward trend starting in 2015 (35% to 40% to 45% to 49%). How’s Stanton supposed to harnessing his power with a near 50% GB%? He’s not.
I’m not sure how owners should approach his struggles. He doesn’t have many positive trends with no signs of him turning the corner. I think his owners are stuck with him and hope he pulls it together. For everyone else, they can keep an eye on his two-week average (set the timeframe to your own risk level) of his plate discipline and groundball rates. If they all three are improving, it might be time to buy.
Look at the graph and notice the drop about half way into this season. Altuve went from his normal self to a worse version. After digging around, I found Altuve took a ball off the top of his foot on April 14.
Here are his stats before this game, after, and once he had his first successful stolen base about a month later.
| Timeframe | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | SB attempts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before HBP | 60 | .352 | .400 | .389 | 1 |
| After HBP, Before 2nd SB | 110 | .303 | .367 | .434 | 1 |
| After SB | 100 | .344 | .370 | .510 | 7 |
I’m not even close to calling the hit-by-pitch the exact cause of his struggles but something happened to cause the struggles. With the low stolen bases to start the season and his ever-increasing slugging percentage, he could have been injured during spring training.
For now, I’m going with the narrative that Altuve was dealing with an injury, possibly in the lower body, to start the season and all his stats suffered. Recently, he’s healed and turned around his season into the player owners expected when they drafted him with the first few picks.
Unlike Stanton and Altuve, only one and a third season’s worth of major league data exists on Bellinger. The problem with so little data, it’s tough to know a hitter’s true talent level.
Bellinger has no issue with telling what is or isn’t a strike. Instead, he’s having contact issues and is hitting more balls on the ground. Like with Stanton, these groundballs aren’t going to turn into home runs.
Pitchers have adjusted to Bellinger but he hasn’t adjusted back. Pitchers are attacking Bellinger completely different with more sinking breaking balls. The percentage of curveballs he has seen is up from 9% to 12% and changeups from 12% to 14%. When pitchers do throw a fastball, it’s now up and away as seen from his 2017 and 2018 fastball location heat maps.
Bellinger needs to adjust or 2018 or his .225/.298/.413 triple slash will be the norm.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
Seeing your evaluation process is every bit as meaningful as your take on these three players. Thank you.
Was considering a buy-low on Bellinger, but seeing this makes me want to pass.
Bellinger is too good a hitter, too good an athlete, and too smart to keep screwin his AB’s… My opinion.
Ever seen Moneyball….?
Says a lot about Altuve’s greatness that he is considered disappointing this season. Definitely is a down year for his standards, but overall its still all star level easy
On Stanton I’m watching something different, so I’ll add it here. His pull rate on balls hit between 16-40 degrees is down to 21% this year from a career Statcast era high of 38% last year. All those balls he was pulling for homers last year are now deep fly outs to CF.
Or think of it this way, his wOBA on pulled fly balls has been ~1.400 for his career. It’s still 1.321 this year, but he’s hitting half as many. He had an outlier season last year with balls leaving the park to CF which created a .992 wOBA last year against a career average of .682, so that’s where we were going to expect the regression to come from.
So his 21/55/24 Pull/Center/Oppo split on fly balls is what’s really supressing his SLG/ISO/TB. Sure the ground balls don’t help, but considering he’s running a decently high BABIP on those they aren’t killing his nearly as much as the mix on his fly balls. This is the same batted ball profile he trotted out there in Miami in 2016 with the mix of fly balls and higher K-rate. I guess I’m not super shocked by it and I’m hoping he can get back to pulling the ball over the wall again soon.
I know there was a lot of excitement last year when it came to his stance change and the results that produced down the stretch in 2017, but I think he may have gone too far with it. Being that closed off seems like it would make it even harder to pull a ball, so a lot of balls in play to center may be balls to left if his stance was just a bit less closed off. I hope he figures everything out though, he can be the most exciting player in the league when he’s hammering the ball out.
I was pretty thoroughly dismissed round these parts last year when I was calling Bellinger ‘Joc Pederson 2.0’. He’s not quite there, but it’s looking like the upper hand may be on the other foot
Definitely seems like Bellinger is the outlier here in regards to, can he pull out of it? Stanton is still producing value, just not first round value. Bellinger isn’t producing much, and certainly not 3rd or 4th round value like where he was drafted.
Stanton always starts slow then heats up but this year its taking long. I wouldn’t give up on him yet. He came from Miami to NYC and in terms of pressure he went from none to highest. If you are owning, its not worth selling him at his current value. Even with everything down, he still has 12 home runs and he is the type of player who can easily go on a tear and take the league home run lead in 2 weeks. If you own him, hold if you don’t buy him low but don’t pay his 2017 value….either pay current value or 2016 value.
“[Stanton’s] strike zone contact rate (64%) is at a career low.”
Can you explain? When I look at the chart , it looks like it’s around 80%.
Stanton’s overall contact rate is 64%, a career low by a small margin. His z-contact is around 80% this year, as you point out.
Is contact rate on total swings or total pitches? Cause he’s getting the judge treatment of getting pitched around *hard*.
“I call BS. These guys are great”
– Paul Goldschmidt
So at no point between HR numbers 1 and 39 that Bellinger hit in 2017 did pitchers realize they should ease up on fastballs down the middle?
Think it is a little premature to put the “he’s been figured out” stamp on him, growing pains are pretty standard for young hitters.
Couldn’t Stanton’s issues be something as simple as moving to a new league and all the adjustments that go with it, especially getting to know all the different pitchers and how they pitch him. I realize that not all players are affected by switching leagues but I’ve seen this happen more often than not.
He also moved to a dream park/division for hitters.
I think he’s suffering the natural effect of the AL vs NL pitching spectrum. Most of the NL’s 4th and 5th starters couldn’t crack an AL rotation.
Might I add “stud” catcher Willson Contreras to this group?
No, he’s been as good as he’s always been
The last place team in my league has all 3 of these guys. I thought after the draft that for sure if nothing else his team was going to rake.