Playing Roulette with Wilson Ramos
Wilson Ramos did enough in 2014 to tease fantasy baseball players again. He batted .267/.299/.399, with 11 home runs, in 361 plate appearances (88 games). He missed time, of course, wasting little of it to achieve his first injury: a hamate bone fracture in his left wrist on opening day that required surgery. He didn’t do anything to inspire in his five weeks or so back from that absence before a mild hamstring strain sidelined him again. At least he sat out for only the minimum 15 days.
Not too long afterward, Ramos began to matter in rotisserie and head-to-head leagues again. He hit six of his round-trippers in August and totaled eight in 200 at-bats after the All-Star break. The Washington Nationals’ catcher wasn’t a money earner this season, according to Zach Sanders’ end-of-season catcher rankings, but he again gave rise to hope that next year will be the one in which he plays 130 games and thus delivers the kind of production his loyal buyers desire.
There is, of course, a potential problem with that conjecture. Besides health, that is. Ramos, 27, hasn’t accrued 400-plus PAs since his first season in the nation’s capital, in 2011, when he hit .267 with 15 bombs. The torn ACL he suffered in 2012 wiped out three-quarters of that campaign, naturally. He bounced back surprisingly well, really, with the .272 average and 16 home runs in just 303 PAs. This season, fantasy owners had to know that the wrist injury was going to affect his power for a bit, but the second-half output was encouraging.
No, it’s not the injuries – OK, it’s not just the injuries – that are concerning. It might not even be the lowly fly-ball rates he’s put up in the past few years. Mike Podhorzer went over some reasons why last year, and those things held up, in terms of his fly-ball and home runs distances, for the most part. Ramos, basically, hits the ball pretty hard when he makes contact.
Making contact has increasingly become a possible issue, though.
| Season | O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | Swing% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% | Contact% | Zone% | F-Strike% | SwStr% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 38.1% | 75.2% | 55.7% | 59.3% | 86.8% | 77.0% | 47.6% | 63.4% | 12.5% |
| 2011 | 33.2% | 68.5% | 49.8% | 65.3% | 87.7% | 79.8% | 47.1% | 60.9% | 9.6% |
| 2012 | 34.8% | 65.3% | 49.6% | 64.1% | 87.6% | 79.1% | 48.5% | 61.5% | 9.7% |
| 2013 | 37.6% | 75.1% | 54.6% | 70.5% | 87.3% | 81.0% | 45.3% | 62.1% | 10.1% |
| 2014 | 39.1% | 81.6% | 58.2% | 66.8% | 87.1% | 79.6% | 45.0% | 69.8% | 11.6% |
His swinging-strike rate rose only incrementally prior to this past season. But he’s become increasingly aggressive, and the reach rate has become troubling in kind. The SwStr%, Swing%, and O-Swing% were notably above league-average. It seems like a good possibility that, in the near future, his K% – heretofore better than league-average – will begin to join those figures. His heatmaps show a player whose strike zone has slowly expanded.
I started to wonder what his discipline marks looked like when I watched him repeatedly flail at pitches out of the strike zone, mostly at stuff away, in his club’s NLDS loss to the San Francisco Giants. He was easily exploited, seeming to take nothing away from his previous at-bats. His outcomes against RHPs in general appear to be in peril. I understand that he might deserve some leeway for his performance in these areas because of the injuries he’s incurred, but those are almost part of the package.
Ramos still has chances to show us that big season. I can’t help but think that the window of opportunity is very narrow, though. He’s not old, but the combination of durability concerns and questionable components makes him tough to chase. It seems as if a lot of things have to go right for him: stay healthy, continue to make contact at a league-average rate, hit the ball hard and far a lot of the time (with a high HR/FB), stay healthy. …
Yes, there’s significant upside, but how likely is he to reach it? His Steamer projection – a .270 average with 20 HR and a .270 AVG in 551 PAs – is disgustingly optimistic. As long as Ramos’ cost isn’t prohibitive, he’s going to be worth a gamble, no question. If the throng of “this might be the year” hopefuls hasn’t dissipated, though, then it doesn’t seem smart to compete for that chance.
Nicholas Minnix oversaw baseball content for six years at KFFL, where he held the loose title of Managing Editor for seven and a half before he joined FanGraphs. He played in both Tout Wars and LABR from 2010 through 2014. Follow him on Twitter @NicholasMinnix.
“His Steamer projection – a .270 average with 20 HR and a .270 AVG in 551 PAs – is disgustingly optimistic.”
Wait, I thought we were supposed to trust the projections…
yea but we can’t trust the at-bat projection so gotta pro rate down
Disgustingly?
I have Ramos and Salvador Perez in a 5×5 dynasty league, with Swihart waiting in the minors. I’ve been thinking for awhile that I’ll have to trade at least one of the 3 once Swihart is up to stay. Given this and Pod’s recent negative take on Perez, would I be better off trying to sell high on one of them now? My team is built for the long-term and placed 3rd this season. I might lose a little at C in the transition if I trade Ramos or Perez now, but I might get more long-term value avoiding a drop in stock.
I think that’s a sound idea. Perez is younger, without the health issues, so I’d like to think that he’s a better bet.
This is a useful and fairly reasonable analysis, but I have a couple of bones to pick with your conclusion. First and foremost, this assumes that his health is likely to be poor in the future. He’s suffered three major injuries during his career:
1) He was injured when he was kidnapped. 2) He suffered a hamate injury, presumably from being hit by a pitch; and 3) He suffered an ACL injury. Presumably he won’t be kidnapped again. Any hitter can fracture a hamate. I don’t know, but does one ACL injury make you more or less prone to re-injury? (That is not a rhetorical flourish, I truly do not know). Then he has had some minor losses of time, including missing time on the paternity list this August; presumably that won’t happen this season.
With the possible exception of the ACL, I don’t think we can automatically conclude that he is injury prone beyond that of the average catcher, and therefore likely to miss a lot of ABs this year. Maybe it’s true, but I’d want to see more evidence, such as a study of ACL and hamate histories.
Next, I would want to see the data that shows that if a player has above league-average SwStr%, Swing%, and O-Swing% rates in one year, he is likely to suffer decreased K% in the following year. It may be true, but it’s not intuitively obvious.
One could also argue that his recovery from the hamate slowed him down and that his power may return in 2015 just as it did in August. In fairness, you acknowledge that possibility.
Then there is your conclusion (caps are mine, and no, I’m not shouting, this just makes it easier to follow for the reader):
“It seems as if a lot of things have to go right for him: stay healthy (REFUTED), continue to make contact at a league-average rate (THIS WOULD NOT BE A SURPRISE, SINCE AS YOU STATE HE ALREADY DOES MAKE GOOD CONTACT), hit the ball hard (YOU SAID HE ALREADY DOES) and far a lot of the time (with a high HR/FB), stay healthy (SEE ABOVE).”
So that leaves him to improve his HR/FB rate. Last year was an aberration for him (17% HR/FB) vs. 23% in 2012 and 28% in 2013. A little regression, and viola! 20 HR or more sounds feasible.
Or he could get injured again … which wouldn’t prove I am wrong, but would make your argument a lot more persuasive than mine!
he was injured when he was kidnapped. might be the only time that card could be played.
its not funny though.
He was kidnapped prior to the 2012 season, but as far as I recall there was never any report of injury resulting from that. He was healthy to start that year and played well until he tore his ACL.
Is Stephen Vogt going to get one of these this week, or does he have to wait until the 1B rankings?