MaxEV Gainers — Apr 5, 2021, A Review

After just a few games this year, I decided to check in on batter maxEV. If a batter was already setting a new high only a couple of games into the season, I wondered if it was an early sign of a power and HR/FB rate surge over the rest of the year. So let’s now review those hitters who increased their maxEV the most at that point to see if it was indeed a hint of things to come. As a reminder, maxEV may have been recorded on a ground ball, which is far less exciting than one that comes on a fly ball. It doesn’t matter how hard a grounder is hit, as it cannot leave the park! A better look would have been to filter for only fly balls, so I’ll look at it that way next season.

This is a lot of numbers. The first three are simply comparing maxEV at the time I posted the article to 2020, and the difference between the two to get my list of gainers. I then wanted to see if any of the hitters increased their maxEV further over the remainder of the season. Four of the nine actually did increase it, but only two of them increased it by at least one MPH. The other five had already set their maxEV for the entire year in just the first few games of the season.

Next, I wanted to compare HR/FB rates from 2020 to 2021. Did an increased maxEV result in a higher HR/FB rate? Remember, maxEV may have come on a grounder, so if I filtered for only fly balls, it’s possible this list would have included different names. While four of the hitters did see a dramatic increase in HR/FB rate, half of them barely played in 2020, both failing to homer in their short time. Four others suffered a dramatic decline in HR/FB rate, despite the increased maxEV, while one was essentially even.

So what does this suggest? Not a whole lot. There are several reasons for this. First, my sample size of nine batters is tiny and pretty meaningless. Second, I’m using a metric, maxEV, that isn’t necessarily telling us what most assume it is. For simplicity’s sake, I went with the maxEV on the player pages, but it leads to worse analysis. That all said, let’s discuss some of the players.

Both Zack Collins and David Dahl were part of the HR/FB rate gainers group, but didn’t play much in 2020, so their gains come off zero homers in a small sample. Collins has shown good home run power in the minors, but it was surprisingly missing this year. He does strike out a lot, but it’s not due to so many swings and misses, and the strikeouts come with lots of walks. He could be a reasonable hitter, with a nice value boost in OBP leagues, but his minor league power has to reappear, and he needs a position. Heading into his age-28 season, Dahl might not get another chance at regular at-bats after his poor one-third of a season performance while not a member of the Rockies for the first time. Surely he’s not this bad, but he wasn’t anything special even with the Coors boost, so he’s not worth monitoring now.

Paul DeJong shrugged off his disappointing 2020 power and completely rebounded this year. It’s too bad his BABIP plummeted to just .216, so his wOBA actually declined again to another career low and it cost him playing time. He now enters 2022 without a guarantee full-time job. He could easily regain it with just a bounce in his BABIP.

This was the highest maxEV Michael Brantley has posted since 2017, which is a surprise given his advanced age. It didn’t lead to a higher HR/FB rate though, and in fact he actually posted his lowest mark since 2013! That’s really surprising. Even odder is that his Barrel% was at the highest that we have been tracking it, going back to 2015. Though I would have to look deeper to be more confident, I would take a guess that his HR/FB rate rebounds in 2022, even at age 35 for most of the season.

Eddie Rosario’s maxEV was really just a rebound off a down 2020, but it didn’t matter for his HR/FB rate, which hit the lowest since his 2015 debut. It’s the weirdest thing, as last year the posted the lowest maxEV of his career, but the second highest HR/FB rate of his career, while this year his maxEV was the second highest, but HR/FB rate the second lowest. It’s bizarro world indeed. Hopefully, my xHR/FB rate will help me figure out what’s going on here.

Ty France enjoyed a nice boost in maxEV, but his HR/FB rate barely moved. I’m still wondering if that juicy 30.7% HR/FB rate he posted at Triple-A in 2019 will come close to translating or if it will end up looking like a complete fluke. I’d like to see a higher FB%, but everything else looks solid enough.

Michael A. Taylor has enjoyed a history of solid maxEV marks, posting one over 110 every season of his career except the short 2020 season. And yet, it hasn’t translated into a strong HR/FB rate. Even though his maxEV rebounded off his 2020 low, his HR/FB rate dipped most of anyone on this list. Of course, that 2020 mark came in just 92 at-bats, so the gain isn’t meaningful. It’s possible he’s a hard grounder and softer fly ball guy. I’m actually amazed he has played so much given that he has only posted a wOBA above just .289 once in his entire career. I know, defense, but has he really been that good defensively to offset the lack of offense to justify the playing time?

It’s not often you see a guy whose maxEV was over 110 already make a maxEV gainers list, but Matt Olson revved up his mark to a career high this year but a whopping two MPH. Strangely, he posted his lowest HR/FB rate since 2018, and really the second lowest of his career. If not for the meaningful drop in HR/FB rate, he would have handily passed the 40-homer plateau for the first time. Most important here though is the sudden massive improvement in strikeout rate. He nearly cut his in half and brought his SwStk% into single digits for the first time! That strikeout rate will be the major question mark in 2022 and will make a big difference on his batting average and counting stats.

Tyler O’Neill upped his maxEV even higher over the rest of the season, settling 5.7 MPH above where he finished in 2020, but tying his previous maxEV high in a season posted in 2018. Finally, this correlated with an increased HR/FB rate, as he was one of the biggest fantasy breakouts this year. I can’t imagine he BABIPs .366 again and I’m never confident that big power hitters will keep stealing double digit bases, but his power is likely for real.