Fun and Games with Extrapolating Stats

Just for fun. That’s really all this is. Taking 300, or fewer, plate appearances and extrapolating them to more than twice that amount isn’t the best practice. Yet there’s something giddy about simply flouting the rules and seeing what happens.

I’ll extrapolate the stats of some key players to a full season and define that as 650 plate appearances, even though that’s not a realistic goal for some of these guys. I’ve tried to limit this exercise to players who have a shot at garnering a full season’s worth of plate appearances. You’ll notice this trends toward younger players because they haven’t put together full seasons yet, so there’s some mystery to what they could possibly do.

Springer’s power was down before he was injured and it’s down even further since he’s returned. On the plus side, he’s making much more contact. While surely not close to Springer’s hypothetical upside, the net result is something I’m sure fantasy owners would be pleased with, outside of the low RBI total. Aside from better contact and the resulting improved average, Springer is also running more now that he’s past last season’s hip, knee and quad issues. I’d expect his power to bounce back next year once his wrist is fully healthy.

Other than the nearly doubled strikeout rate and obvious batting average differences, this looks like the enticing power/speed season Souza produced in Triple-A in 2014. That combo put him on the fantasy map and it will help him stay there, if only as an interesting late pick next season. Fantasy owners were willing to risk an average black hole for Springer’s talent this spring, but Souza doesn’t have the same upside.

Now we’re on to something interesting, if only because Correa’s excellent debut has fantasy owners thinking he could actually produce this stat line. Since Correa can never have enough hype: This would measure up respectably to Troy Tulowitzki’s superb 2009 season. While Correa’s ISO has dipped every month, his plate discipline has also improved, so the overall adjustments have been positive.

We can look at Lindor a couple of different ways. The first is to check his minor-league numbers and write off his season to nothing more than a couple of hot months making him appear to be a fantasy-relevant shortstop. The second is to look at his age and think this is a rapidly-changing player and we have no idea what he’s capable of next season. If I had to guess what he’ll produce, I’d expect less power and more speed than this season’s stats show.

Since we’re already extrapolating irresponsibly, let’s take it one step further to Hicks’ 2013. If we extrapolate his 81-game sample he approaches a 20/20 season. Hicks has always had speed and the promise of power, his major-league failures so far are mostly due to terrible batting averages and there’s some reason to think he may have made real improvements there. He’s become more aggressive, which has helped the power turn from promise to reality, and dropped his strikeout rate, which has helped his batting average.

While it’s unrealistic to expect an average in that neighborhood over a full season unless he cuts down the strikeouts, the power numbers are achievable for Sano.

This looks like a more reasonable average target for a power hitter who strikes out a fair amount. I’m very interested to see how Schwarber and Sano are valued relative to each other next season. Sano strikes out more, but he has a big advantage in average this year (thanks to a BABIP over .400). On the other hand, Schwarber has catcher eligibility.

I had some things to say about d’Arnaud’s second half, but Paul Sporer said most of them last week. Short story short, he’s been good and these numbers don’t seem that crazy if he could stay healthy for a full season.

Among a group full of wild numbers, Seager’s are the least believable. After all, the guy has played 19 games in the majors. But, oh what a fine 19 games they’ve been. Everything about his plate discipline looks roughly average (which is impressive for a 21-year-old), so it’s hard to believe he’ll continue to walk more than he strikes out. Even if his average suffers from that flip, the power and speed have been present as expected.