Discussing More HR/FB Rate Surprises – The Leaders

Yesterday, I listed a slew of hitters whose HR/FB rates sit far higher than we expected heading into the year. But there have been so many darn surprises, I felt the need to continue discussing names. These are the guys that I literally do a double take when I see their HR/FB rates and think “wait…WHAT?!?!”. Once again, I included their xHR/FB rate marks as well to help gauge how sustainable these surprise power sources are.

Gerardo Parra’s HR/FB rate sits nearly double his previous career high set in 2015, and in eight previous seasons, he reached double digits in the metric just once. And yet here he sits above 20% in about 150 plate appearances. Obviously, the sample size is rather small, and Brls/BBE and xHR/FB rate suggest that serious regression is imminent. Remember, this version of xHR/FB rate is not adjusted for home park because that requires too much additional work on my end without enough benefit. So bump up it up to just 10% – 11%, which still sits at about half of his actual mark. Parra has performed the way we expected him to hit last year in his first tour of Coors Field duty, but this power looks like an artifact of sample size and nothing more.

Scooter Gennett was the inspiration behind this second round of names. As I perused the box scores before writing this article, I wondered if Gennett had missed my plate appearance cutoff. Instead, there were simply so many guys above 20%, I just didn’t get down far enough to include him. I had to fix that error. Holy guacamole! He came into last night’s game with a 20% HR/FB rate, more than double the mark he posted in his career heading into the season of 8.5%. I think of Gennett as a relatively light-hitting middle infielder with a bit of speed, though he did knock 14 homers last year. But check out that Brls/BBE and xHR/FB rate! The former is nearly identical to last year’s mark, while the latter is actually slightly below last year. Of course, the homer will probably boost both as I’d imagine it was barreled, though that’s no sure thing. Like Parra, this power surge appears to be a complete fluke.

I thought Leury Garcia was a limited power, big speed guy who was the last man standing in the White Sox center field battle! And yet here he is sporting the same number of homers as steals. He did post an 11.8% HR/FB rate at Triple-A last season, but prior to that, he was always in the single digits, only once rising above 4.3%. As you can guess, Garcia is in the same camp as the above two in that given his Brls/BBE, this appears to be completely unsustainable. But that’s not such a terrible thing, as that will now give him a couple of extra opportunities to steal a base! If he’s not rounding them all on a home run trot, maybe the ball is falling in for a single or double instead.

Ezequiel Carrera is another I was shocked to see with a mid-teen HR/FB rate, but he has actually been in the double digits the past two seasons. That’s pretty amazing considered he hit just two homers over his first 435 at-bats from 2011 to 2014. xHR/FB rate suggests that Carerra has been the most real, but still doesn’t buy his current mark as being sustainable. He does have speed though, but hasn’t been running nearly as often as last year. So unlike Garcia above, you might need this power for continued AL-Only value.

I thought Nick Ahmed couldn’t hit and was only around for his glove?! Funny, this season his UZR has dipped into negative territory, all the while his wOBA has jumped above .300 for the first time. Ahmed now has one more homer than he hit last year in about double the at-bats. But once again, this is a complete fluke as his Brls/BBE is microscopic, but he’s been helped a bit by pulling over 50% of his fly balls.