Hitter Flyball Hard% Decliners — Through May 30, 2023

Yesterday, I reviewed the hitters whose fly ball Hard% has increased the most compared to last year. Now let’s check in on the decliners.

Andrew Benintendi’s page still shows him as the second best overall prospect in baseball heading into the 2017 season. Many seasons later, he has posted just 13.4 WAR over his career, with just one season over 2.8, driven by just a .335 wOBA. Oh, and his power has disappeared. He hit just five homers last year, thanks to a 3.8% HR/FB rate and posted a measly sub-.100 ISO. If you thought that was bad, it’s been even worse this year, as he hasn’t even homered once yet. His fly ball Hard% is just sad and makes you wonder what’s going on. It figures that I own him in two of my three leagues, as I thought the move to the league’s third best park for left-handed home runs would drive a power rebound. Oops. He’s clearly not startable in shallow mixed leagues, but it’s anyone’s guess whether he rebounds to the point of helping in 15-team mixed leagues. He’s still only 28, so such rapid decline in offense and a disappearance in power is a big surprise.

I, and a lot of others, expected that a move to a more home run friendly park and a better lineup would do wonders for Daulton Varsho’s fantasy value. He’s not far off last year’s pace, but a .212 batting average is hard to swallow, and the overall power has regressed thanks to the dip in Hard%. The projections still like him to dramatically up his power output the rest of the way, but I’d say it depends on the explanation for his big drop in Hard%. There are few catchers with his fantasy upside, so I would think owners need to just stick with him and hope for the best.

This is easily the lowest FB Hard% of Kyle Schwarber’s career. He has partially made up for it by also pulling his flies at his highest rate, so his HR/FB rate is only down marginally. The big issue here is the sub-.200 BABIP. So much for the change in shift rules helping his BABIP! A continued lack of line drives and far too many popups is really killing that mark.

This is also easily the lowest FB Hard% of Freddie Freeman’s career. In his previous 10 seasons, he has only posted a FB Hard% below 50% three times, so a drop below 40% is quite the surprise. Like Schwarber, he is pulling his flies more often, though not quite at a career high rate. Everything else looks great here, including a gem of a batted ball profile, heavy on line drives, and light on pop-ups, and a double digit Barrel%. His HR/FB rate is below his career mark, matching the drop in Hard%, so perhaps it’s just a slow power start. Or, at age 33, it’s possible his power is just waning.

Since I’m not an owner, I had no idea that J.T. Realmuto is sporting just a 5.7% HR/FB rate and has hit just three home runs. He has never posted a FB Hard% below 38.4%, so this is quite the precipitous drop. You never know when a catcher’s offense might decline due solely to all the wear and tear on their bodies from catching. At age 32, it’s possible his power is taking a hit. Or, it’s just a small sample size and the Realmuto of old will manifest sooner or later.

So, Byron Buxton has managed to stay relatively healthy, but suddenly his power has deteriorated, so his owners might still not be as happy as they could be. Buxton’s FB Hard% history isn’t like most of the others on this list. His power actually really blossomed in 2021, and then carried over to 2022, but before that, his highest Hard% was just 32.7% and he was typically in the high 20%-low 30% range. In 2020, despite a Hard% that was mediocre, his Barrel% surged, so he was able to increase his HR/FB rate dramatically, even without a big spike in FB Hard%. He is still barreling balls at a double digit clip, which is a good sign, but perhaps his 2021 and 2022 seasons were his power peak. With all his injuries, it’s really hard to get a gauge on his true talent. He’s still hitting a high rate of fly balls, so any rebound in HR/FB rate is going to result in lots more homers.