Poll 2022: Which Group of Hitters Performs Better?

Yesterday, I asked you to vote on which group of pitchers you expect to post a better ERA over the rest of the season. One group was composed of the 10 biggest SIERA overperformers, while the other comprised the underperformers. For just the second year, I’m going to take the same polling idea and use it for hitters. So let’s follow the same concept and compare two groups of hitters based on xwOBA overperformance and underperformance. We know that xwOBA isn’t perfect. Neither is SIERA. In fact, no estimated/expected/forecasted equation is going to be perfect, because there will always be players that do something we have a difficult time quantifying. Furthermore, there will always be players each year that fall into either end of the extremes for no other reason than complete randomness. So let’s keep that in mind when reviewing these two groups.

My initial population group consisted of 157 qualified hitters. Group A is composed of the 10 largest xwOBA overperformers, while Group B is composed of the 10 largest xwOBA underperformers.

First, let’s confront the elephant in the room. If you look at the league average lines in any of the tables, you would have noticed that the Statcast expected metrics are significantly higher than the actual marks. This isn’t normal! Obviously, over a large enough sample, the actual and expected marks should be close to identical. The only explanation I can think of is the change to the ball this year that has resulted in a drop in HR/FB rate. BABIP is down too, so clearly results on balls in play are worse than they have been in past years, and Statcast uses actual results from past years to calculate an expected result for each batted ball. So that means that in aggregate, players will look like they are underperforming more than they are. Since all fantasy analysis is relative, that doesn’t really matter when looking at multiple players. But keep that in mind if picking a particular hitter and noting he has underperformed his xwOBA. Your hitter might actually be underperforming by the same degree the league as a whole is, which means he’s likely not underperforming at all.

That said, let’s get on with comparing Group A, the xwOBA overperformers, with Group B, the underperformers. Group A’s overperformance is smaller in both xBA and xSLG than Group B’s, which aligns with the above that in aggregate, the league is underperforming. A pair of veterans are leading all of baseball in xwOBA overperformance, but they are doing it in a different way. Jose Ramirez has primarily overperformed his xSLG, while Paul Goldschmidt has overperformed his xBA, undoubtedly thanks to his inflated .388 BABIP. It’s really surprising to find Ramirez atop the list, considering his HR/FB rate is at its lowest since 2016. Though, he’s made up for it by already hitting 30 doubles (just two short of all last season), which is tied for third in baseball. To think that even with a disappointing HR/FB rate, he’s still overperforming is a scary thought for his fantasy owners, which includes me! Goldschmidt has not been a consistent xwOBA overperformer, so there’s no reason to think he’ll avoid the regression monster.

In the past, I’ve noticed that the speedier players were lumped into Group A more than in B, as speed doesn’t seem to be properly accounted for in the xwOBA equation. There isn’t a whole lot of speed in either groups, though perhaps with Chris Taylor and Jose Altuve, there’s a touch more in Group A.

The most obvious characteristic driving the gap between these two groups is batted handedness and facing the shift. Check out how many left-handed sluggers are in Group B — Max Muncy, Seth Brown, Kyle Schwarber, Max Kepler. These guys all hit a high rate of grounders into the shift, which kills their BABIP marks. Unfortunately, shifts are ignored by xwOBA, so the calculation consistently overestimates these types of hitters. That said, they still are probably underperforming as Statcast suggests they should be hitting for significantly more power and hitting into the shift is only going to take away singles.

Overall, it’s interesting to see Group A’s actual wOBA a bit lower than Group B’s xwOBA. So not only should the two groups move in opposite directions the rest of the way, Statcast thinks Group B should have actually performed better than Group A performed, even with the good fortune they have apparently benefited from.

So which group performs better over the rest of the season? Let’s get to the poll questions. Feel free to share your poll answers and why you voted the way you did.