In the aftermath of last Thursday’s trade that sent J.T. Realmuto from the Marlins to the Phillies, I’m started to look into how much of a hit Jorge Alfaro’s fantasy value would take going from Citizens Bank Park to Marlins Park.
The exercise turned out to be a convoluted mess. Ultimately, it led to a finding that could prove useful in identifying players who are due for spikes or dips in their power numbers.
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Note: As was the case in a previous analysis of Statcast measures and their correlation with power metrics for hitters, I owe a debt of gratitude to Alex Chamberlain. He did a lot of heavy lifting for this column, running the correlations and discussing interpretations with me.
It won’t be the first or last time, but I did a silly thing on Twitter. In announcing a pick for the Pitcher List Experts Mock, I decided to tout the player I chose by citing one of his achievements, as captured by a Statcast metric.
Fun fact: Trevor Williams has the 3rd-lowest avg. exit velocity allowed on flies and liners over the last two seasons (min. 400 BBE), behind only deGrom and Kluber. Just took him in Rd 21 of the #PLExpertsMock. @JustinMasonFWFB, you’re up!
— Al Melchior (@almelchiorBB) December 13, 2018
(Justin, by the way, made his pick very promptly.)
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Note: Many thanks to Alex Chamberlain, who provided the correlations cited in this column, as well as insights regarding some of the relationships.
As I have searched for ways to spot undervalued power sources over the last few seasons, I have relied heavily on several Statcast metrics that are available on Baseball Savant. I have leaned especially hard on average flyball distance. While the leaderboard typically includes several players who are proven power sources, it has also featured some players who appear to be undervalued. For example, Scott Schebler, Kendrys Morales, Trey Mancini, Tim Beckham and Mitch Moreland all finished in the top 20 percent in average flyball distance in 2017 (min. 50 flyballs), and that gave me a little extra confidence to give them a try in 2018. For stretches, Morales and Moreland paid some dividends, but it was far from a foolproof method.
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