Shocking Home Run Totals
Contrary to what you might assume given my status as a veteran RotoGraphs writer and member of the Tout Wars and LABR leagues, I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to players on none of my fantasy teams. So every so often, I express surprise, or perhaps even shock, when I peruse the day’s box scores and notice a batting average or counting stat from a player at a level far off from our expectations. “Player X has 15 homers already?!?!” is how I will frequently react. Let’s discuss some of these players.
Carlos Beltran | 16 long balls
Seriously, if you didn’t own Beltran, did you have a clue that he has already hit 16 home runs? He hit all of 19 last year and finished with just 15 the season before. He’s also 39 years old and every year we think he’s just about toast. And then he does this. His ISO sits at its highest mark since 2006 and HR/FB rate is at a career high. Interestingly, his strikeout rate is at a career high, while his walk rate is at a career low. One might assume he’s selling out for power, but his plate discipline stats do not tell that story. His Swing% is actually below his mark last year and right in line with where he has been since 2012, while his SwStk% is just barely above his career average. A batted ball distance of 286 feet, ranking 122nd, is only marginally above the league average, and confirms that this fast start is mostly a fluke.
Ian Kinsler | 13 taters
Kinsler hit 11 all last season and hasn’t hit more than 19 since 2011. But his HR/FB rate isn’t actually all that high, at least from an absolute perspective. While his 13.8% mark does represent a personal career best, that’s not that much higher than the league average. Kinsler has always supplied his home runs, not from excellent power, but from his excellent contact ability and fly ball tendency. This year he’s hitting even more fly balls, but unlike Beltran, might actually be changing his approach and selling out. His strikeout rate is at a career high, but this time it’s supported by a career worst SwStk%. And since his batted ball distance is up at 285 feet, nearly the same as Beltran’s, Kinsler’s home run total hasn’t been fluky.
Marcus Semien | 12 bombs
With both power and speed, Semien was a popular sleeper/breakout pick heading into the season. So far, the power has surged, but a collapse in BABIP has left his wOBA barely higher than last year. He’s hitting more fly balls, mostly at the expense of line drives, which is no doubt hurting his BABIP, but his home run surge is primarily due to a doubling of his HR/FB rate. Unfortunately, with a batted ball distance of only about 284 feet, it’s highly unlikely he sustains such a high HR/FB rate.
Gregory Polanco | 9 big flies
In 390 fewer plate appearances, Polanco has hit just as many home runs this year as he has all of last. Of course, this isn’t all that surprising to me, as he was one of eight I identified as possessing major HR/FB rate upside this year. Unlike the other names in this article, Polanco isn’t striking out more or hitting any additional fly balls. The power spike is driven entirely by a near tripling of his HR/FB rate. Part of the explanation behind the jump is that his fly ball pull rate has rebounded off its low from last year. More pulled fly balls typically results in more home runs. The rest of the explanation stems from a batted ball distance that has jumped 21 feet from last year. Polanco is legit and coupled with a spike in walk rate, this is a real breakout.
Eduardo Nunez | 9 dingers
Nunez was actually the inspiration behind this article. Last week, he hit two homers in a game, putting him at nine. Nine homers already for Eduardo Nunez?!?!?!?! That’s what I thought. He has literally never hit more than nine in any professional season, and his high of nine was first set all the way back in 2009 at Double-A. But all of a sudden, Nunez has gone from a guy contributing some speed in his sporadic playing time along with limited power, to a five category contributor! Seriously, check the stats, I’m as shocked as you. While he has decided to stop walking, his strikeout rate is unchanged, but his fly ball rate has rebounded back to his pre-2014 levels, after a two year trough. Most importantly, his HR/FB rate has jumped into the double digits for the first time. Unfortunately for lucky fantasy owners, a batted ball distance of just 272 feet suggests that he won’t maintain a HR/FB rate above the league average for long.
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
Forgot about Leonys who has 10 dingers with a lot less PAs than those other guys.
Ahhh, I missed him since he didn’t qualify for the default leaderboard and I forgot to change the minimum PA!
If anyone has Dae-Ho Lee on their team, it’s worth noting he also has 10 HRs (in just 114 PAs).
When comparing average fly ball distance to HR/FB%, does it add much (if any) value to also account for the pull % on fly balls?
As an anecdotal story, I remember having Austin Jackson back in 2014, I believe, and he experienced a major decline in HR/FB% despite having a career high average fly ball distance (and ranked well above the MLB average). I held onto him for a long time with the belief that it was just a matter of time before his HR/FB% increased to more accurately reflected his average fly ball distance. However, about 4-6 weeks later someone wrote an article about Jackson and noted that virtually all of his fly balls were in the middle of the field, and thus going to die in the deepest part of the ballpark. Thus, in his case, if you were to just look at FB distance, it seemed like he should have an above average HR/FB%, but when you accounted for the fact that most of his FBs went to the center of the field, it made sense that his HR/FB% remained well below league average.
Perhaps Jackson was an anomaly and most hitters tend to spray their FBs to all parts of the field, but I think it would be worth exploring whether certain hitters pull a higher percentage of FBs than others, and thus they might have a higher-than-expected HR/FB% if you were to only look at average FB distance.
It sure does! My xHR/FB rate equation uses a number I get from Jeff Zimmerman, the average absolute angle of fly balls. The angle is where on the field the ball is hit, and the idea is the closer to the lines (pulled or opposite field) will result in more home runs. Unfortunately, I don’t have updated data from Jeff, so I can’t use it now.
Good article Mike. Beltran sat on waivers in my league for a long time, thought about pulling the trigger but didn’t, only to watch him hit 10 HR or so for another owner.
Quick question – you use Beltran’s batted ball distance (286 feet, ranks 122nd) to “confirm that the fast start is mostly a fluke”, but then use Kinsler’s batted ball distance (285 feet, slightly below Beltran’s) to show that “Kinsler’s home run total hasn’t been fluky.” Since they have almost identical batted ball distances, shouldn’t they be categorized the same – either both fluky, or both not?
Nope, because it comes down to the HR/FB rate. It’s a fluke if they don’t match. Kinsler’s HR/FB rate is just a bit above average, just like his distance. Beltran has a similar distance but nearly double the average HR/FB rate.
It wasn’t presented very well, so I can see the confusion, but Beltran has a 21.3% HR/FB, where Kinsler’s is 13.8% as mentioned.
That makes sense, thanks for the responses. It was worded rather oddly, as though the batted ball distance was the sole determining factor of the relative flukiness of Beltran’s and Kinsler’s performances.
Good questions Jason. Does it matter that Beltran calls Yankee stadium home and Kinsler plays in Detroit? I don’t know the breakdown of where each of them hit their home runs. But I’d guess hitting in Yankee Stadium must help. Not that I think this will continue for either. I’d guess Beltran gets injured sooner rather than later.
Ok, so I looked it up. Beltran….11 of 16 in Yankee Stadium. 10 of 16 batting left handed.
Yes, park factors definitely play a role, but he’s been in Yankee Stadium for years now
Hey Mike: can you find the batted ball distance of Robbie Grossman for me? I can’t find it under heat maps, perhaps because he hasn’t had enough abs.
I just traded Colby Rasmus for him in a 16 team pts. league and one reason I did it (I also had too may LHBs who sit against lefties, Grossman is a switch hitter) is because he’s hitting the ball harder and his FB% is higher than it’s ever been. I figured that combination might mean he beats the ROS projections for HRs.
Small sample size of course, but since Rasmus sits low among batted ball distance leaders and Grossman will almost certainly get more hits, I figured I had nothing to lose.
And do you rate prospects? If so, what’s your opinion of Tyler O’ Neill?
Thanks as usual for these interesting columns.
You could go to the below link to find it, leave everything default, check off Home Runs and Flies and the date range. The site is down now so can’t access it, but try later and maybe it will work.
http://www.baseballheatmaps.com/graph/battedballdist.php
Nope, not the guy to ask about prospects! I can check the stats, but I’m sure you’re looking for more than that! 🙂
Neil Walker at 13 too
I have the inverse reaction looking at my roster totals and going,”jose abreu only 8 hrs!?”. read the article about him being pitched inside and possible league found a hole in his swing.any new theory out there?
Yeah, that’s baloney. Well, maybe it’s true, but it’s certainly not hurting his power. He’s 5th in batted ball distance at 315 feet.
http://www.baseballheatmaps.com/graph/distanceleader.php
Mike, you seem very certain that his power has not gone down just from loooking at HR+FB distance (37 events). Does the fact that he is 238th in total batted ball distance (161 events) mean anything to you? Leaving out line drives may be leaving out a piece of the puzzle.
Nope, because that also includes ground balls, which we don’t care about. Line drives rarely go for home runs, so we really only care about his fly ball distance. And by rarely going for home runs, it’s just a classification thing in that they will rarely be classified as a line drive even if the launch angle might say it technically is.
Pitchers throwing inside and finding a hole in his swing would show up in a lower BABIP, as a result of perhaps fewer line drives. And it actually has. If it was affecting his fly balls by leading to more can of corns, then his distance would be down, but it’s actually up.