Reviewing the 2015 xHR/FB Rate Underachievers Target List

I told you last week that I made a lot of predictions, doled out a ton of preseason advice and published lists, lists and more lists filled with players to target or avoid based on that article’s theme. So you better believe that I’m going to review as many of those as I can to discover just how valuable that advice was! Today I review my target list heading into the season comprised of players I determined underachieved with respect to their HR/FB rates. That is, their actual HR/FB rates were significantly below their xHR/FB rates, based on the equation I developed.

Ryan Zimmerman

2014 — 14.6% xHR/FB vs 7.8% actual HR/FB
2015 — 16.5% HR/FB rate

It was fairly obvious that Zimmerman battled injuries and even missed significant time back in 2014. As a result, it was reasonable to give him a mulligan on his performance, especially his power output. But the components of his xHR/FB rate didn’t actually decline as precipitously as his HR/FB rate did, suggesting his down power was more bad luck than a loss of skill. This year, Zimmerman once again battled injuries and missed a chunk of the season, but his HR/FB rate fully rebounded as predicted. Since his BABIP fell below .300 for just the second time in his career and marked a new career low, he’ll probably once again come at a nice discount in 2016 drafts.

Howie Kendrick

2014 — 13.3% xHR/FB vs 6.5% actual HR/FB
2015 — 14.1% HR/FB rate

In my original write-up, I noted how crazy Kendrick’s bouncing HR/FB rate career trend was. Beginning in 2008, literally every year it was in the single digits and then jumped to double digits the following year, before falling back into the single digits and repeating. Since this was an odd year, coming off a single digit year, of course Kendrick looked due for his patented rebound back into the double digits. And he sure delivered. What’s likely happening here is more randomness due to his low fly ball rate.

Christian Yelich

2014 — 17.8% xHR/FB vs 11.5% actual HR/FB
2015 — 12.5% HR/FB rate

Marlins Park continues to hamper Yelich’s power and illustrates the most obvious shortcoming of my equation, since it doesn’t account for park factors. In 2014, his home/away HR/FB rate split was 5.1%/17.9% and he didn’t narrow all that much this year, as he posted a 5.6%/15.8% split this time around. His HR/FB rate did increase by a percentage point, so the direction was correct, but clearly not the magnitude. He should greatly benefit from the team’s decision to move in and shorten the height of the fences at Marlins Park for the 2016 season. Unfortunately, he hits so few fly balls that he would still find it a difficult task to reach even 15 homers.

Freddie Freeman

2014 — 18.2% xHR/FB vs 11.9% actual HR/FB
2015 — 15.8% HR/FB rate

At an age where one would expect continued power growth, Freeman’s HR/FB rate actually dipped to a career low in 2014. But if you looked at his doubles rate, you would have realized that he essentially traded homers for doubles and his xHR/FB rate suggested there wasn’t actually any loss in home run power. Sure enough, his HR/FB rate fully rebounded and he actually set a new career best mark. Given his consistently strong distance marks, along with his age, we keep waiting for that major breakout where he posts a HR/FB rate around 20%. That could still happen in the next year or two.

Russell Martin

2014 — 17.3% xHR/FB vs 11.3% actual HR/FB
2015 — 20.7% HR/FB rate

Martin represented a perfect double whammy for HR/FB rate upside in 2015. His xHR/FB rate suggested an improvement this year even had he remained on the Pirates, while a move to a significantly more power friendly home park increased that upside further. And he sure reached that ultimate upside, and he did it while actually posting HR/FB rate home/away splits that were rather close. As expected, his BABIP fell back closer to his career average, so he will continue to be more of a power asset from the catcher position.

Yasiel Puig

2014 — 17.0% xHR/FB vs 11.1% actual HR/FB
2015 — 13.1% HR/FB rate

Puig battled injuries throughout the year, which limited him to just 311 plate appearances. But he still managed to improve upon his HR/FB rate, which was nearly halved from his 2013 rookie campaign. His BABIP also tumbled, which sealed his fate as a fantasy bust this year. But that means for the first time, Puig may actually be a value in 2016 drafts.

Justin Smoak

2014 — 15.4% xHR/FB vs 9.7% actual HR/FB
2015 — 25.4% HR/FB rate

Smoak was one of my favorite deep sleepers this year and although he failed to garner enough playing time to contribute in anything outside of AL-Only leagues, his HR/FB rate did skyrocket. But it wasn’t actually the Rogers Centre that fueled the surge, as Smoak posted significantly higher HR/FB rate away from his home park. His BABIP didn’t increase like I expected, but if he’s assured of more playing time next year, I’ll once again be a fan.

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So unlike my various bold predictions from last week where I predictably looked silly, amazingly every single one of the players on my HR/FB rate target list actually improved from last season. Some of them significantly so. Although the sample size is small, these were the players with the biggest discrepancies. So it does help to validate the value of using the xHR/FB rate equation to identify players with HR/FB rate upside, at least at the extremes.

I just also mention that I am aware that two of the three components of my equation are not published anywhere. I will work on changing that.