Hanley Ramirez: Time to Sell?
One of the players I struggled to rank to start the season was Hanley Ramirez. He is kind of an enigma in fantasy because the talent has always been there, and for a SS, has put together some strong years outside of injuries. The move to the outfield and to Fenway Park seemed like it would work well for his value, but instead turned out to be nothing short of a disastrous first season, despite just missing twenty home runs. Writers were all over the place with where to put Ramirez, and some writers thought injuries and the new scene played a significantly negative role and he was worth taking a flyer on this year. There is still a lot of season to play, but based on some of the rate stats I’ve seen so far, I’m selling big time.
First, let’s look at his BB%, K%, ISO and BABIP. One of the reasons I was down on Ramirez this season was the drop in his walk rate. One reason to be optimistic was that his ISO was not far off his career average and strikeout percentage was right in line. Additionally, his BABIP was much lower than his career rate, so it’s easy to chalk up his troubles to pressing and injuries. Then I looked at the past two seasons versus his career rate with those stats and turned this up:
| Season | BB% | K% | ISO | BABIP |
| 2015 | 4.90% | 16.50% | 0.177 | 0.257 |
| 2016 | 3.30% | 25.00% | 0.14 | 0.333 |
| Career | 9.20% | 16.70% | 0.198 | 0.327 |
The walk rate continues to drop, his strikeout rate has risen, his ISO has dropped, yet his BABIP is around where it should be for his career. The number that really jumps out at me as an issue is the drop in the walk rate. If he had a strong walk rate last season and just started off low, that’s one thing. Now, though, after last season and to still continue to drop has me concerned. Is he just not seeing the ball as well? Is he being overly aggressive? That’s where I looked at his plate discipline numbers.
For this table I’ve included his plate discipline numbers for the last two seasons and his career. This is the table created:
| Season | Team | O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | Swing% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | Contact% | Zone% | F-Strike% | SwStr% |
| 2015 | Red Sox | 34.30% | 71.70% | 50.90% | 69.40% | 89.30% | 81.80% | 44.30% | 59.30% | 9.10% |
| 2016 | Red Sox | 36.80% | 65.00% | 53.10% | 50.00% | 87.20% | 76.40% | 58.00% | 71.70% | 12.10% |
| Total | – – – | 26.80% | 66.40% | 45.80% | 65.60% | 89.80% | 82.40% | 47.80% | 60.10% | 7.90% |
He’s swinging outside the zone more than he used to, but that percentage began to increase when he went to the Dodgers, so although the increase is a concern, it doesn’t explain this much of a drop-off fully. He is swinging more than he used to, but he is also seeing a lot more balls in the zone, so that can explain some of that.
These are the numbers that worry me for this season: his Contact% and his Zone%. He is making less contact than he ever has, yet is seeing more pitches in the zone than he ever has. His swinging strike percentage is at a high and is falling behind in the count over 70% of the timejust after the first pitch.
In short, Hanley is having a rough start that other players have gone through and eventually came out fine. My concern is that the struggles aren’t suddenly new to him this season and appeared last year in some of these areas. I don’t have a clear explanation for why Ramirez is on this slide, and based on what I’ve seen this year and last, I’m staying far away and advise you do the same. Sure, there’s a good chance he’ll hit a hot streak and things could go back to the way they were. The lack of a disciplined approach is what worries me most and I just don’t see him suddenly turning that around with all the pressure surrounding him. He may need some time in a low stress environment to fix his approach, which he certainly won’t get in Boston.
not only less contact, but worse contact. His soft contact% is up around 24% this year and last year, which is around top-10 highest rate in baseball over that stretch.
So should I bench him when Plouffe comes back off the DL? This is a serious question which just makes the case of Hanley Ramirez look even worse. I’d trade him for anyone of value but my league mates are smarter than that.
I owned him last year and I’ve never seen a player contend for a triple crown for a month or so fall off of the Earth to the point I dropped him after much suffering and no one picked him up.
I owned him this year for a week and a half until I started seeing the same distressing lack of production.
It has to be mental.
I wouldn’t sell Hanley. Keep him, ride it out. He’s seeing a ton of 1st strikes, once he starts to pull the trigger on the 1st pitch, he’s going to start crushing the ball. He seems to be trying to work hard at D; maybe trying too much to have a quality long at bat.
All good points. I still think he has it in him to have a crazy-hot month or so, and that’s when you can sell him high.
His walk rate is baffling. If you compare his plate discipline stats from his last 3 full seasons (2013-2015), there’s almost no change to any of the numbers, but his walk rate goes 8.0, 10.9, 4.9. It’s really not a fair comparison between this year and last year, since both seasons are way off from his career norms. Should be a comparison of his Red Sox years combined compared to earlier, especially given the larger sample of comparing it this way.
F-Strike%, while high this year, can’t explain the walk rate because it was identical between 2014 and 2015, while his walk rate when from 10.9% to 4.9%. His O-Swing% was at its highest in 2013, when his walk rate was more than double what it is now.
His pitches per plate appearance is nearly constant the last few years, so he’s not just being ultra aggressive and never getting deep into counts (relative to his high walk rate years). Like I said, baffling.
70% of the time the count is 0-1 to him. I’m doing mental math, but I don’t think he’s swinging at that pitch based on his Z-Swing% being so low compared to norms.
The next pitch is probably outside the strike zone – 36% of the time he’s chasing that. Then they stay on the edges, he hacks and hits the ball shitty or K’s. It’s a tough position to hit in being down 0-1 all the time.
He’s an adjustment of swinging at that 1st pitch more away from returning.
It doesn’t change your conclusions (that his plate discipline changes this year will lead to more Ks and fewer BBs), but please don’t use the regular plate discipline numbers on fangraphs. I don’t know where they come from, but they are not always internally consistent. By this, I mean that if you do a little algebra to find the chance of a ball, called strike, swinging strike, etc. they will not sum to 1 as they should. The pitchf/x plate discipline numbers, on the other hand are always internally consistent.
That said, thanks for the heads up on Hanley. I didn’t realize his discipline had fallen so far this year.