Reviewing 2015 Pod Projections: Anthony Rendon

It’s second base week on RotoGraphs and that gives me the opportunity to perform the first review of my 2015 Pod Projection breakdowns. Anthony Rendon enjoyed a breakout year in both real and fantasy baseball in 2014 and given his previous top prospect pedigree, was then highly valued heading into this season. At the time of my Pod Projection, Rendon was being drafted 13th overall in NFBC leagues. Unfortunately, a knee injury that was supposed to only keep him out for a week or two to begin the season dragged on and on. He didn’t make his 2015 debut until early June and then missed another month with a quad strain. Ultimately, he finished ranked 35th in value…among just the second basemen!

In reviewing this Pod Projection, it would be fairer to extrapolate his numbers over the number of at-bats I projected. Though that still isn’t completely fair since you have to assume his various injuries hampered his performance at the plate.

Plate Appearances: 650 projected vs 355 actual

We discussed his various injuries in the intro, which was the reason for the huge miss here. Are we confident that he could tally 600 plate appearances again?

K%: 16.1% projected vs 19.7% actual

I had argued that Rendon’s plate discipline peripherals did not support his 2014 strikeout rate improvement. As a result, I projected a bit of regression, which proved correct, but I wasn’t aggressive enough in my forecast. This year, his SwStk% was essentially identical to last year, but the increased strikeout rate was fueled by a drop in Swing%. Since he makes such excellent contact when he does swing, the less he swings, the higher his strikeout rate is going to be (and of course, a higher walk rate will come along for the ride as well, which is precisely what happened).

If he qualified, he would have posted the fourth lowest Swing% in baseball, so I would bet on him swinging more in 2016 and his strikeout rate bouncing back, along with his walk rate declining as well.

GB%/LD%/FB%: 40.5% / 22% / 37.5% projected vs 45.3% / 21.4% / 33.3% actual

After swapping line drives for fly balls from 2013 to 2014, Rendon transformed again, this time swapping those new found fly balls for grounders. Clearly, Rendon has yet to find his optimal batted ball distribution. This makes it difficult for us forecasters, because we really have no idea what to expect for 2016. We could simply split everything in the middle and take his career average, but then that gives us batted ball rates he has never actually posted before. So who knows.

BABIP: .315 projected vs .321 actual

The .315 projection would have marked a career high, albeit barely better than his 2014 mark. He actually did set a new career best, on the heels of an even better batted ball profile as he turned flies into grounders, while also lowering his already low IFFB%. Since it’s hard to project his batted ball distribution next year, it makes it difficult to project his BABIP. But I believe that his current true talent level is in the .310-.320 range.

HR/FB Ratio: 10% projected vs 6.2% actual

Heading into the season, there were two conflicting data points relating to Rendon’s potential 2015 HR/FB rate. My xHR/FB rate equation suggested Rendon had even further upside from his increased 2014 mark. However, he had underperformed his xHR/FB rate marks in his first two seasons. Furthermore, he ranked third in ESPN Home Run Tracker’s Just Enough %, suggesting HR/FB rate downside. So with these two data points pointing in opposite directions, I settled on slight regression from his 2014 mark.

What ended up happening was his HR/FB rate actually plummeted. Yet, his Pull % was nearly identical and his batted ball distance only dropped a couple of feet. I haven’t calculated 2015 xHR/FB rates yet, but it would appear that Rendon was likely unlucky this year, which means a rebound back to the 10% range could be in the cards next year.

RBI and Runs: 72 and 92 projected vs 25 and 43 actual

Obviously, these counting stats were suppressed by the injuries and lack of at-bats. But he was still far off the RBI pace when extrapolating to my projected at-bat total. That was partly because about a third of his at-bats came in the leadoff slot, while my projection was assuming he would remain in the two-hole all season. The runs scored pace was closer to my projection, but still off, some of which was due to his complete lack of power (.100 ISO).

The RBI total is higher than the average two-hole hitter given Rendon’s power. But, it will be extremely difficult for him to replicate his 83 runs batted in total from last year without greatly elevating his game with men on base once again. It’s not something I would bet on happening.

SB: 11 projected vs 1 actual

This projection was a shot in the dark as Rendon swiped just one base in two attempts in 2013 and then surprisingly decided to attempt 20 steals last year, while succeeding 17 times. So does he regress (something we all assumed he would), and if so, by how much? The knee injury made the answer obvious, but no one thought he would be out so long because of it, so my projection didn’t reflect the issue putting a serious dent in his attempts.

Now the question is what to expect next year. You assume he’ll be healthier, but we still don’t have our answer as to how fluky 2014 was.

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Below is a summary of how Rendon was projected by all systems, along with his actual totals and those extrapolated to the same number of at-bats I projected.

System	AB	AVG	HR	RBI	R	SB	K%	BABIP
Pod	582	0.283	18	72	92	11	16.1%	0.315
Steamer	569	0.279	19	72	84	11	15.6%	0.308
ZiPS	531	0.276	18	72	85	10	17.3%	0.309
Fans (36)	598	0.291	21	87	103	14	15.2%	0.317
Actual	311	0.264	5	25	43	1	19.7%	0.321
Actual – 582 Abs	582	0.264	9	47	80	2	19.7%	0.321

Obviously, every system was way off on all the counting stats, but even extrapolated, we were all too optimistic. But Rendon also disappointed on the batting average side, even though he posted a BABIP higher than any projected. A worse than expected strikeout rate is to blame, along with the lack of home run power. Since his speed is a total wild card, I’m not sure what to make of Rendon’s profit potential in drafts next year. He could prove to be a bargain, but I think his price might remain relatively high as others bet on a bounce back as well.