Refining Projections: Hampson, Cueto, Odor, & Folty

I’m like everyone else out there, grinding away from every little nugget to gain an edge. The following players I’ve heard something intriguing about during various podcasts or discussion. While I should trust the analysts, I don’t. I prefer to verify what they said and see if I’ll need to adjust my projections.

The Rockies Garrett Hampson reworked his swing in the second half of last season.

Hampson was a late-round darling in the previous draft season for those hoping to get some late steals. He did nothing until September when he went off with a .903 OPS and nine steals. Several people mentioned a swing change and a quick search later, I found out about the toe tap.

“I was thinking of way too much mechanically in the box this year,” Hampson said. “What (the toe tap) has allowed me to do is just be way more in rhythm with the pitcher and (get) started, and my hands and everything else are natural from there. I don’t think about what my hands are doing. There’s a lot of things that weren’t synching up with my leg kick, and now they seem to synch up more naturally.”
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Beginning with that Aug. 25 game, Hampson has hit .344 (21-for-61) with a .397 on-base percentage and a .905 OPS in 22 games (16 starts). His 19 percent strikeout rate during this span is a marked improvement from earlier. And Hampson has two homers, six RBI, 10 runs scored – he scored 23 runs in his previous 74 games – and six stolen bases without being caught during this stretch. Indeed, with 11 stolen bases in 14 attempts, Hampson is the sixth Rockies rookie with at least 10 steals in a single season and the first since Eric Young Jr., in 2010.

So what did the top tap change in his profile Here is his season divided up into three sections with his demotion on May 12th is the first division and the August 25th game mentioned in the article being the second. Try to find a smoking gun.

It’s tough with his groundball and hard-hit rates bouncing around. The key, in my opinion, is the lack of opposite-field hits. Here is how he’s performed over his career on balls pulled, hit to center, or the opposite field.

Direction: OPS
Pull: 1.204
Center: .785
Opposite: .699

And to beat down the point further, here are his 2019 batted balls.

Only his home runs are pulled. If Hampson can pull the ball, he’s all good.

An issue with that is pitchers pitched him away until the August change and then they gave him more balls to pull by pitching him inside.

With rosters expanding on September 1st, he faced many AAA arms. Also, he didn’t face many competitive teams with 16 of his 31 games against the lowly Giants, Padres, Mets, and Pirates.

I understand happened and he might have a hot month again. Until he shows some level of competency with going to the oppositive field, I’ll just stick with his muted projections.

Mike Foltynewicz made some changes and was great in the second half.

Granted, he was a lot better in the second half

Half: ERA, WHIP, K/9, GB%, HR/9, BABIP
1st, 6.37, 1.42, 7.6, 35%, 2.4, .279
2nd: 2.65, 1.08, 8.6, 39%, 1.1, .250

One the surface, I’d just say his batted ball luck improved with his home run normalizing and his BABIP dropping. And the halves are conveniently divided. He started the season on the IL with bone spurs, returned on April 27th, was demoted on June 23rd, and recalled on August 5th.

Digging a little deeper or changes, he came back throwing slower with about 1 mph off his four-seamer (95.2 to 94.6) and sinker (95.5 to 94.6). His fastball’s ability drops quite a bit for each tick lost, so performance decline is an issue.

To limit the effectiveness of the declining fastball, he went with the old man approach and upped his elite slider (18% SwStr%) usage from 27% to 30%. With his four-seam velocity and its swing-and-miss capability in the same range as his sinker, he threw the sinker more. With the juiced ball, a 57% GB% is preferred to a 19% GB%. The changes helped but so did regression.

He’d be a decent pitcher in the current environment going just sinker-slider while mixing in his decent change (18% SwStr%, 53% GB%). The curve, which he throws 10% of the time is complete trash. If the ball changes and/or he gets some velocity back, the four-seamer could be added back in.

I’m not sure if I’ll mess with his projection. The biggest red flag is the elbow injury. Also, he doesn’t seem to go to an extreme pitch mix for great results. He still piddles around with the curve and doesn’t go away from the four-seamer when it’s obviously ineffective. I’ll give him a slight bump over similar pitchers for the potential but nothing more than that.

“I’m going to draft Johnny Cueto.” …”What!!??”

On Tuesday night, I helped Fred Zinkie with his LABR draft and he was all into rostering Cueto. I’ve not even considered him with his current ADP around 312. He just came back from Tommy John surgery and struggled with a 5.06 ERA mainly from a matching 5.06 BB/9 in four starts last season.

His fastballs averaged just at 91 mph. His previous outstanding results happened when the fastball was over at 93 mph.

None of his pitches were really working with his change (16% SwStr%) and slider (7% SwStr%) at career-low swing-and-miss rates. He’s been a completely unrosterable pitcher for the past three seasons. I see no reason to roster him now except as a reserve pick with can be quickly dropped.

Rougned Odor will not have a job in a month.

Odor intrigues me going into the 2020 season. In rotisserie leagues, his 30 home runs and 11 stolen bases from last season are tempting. The problem is the .205 AVG sinking a team. At times, he’s posted a career batting average of .240 and has more batting averages over .250 than under. With an NFBC ADP of 238, owners are not going to find the possible combination of power and speed that late in the draft.

It’s not the undesirable stats, it’s if, Odor plays so bad that he gets demoted. In The Process, I found that having an OPS under .650 gets a player demoted, sent to the bench, or cut.

To see what his chances were of such early production, I found all the hitters in an 80-point range of Odor’s projected AVG, OBP, and SLG. Also, the hitter needed to be projected for 10 or more steals and at least 400 PA. In all, 23 players made the cut. Of those, seven (23%) posted a sub-.650 OPS. They never recovered after posting an average .532 OPS as a group that first month with a .688 for the season. Also, they missed their plate appearance projections by about 40. The hitters who started with an OPS over .650, averaged a .768 OPS while they were projected at .755.

An owner needs to come to grips if they want to have a 75% chance on a good productive hitter but could end up with nothing. Roster construction will be a huge factor if Odor gets rostered because the owner will need to absorb the low AVG. But, it may not be too low and then they are missing out on a true bargain. I may take a chance on him as a middle infielder in shallower leagues. I can add another middle-infield option in the reserve rounds and see how Odor’s season plays out.