Hitters: Whose Stats Underachieved?

Last week, we took a look at some pitchers whose Fantasy-irrelevant stats in 2016 suggested they pitched better (or worse) than appeared. There was some reason, beyond our need for something to write about, to think this approach might actually identify under- and overvalued players. There’s no reason at all, other than intuition, to think that the same approach works with hitters. But let’s take it for a spin and see how it handles.

To review the underlying theory and the stats in question: the harder a batter hits a ball, the likelier he is to get a hit. So the less frequently a pitcher gets hit hard, the better he will do. But sometimes, the inscrutable gods of baseball decree otherwise, so that weakly-hit balls go for hits, popups go for home runs, and guys who throw effective pitches have nothing to show for it. Vagaries, however, balance out in the long run. So last week we looked for pitchers whose Batting Average on Balls in Play and Home Run to Fly Ball Ratio were immoderately high, even as their Hard-Hit Ball Percentage was low, on the theory that the universe would right itself this time around. And, of course, we looked for pitchers whose stats suggested the same outcome in the opposite direction.

Now we’re looking at the same stats from the hitter’s standpoint. But we had to tweak one thing. For certain hitters, a high BABIP accompanied by a low HH% isn’t a warning sign. These are the guys who hit the ball on the ground and are swift enough to get to first base before the ball does. For example: Odubel Herrera had a .349 BABIP, yet hit the ball hard only 27.2% of the time, 21st from the bottom for batting-title qualifiers. But he got 30 infield hits, which made all the difference in his stats and our expectations. So we added the requirement that the hitters we identify have an average or lower (i.e. below about 7%) Infield Hit Percentage. Here are some guys we came across:

—Chris Iannetta. The Gosewitch Era has ended for the Diamondbacks, who have a largely-refurbished catching staff. Jeff Mathis will supposedly get the bulk of the playing time. We doubt it. Mathis is indeed a superb defensive catcher. But there’s a reason he hasn’t started more than 70 games in the last five seasons: he can’t hit. His lifetime slash line is .197/.254/.308, which is weak enough to make Brad Ausmus look like Mike Piazza. Iannetta, meanwhile, is the same age as Mathis; is also an elite defensive catcher; and is a better hitter. Not, it’s true, a good hitter. But his BABIP and HR/FB are so low and his HH% so high, and Arizona is so hospitable to right-handed power hitters, that we envision something like a return to his 2012-2014 seasons with the Angels: say .240/.350/.400, with at least 10 home runs—in other words, about what Yasmani Grandal is going to do in five years’ time.

—Cody Asche. Unknown to anyone but those of us who chose him in the late rounds of a deep draft, Asche hit well for about a month last year. He was horrible for the rest of the season. But, it now seems, he wasn’t that horrible. He hit the ball hard more often than, for example, Adrian Gonzalez and Jose Abreu, yet was in the bottom quartile of both BABIP and HR/FB. The guy seems to have been around forever, but in fact he’s not even 27 yet. Now he’s fetched up with the White Sox, where he’s evidently penciled in as the strong side of a DH platoon. His NFBC Average Draft Position is 679, which means he should be freely available even unto the 40th round.

—Alex Dickerson. He appears to be on every wiseguy’s sleeper list, and now he’s on ours, too. As you no doubt know, he had a very creditable rookie year (.257/.333/.455, with 10 home runs in half a season), and he’s available cheap (ADP 368) because people expect him to be outshone by the other young outfielders in San Diego. But we’re not so sure that Hunter Renfroe is ready, and much as we love Travis Jankowski, we’re skeptical that his bat will keep him in the starting lineup.

—Marcell Ozuna. The narrative that Ozuna’s fantasy-relevant numbers suggest is almost irresistible: two virtually identical seasons in 2014 and 2016, sandwiching an injury-marred 2015. His ADP is 183: the market seems to be predicting more of the same, or perhaps a slight uptick in light of his age (26). We think there’s a chance he’ll do way better. In both 2014 and 2016, it’s true, he hit the ball plenty hard. But in 2014, both his BABIP and his HR/FB were in the top quintile of batting-title qualifiers. In other words, he may have gotten lucky. Last year, however, while he hit the ball hard in both halves of the season, his BABIP and HR/FB in the second half were well below average. We’re expecting something way closer to his first half (.307/.360/.533) than his second (.209/.267/.342)—in other words, a top-30 rather than a top-50 outfielder.

—Alejandro De Aza. For a subtler take on De Aza than the one we’re about to give you, go here. We watched enough of De Aza with the Mets last season to have concluded that there’s no goofer dust left in his mojo hand. But his numbers, for our purposes, are pretty dramatic: 6th overall in HH%, just short of the bottom tenth in BABIP, in the bottom third in HR/FB. Plus, he’s not yet ancient, he can apparently still play the outfield competently, and he’s having an excellent spring with the A’s, with whom he will probably stick once the team concludes that Mark Canha isn’t a center fielder. It’s not impossible to imagine De Aza winding up as the strong side of a corner outfield platoon with Canha if someone gets hurt or if (as we also predict) the 2017 Matt Joyce is closer to the 2015 Matt Joyce than to the 2016 Matt Joyce. If that happens, you can envision De Aza having a season something like his (high-BABIP-aided) 2015: .262/.333/.422, with a couple of stolen bases and a couple of home runs. Not wonderful, but, if you’re in a deep, no-transactions league, better than having a vacuum in the lineup when woe befalls you, and well worth a 45th-round pick.

There are, of course, also some guys we expect to undershoot the market’s expectations:

—Ryon Healy. This one is so well-known that we probably shouldn’t bother with it. Healy came up right after the All-Star break last season and immediately became Oakland’s starting third baseman, in which capacity he hit .305/.337/.524 with 13 home runs. So here’s this third baseman who’s only 25 and just had a half-season that measures up to most of Adrian Beltre’s full seasons. But his BABIP and HR/FB were, if not quite astronomical, still very high, and his HH% puts him in the bottom quartile of guys who played regularly in the second half. His ADP is 197, but we think that even that may be a bit too flattering.

—Jonathan Schoop. Schoop is kind of like Ozuna in reverse. His 2015 and 2016 were quite similar, and the market thinks it has him pegged at ADP 170: big power for a second baseman, okay batting average, no plate discipline. His BABIP and HR/FB, though on the high side in both seasons, were in fact higher in 2015. So since he’s only 25, he should improve, right? But his HH% went from top 40 to bottom 20, and even though he gets a fair number of infield hits, he’s not that fast. At ADP 170, we prefer Ben Zobrist and Logan Forsythe, who are being taken later than Schoop.

—Ian Desmond. If you’ve already drafted Desmond, who went as early as the second round in at least one NFBC draft, you’ve got our sympathy and a big problem. So what can those of you who have yet to draft expect from him? Desmond appeared last season to have emerged from the abyss into which he plunged in 2014-2015, putting up numbers very close to what he did in the two seasons before that. Now, of course, he’s in Colorado, where his .285/.335/.446 with 22 home runs translates into something impressive over a full season. But Desmond turns 32 this season, and his BABIP and HR/FB were so high, and his HH% so low, that we think they masked the fact that 2016 was pretty much of a piece with 2014 and 2015. What with the Coors factor, last year’s numbers are probably repeatable, but that looks like the upside. And now you’ll get him for perhaps two-thirds of a season. For us that puts his ADP in Kevin Pillar/Jason Heyward territory–generously, a 15th-round pick. If you want him earlier than that, you can have him as far as we’re concerned.