Hernan Perez’s Best Starling Marte Impression

If I had a dollar for every time I used this lede, I’d have, what, like, four dollars? I can’t help myself. Blind résumés are my jam because so much of how we value players is tied up in our biases and preconceived notions. Alas, Starling Marte and, of all people, Hernan Perez make for excellent comparisons when prorating their 2016 stat lines. Per usual, I won’t tell you who’s who:

Did you figure it out? The home run column gives it away, given Perez (Player B) has hit more home runs than Marte (Player A) in about half as many plate appearances. Outside of that, we’re looking at mirror-image power, stolen base rates, and plate discipline, the latter of which is most fascinating to me. We’ll dig into the weeds in a bit here — Perez has some faults we ought to acknowledge — but for all intents and purposes, Marte and Perez are nearly-identical, very-elite options through the end of September. (Last week I mentioned this — that Perez could be a top-flight outfielder from here on out — and, frankly, I’m surprised I got virtually no push-back from readers.)

Marte makes for a good baseline for understanding how Perez might fare both through the end of the season and into 2017. Marte’s and Perez’s similarities are more than skin deep, as their comparable outputs stem from equally comparable inputs, i.e. their plate discipline and batted ball profiles:

Perez pulls the ball as frequently, and pops up as infrequently, as Marte does — both positive correlates with one’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Even the disparities in their exit velocities and ball-in-play trajectories are slight. We’ll need to use these disparities, though, slight as they may be, to better help us project Perez’s power and batting average.

It’s only 234 plate appearances, but Perez has hit significantly more fly balls than Marte, inherently manifesting more home run opportunities. Perez hasn’t hit the ball quite as hard as Marte, but only by a couple of percentage points. Ultimately, a higher FB% but lower HR/FB gets Perez to the same place as Marte: roughly a (baker’s) dozen home runs in a full season. It’s a far cry from Perez’s current 20-homer pace, but it’s not our primary concern in the context of their skill sets.

Fewer home runs means a lower isolated power (ISO) for Perez, though, who basically needed twice as many home runs to match Marte’s ISO mark. It kind of ties into Marte’s impressive line drive tendencies — something Perez has yet to exhibit. Line drives generally add extra bases to in-play hits, helping explain why Marte could, and probably should, very easily out-slug Perez next season, holding home runs constant.

Line drive rate (LD%) also correlates (positively) with hitter BABIP. Marte’s batted ball skills have vaulted his BABIP into league-leading territory year after year. Having not (yet) proven he can rip line drives at an abnormal rate, Perez figures to fall short of Marte’s lofty BABIPs. But between his elite speed and admirable propensity to not pop up, Perez could still run BABIPs that rank significantly better than league-average and, like Marte, mitigate his otherwise poor plate discipline. Honestly, were it not for his special batted ball skills, Marte would walk a very fine line by which the smallest amount of decline could drag his top-tier fantasy production into the gutter. The same can be said of Perez, making our subject inherently volatile, especially without much Major League context to attribute to him. Yet despite this red flag, Marte continues to thrive.

Perez’s plate discipline peripherals, like his batted ball metrics, look slightly worse than do Marte’s:

Perez chases a bit more, as evidenced by his swing rate on outside pitches (O-Swing%) that ranks among the 10 worst in the league (min. 220 plate appearances). Let’s not freak out too much about it, though — Marte’s ranks 22nd-worst, falling in the lowest 10 percent of such hitters. It’s just that the fine line Marte walks thins out a bit more for Perez.

The league has yet to uncover Perez as Marte’s clone. Perez sees an above-average rate of in-zone pitches, helping temper the ill effects of his oft-swinging ways; Marte lost that kind of respect long ago. It appears, though, that the league certainly isn’t blind to Perez’s inadequacies — his rolling zone percentage (Zone%) has gradually declined as the season trudges onward:

So, Perez probably won’t hit for as much power in 2017. His plate discipline and batted ball profile resemble slightly deficient versions of those of Marte, from which we can reasonably expect a lower BABIP and higher strikeout rate (K%) that will keep Perez’s batting average 30 or maybe even 50 points lower.

Still, would anyone care if Perez hit .275 (or even .250) with 12 home runs and 40 stolen bases next year? Marte, generally projected for a .280 average, 18 homers and 30-odd steals this year, was drafted 22nd on average. It didn’t shake out quite like that, but still, Marte is currently a top-10 player overall. Even as a sightly less-impressive version of Marte, Perez could put up gaudy numbers in 2017 that would rank him among the fantasy baseball’s best. Theoretically there’s upside here, too, given Perez is on pace to steal a whopping 56 bases. Forty steals might actually be a conservative estimate given Perez likely won’t be crowded out of a probably weak 2017 Milwaukee lineup.

There’s a chance, one may argue, that Perez’s stolen base rate does slow considerably in 2017. We have seen random spikes like this before. You can find examples of them every year, from 2012 Martin Prado to 2013 Daniel Murphy to 2015 Manny Machado. Third base coach Ed Sedar has fully taken advantage of his team’s speed, though. With Jonathan Villar, Keon Broxton and even Ryan Braun at their disposal, there’s no reason to think the Brewers will abandon their run game next season, given it’s the lone bright spot for a team that owns the league’s worst strikeout rate.

The other red flag is, well, everything Perez did prior to 2016. In 351 plate appearances from 2012 through 2015, he posted an insanely bad 45 wRC+. It’s abominable. No wonder nobody saw this coming.

Except 351 plate appearances last year, like Perez’s meager 234 plate appearances this year, comprise a considerably small sample. His career batting line, which essentially consists of a full season’s worth of plate appearances: nine home runs, 26 stolen bases, a .257 batting average. Even that sounds pretty nifty. Also, it’s hard to believe that a hitter with at least modest power would hit almost zero home runs (one, to be exact) and that a similar batted ball profile with excellent speed would yield a league-average BABIP. Lastly, Perez is still only 25 years old. There’s no reason to think he has any less room to grow as a hitter than any other fringe star.

It’s important to reiterate the aforementioned fine line that Perez walks. As a barely league-average hitter right now, Perez may be as much as 20% worse than league-average after some regression. But the Brewers, amid a rebuild, lack MLB-ready options and would be loath to give up on one of their five best hitters while they have no incentive to do so. Even if he ends up in a platoon, something like a .275 (or even .250) batting average with six home runs and 20 stolen bases plays in deep formats. I’m reluctant to think it gets that bad for him, but maybe it does. Shoot, Yasiel Puig was recently demoted. This is baseball. Anything can happen.

Just know that Perez is laying the groundwork for a 2017 breakout, should 2016 not be considered one already. Perez is following in the footsteps of his teammate, Villar, who exhibited the offensive capacity in abbreviated stints that enabled some analysts (myself proudly included) to anticipate his long-awaited breakout.

Ignore Perez at your peril. His Poor Man’s Starling Marte impression has generated ample value this season and would continue to do so next year, all regression considered. Even if, for whatever reason, Perez collapses in 2017, his stolen bases right now are worth their weight in gold and can make or break your team’s second half in roto formats.