Mixing Fantasy & Reality: Dozier & Harper

Bryce Harper Disappoints

Coming into 2016, many people had Bryce Harper rated as the top fantasy player. This season has been a disappointment for sure after a .330 AVG and 42 home runs last season. It just seems like injury related struggles are derailing his potential.

For example, he popped again on my batted ball injury finder for this last week with just a 78 mph average exit velocity which is 11 mph less than his season average (89 mph). Over that time frame, he hit .067/.263/.067. The last report of an injury was a neck issue in early August, but I would not be surprised he is dealing with something new. He can’t be an MVP caliber player and just not show up for an entire weeks at a time.

Here is Harper’s AVG and ISO since he entered the league.

The 2015 season sticks out with the rest of his production being similar. I think his value starts at the .270 AVG, .210 ISO level. Then the key will be how much owners are willing to bet Harper will match the 2015 season. I may go near .290/.250. The problem is that someone will likely go even higher. Right now, I see his 2017 value being hotly debated and I will be on the low side.

Dozier’s big season

I would not be surprised to see Brian Dozier’s on the rosters for the top ranked teams in leagues. The 15 stolen bases and .280 AVG are nice, but the change everyone is talking about with the 29-year-old is the 41 home runs. He is having a great season for someone grudgingly taken in most drafts. A lot has been written on him, but I will add one more piece of information.

The biggest change I noticed with Dozier is his ability to take the breaking ball yard. In 2014 and 2015, he hit 1 out of every 75 fastballs he saw for a home run and 1 out of 239 breaking balls (11 HR total). This season the numbers are 1 out of every 47 fastballs seen and one out of every 96 breaking balls seen (13 HR total).

I went and looked to see if pitchers had adjusted to him and nope. I like to see how pitchers attack a hitter by looking at the pitches the hitter sees in the strike zone (Zone%) and fastballs seen (FB%). Here is a nice chart courtesy of our ownSean Dolinar. It is the average Zone% and FB% rates and then how far a hitter is from the average value.

For reference, here are Dozier’s recent values.

Pitchers have been pitching Dozier just in the “Can’t hit a breaking ball” zone. Dozier found a way to hit the breaking balls and pitchers haven’t adjusted yet. I kind of expected his Zone% to drop in the second half as pitchers would deal with a base-on-balls instead of a home run, but they haven’t. It will be interesting to see how pitchers approach him next season.

Notes

• With Clayton Kershaw returning, I went and looked at his starts, and nothing sticks out as being bad. Good velocity and spin to go along with great results. While his owners may have been frustrated with the long return, I am not surprised the Dodgers took their time and got him at 100% heading into the postseason.

• Ray Searage has worked his turnaround magic with Ivan Nova. Lucky for you, we have a transcript on how Nova turned his season around.

Searage: Don’t walk any batters.
Nova: OK

That one change (and a little home run luck) has turned around Nova’s season. He has a career 2.8 BB/9 and it was 2.3 BB/9 with the Yankees. It is an insane 0.5 BB/9 with the Pirates. His strikeout rate is about the same. His ground ball rate is actually lower. The problem is that a 0.5 BB/9 is about unheard of with only two qualifeid pitchers, Phil Hughes in ’14 and Cliff Lee, in ’10, with a BB/9 under 1.0 over the past 10 seasons.

As for a projection, I would go with a K/9 of 7.0 and BB/9 of 2.0 for next season and a 4.00 ERA. I see him getting over-valued, especially if he stays in Pittsburgh. I just don’t see how he can keep up the insanely low walk rate and his strikeout rate isn’t great. He is probably just a matchup pitcher next season.