Ian Desmond: Outfielder? Shortstop? Regression Candidate?

Desmond ranked sixth in our End of Season outfield rankings at $22.10, behind Nelson Cruz and ahead of Mark Trumbo.

No matter how one slices it, Ian Desmond’s bounce-back season was nothing short of tremendous. From a real-life standpoint, it wasn’t Desmond’s most valuable season — though it was among his three or four best — but from a fantasy perspective it’d be hard not to put this among his best.

First of all was the sheer magnitude of the improvement. It’s not often that a 29/30-year-old simply forgets how to play baseball, but it was an ill-timed poor season to be sure for Desmond, who not only turned down a lucrative offer from the Nationals prior to the season, but hit free agency with the ferocity of an indecisive running back hitting the line of scrimmage. Coming off hitting just .233/.290/.384, Desmond’s market was bound to be limited. Doubly so, considering the Nationals still slapped him with a qualifying offer. And while in retrospect it might have made sense for Desmond to accept — a la Jeremy Hellickson, Matt Wieters and Neil Walker — things couldn’t have panned out much better for him.

But the amazing part isn’t only that Desmond raised his wOBA 40-plus points, his batting average by more than 50 points and posted his career-best OBP. He also did it while switching positions, a truly intriguing proposition that would make even the faintest shortstop’s stomach queasy. There’s a quite a bit of value at short as someone who has hit .264/.312/.424 over their career — Desmond’s line coming into 2016 — while in the outfield, that’s….well let’s just say that Matt Joyce just signed a two-year deal for $11 million and he’s a career .242/.341/.429 hitter.

But in the end, Desmond gambled on himself — and won. So did fantasy owners. Can they do so again next season? Let’s investigate.

Steamer is particularly bearish on Desmond, suggesting he’ll hit .251/.310/.414 next year, which isn’t terribly far from his career line and not really valuable if he signs somewhere as an outfielder. But that’s part of the rub with valuing Desmond right now. First of all, we aren’t really sure where he’ll play — not only in locale but on the field.

Jack Magruder of Fanrag Sports reported in early November that Desmond would market himself as both an infielder and an outfielder. That’s just a good business decision; most likely, Desmond knows his value is on the dirt, but it only takes one team willing to throw a briefcase full of cash and an outfield glove at him to assuage those concerns. Desmond is being savvy.

But for fantasy owners, it’ll be important to see where he lands as far as an offensive fit. Desmond hits a lot of grounders; he was 13th in GB/FB rate with 2.06 grounders per fly ball among 146 qualified hitters this past season. That’s not necessarily a death knell — plenty of valuable hitters hit lots of grounders last year as well — but a lot of those hitters had one thing in common.

High, and perhaps unsustainable BABIPs.

Desmond posted a .350 BABIP last season while posting the highest GB/FB rate of his career. Those two syncing up made for one of his best offensive seasons. Desmond’s line-drive rate doesn’t really stand out — he was 79th among qualified hitters with a 20.6 percent rate — and he was tied for 13th among qualified hitters in singles last season with 124. Players that had solid seasons ahead of Desmond on the GB/FB list were Wilson Ramos (.327 BABIP), Ryan Braun (.326), D.J. LeMahieu (.388), Jonathan Villar (.373) and Christian Yelich (.356).

Now, Desmond has made a career out of posting really high BABIP marks. His career mark is .326. But if 2015 is any indication of what can happen to Desmond when that slips, that’s a bit worrisome. His .307 mark was a career-worst and still right in the line of what’s generally accepted as sustainable in the game today. That resulted in a 30-plus point drop in wOBA and the worst offensive season of his prime, so to speak.

Still, that probably explains why Steamer is so bearish on him. His career-high BABIP before 2016 was .336, and it came in a season that resulted in his second-highest wOBA (.341) and the highest WAR of his career (4.8).

We wouldn’t want to throw cold water on Desmond here, but there just aren’t that many changes. His isolated power and discipline stayed about the same. Despite striking out 6% less, he didn’t make much of a change in terms of contact on pitches inside or outside of the strike zone. He cut his swinging-strike rate by 1%, but was still above his career rate. He did lower his chase rate a bit but overall just swung less than he had since early in his career.

Ultimately, it’s hard to see this breakout as totally legitimate. With that said, he’ll still typically churn out solid BABIPs year-to-year, but it might make sense for him to land with a team that has a quick infield. For instance the Blue Jays — who have no need for a shortstop, however — would make some sense, considering their home field is turf. The Jays hit 12 points better on turf than grass last season, though part of that is probably tied up in home-road splits. Still, turf generally plays fast — but there aren’t many of those stadiums left. Just Toronto and Tampa, and neither are likely to be bidding for his services.

Position flexibility will also be in play for Desmond as far as fantasy owners are concerned. It won’t take long for Desmond to regain shortstop eligibility in any leagues where he’s lost it, assuming he signs as a shortstop. The dual flexibility will be extremely valuable next season. In 5×5 leagues, Desmond should still have plenty of value even if he regresses offensively. Even in 2015, he still popped 19 home runs and stole 13 bases. Owners had to put up with a .233 batting average, but among qualified shortstops that season only Brandon Crawford had more home runs and just six players had more steals. Desmond also didn’t kill owners in runs (seventh) or RBI (eighth).

Ultimately, it’s going to be hard to land Desmond as a stealth pick coming off such a good season, but he should provide ample value if he can be used between shortstop and outfield. If he’s stuck in the outfield and regresses at all offensively, he’s going to be a headache for owners.