New Kings: Alex Gordon & Jorge Soler
As a Royals fan, I try my hardest to not roster any to make sure I limit my hometown bias. Two bats, Alex Gordon and Jorge Soler, are heating up to the point they are being rostered in 15-team leagues and even some shallower ones with Soler. It’s time to perform an unbiased examination of the pair.
All I’ve been able to hear when Alex Gordon’s name is brought up is:
“F’ it, I guess I’ll take Alex Gordon.”
One of my league mates blurted this statement after struggling to locate an available outfielder in my home AL-only league auction.
No one wanted the injury-plagued 34-year-old outfielder to start the season. His NFBC ADP was 527. Now he’s starting to get on owner’s radars and was picked up in my Tout Wars league yesterday. Even after looking at his stats, I don’t understand why the new found love. I’m wondering if he didn’t hit a homer off Craig Kimbrell, no one would notice.
So far, he’s hitting .288/.333/.411 with 2 HR and 1 SB. He has heated up in May when he’s hit both home runs with a .381/.381/1.048 line. I’m not changing my opinion of him off this one hot week.
I’m not sure Gordon has changed much as he’s taking what pitchers are giving him. His walk (3%) and strikeout rate (17%) are both down as pitchers don’t fear him. They’ve thrown into the strike zone at a career-high 54% clip this year. He’s being forced to put the bat on the ball.
When he hits the ball, it’s on the ground 50% of the time which has helped lead to .328 BABIP. He’s had some health issue the past three season (torn labrum earlier this season) but may have finally stumbled onto some health. To determine his current power potential, here are his last three seasons of batted ball data grades with 50 being average and bigger numbers being better.
| Stat | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max EV | 45 | 50 | 50 |
| Avg EV | 55 | 45 | 60 |
| Max Dist | 50 | 50 | 45 |
| Avg Dist | 60 | 50 | 45 |
| Barrels | 55 | 45 | 55 |
There’s no breakout power happening but the one telling sign is the low average distance. Groundballs don’t travel far. He’s likely sacrificing what power he has to put the ball in play.
What are owners expecting from him? A .270 AVG, 12 HR, and 6 steals? This is close to his 2015 season when he was a -$3 value in 12-team leagues. A little better than I thought. His best case is replacement level player. The worst case is downright horrible.
The 26-year-old Soler (364 NFBC ADP) is more interesting than Gordon based on youth upside. Last season, Soler was a Royal disappointment with a slash line at .144/.245/.258. but a .203 BABIP and .113 ISO. Soler has always had strikeout issues and when the balls are falling in, he struggles.
This season, the balls are falling in as seen by his .406 BABIP and .308/.425/.510 slash line. The nice shiny triple slash isn’t all BABIP driven with a new approach and swing. He’s walking (16%) at a career-high pace and his strikeouts (25%) are just above his career low. His contact numbers are at his career rates (67% vs 68%) but he is being more selective in what he swings at. His outside swing rate is down to 20% (29% for career) while his in-the-zone at 64% is near his career rate (66%). His whole game is changing by swinging at better pitches.
As for his swing, he’s leveled it off more for a more line drive swing with his GB% up to 44%. Also, his pop-up rate is down from 6.6% to 4.1%. His power grades are more in line with 2016 than last season.
| Stat | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max EV | 60 | 60 | 60 |
| Avg EV | 60 | 55 | 60 |
| Max Dist | 65 | 65 | 55 |
| Avg Dist | 60 | 55 | 55 |
| Barrels | 60 | 50 | 55 |
With Soler, the most important factor in determining his value will be where is his true talent BABIP. Our projection systems are assuming somewhere around .300 to .315. Xstats, which just uses batted ball data, has it at .291 for this season. A BABIP in this range will put his batting average in the .240 to .260 range depending on how much of the strikeout gains he keeps. With the line drive approach, I’m thinking his home runs will be closer to maxing out at 25 instead of some of his early prospect hope of 40+.
I have a tough time putting a value on him. Currently, his Fantrax ownership is at 66% which is near outfielders Matt Kemp and Stephen Piscotty. I think I’d value him near the outfielders with an 83% ownership rate (Adam Duvall, Domingo Santana, and Teoscar Hernandez). His ownership is near the 60th overall outfielder putting him in play in all but ten-team leagues.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
25 HR from Soler is good, I just wonder what the OBP will be. I agree I’d rather have him than Kemp and Piscotty, but Santana would make me think a bit.
I was going to pop in and post that Gordon is terrible, but you know, looking at his Statcast numbers at Baseball Savant. . . . .he’s actually not terrible. His EV is 90.0 mph which is actually higher than Rhys Hoskins and Freddie Freeman. His xwOBA is .374 which is right in the same neighborhood as Christian Villanueva and Ronald Acuna. Sure he’s banging everything into the ground and has apparently lost the ability to draw a walk and continues to be stuck in the 7/8 spot in the order, but he might actually be worth keeping an eye on. . . .
The section on Soler needs an edit. What do you mean “…when the balls are falling in, he struggles.”? And “As for his swing, he’s leveled it off more for a more line drive swing with his GB% up to 44%”? Also, the table purports to show that his 2018 power numbers are more in line with 2016 than 2017, but instead show a completely mixed bag, with Max EV and Avg EV being pretty much the same all three years, and Max and Avg Dist and Barrels for this year looking more like last year. Kind of useless, certainly inconclusive.
How about this instead: This year his HCTx is 117, well above either of the last two years. His PX is 142, also well above last FEW years. His XPX is lower than that (90) suggesting his PX will likely drift down. But–even if it gets down to a more supportable 120, it still looks like solid 2B power with 20+ HRs.
i read a lot about baseball and baseball stats, and I have no idea what the hell HCTx, PX and XPX are.
He or she is using BBHQ stats. That’s why the downvotes, I am assuming.
Was thinking about Soler in my 9-team mixed OBP roto league as a bench bat over Conforto, who has been unreliable lately given how much he’s sitting (and the lingering shoulder question). Would Soler be a good fit in this context, assuming the premise that his new-found selectivity will stick?
I just picked up Soler. Have Conforto too. I’m riding Soler now, but keeping Conforto on the bench for when he’s back to Conforto.
If you have the room, this is the way to go. Enjoy the hot hand in Soler for now, let’s see how it plays out, and if it’s real and Conforto continues to struggle then we can evaluate later. But no need yet. (I’m in the same boat).
Doing the exact same thing re: soler/conforto… Giving Conforto the nod today after a good day yesterday and facing Cincy
A question on citing Fantrax ownership %’s… my experience with Fantrax is that young players always have surprisingly high ownership %’s. They must host a large amount of dynasty leagues? For young players like Soler, wouldn’t it be better to cite ESPN or Yahoo, where he’s closer to ~30-40% owned?
Probably, I go the easy route since I don’t have ESPN or Yahoo leagues.