Archive for Chase Headley

The only time that recent history shows me discussing Chase Headley is that time during the offseason where I declared that the New York Yankees should look at Luis Valbuena as a potential upgrade at the position. Obviously, whatever points were made there were moot, as Valbuena went on to sign with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim later on in the winter. Nonetheless, I wasn’t terribly high on Headley coming into the 2017 season, and you’d be hard-pressed to find folks (who aren’t liars) that were or even are.

Regardless of expectations, Headley is off to the best start of any player at the third base position. Yes, the same position that includes Bryant, Donaldson, and Machado, among a handful of other high-end players currently sports Chase Headley as the class of the hot corner. He was the first third sacker to eclipse the 1.0 WAR mark and the early trends have him returning to a level of offensive prominence that we haven’t seen since, like, 2013 when he was still in San Diego.

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As thin as this free agent class of the winter of 2016-17 is, collectively, the third base group represents an especially barren group among the positions, something that I covered a couple of weeks ago. Justin Turner is obviously the only true prize of the bunch, but I did also note that Luis Valbuena could be an intriguing option for a number of teams, due to the pop and approach that he brings, as well as his oft-noted versatility. As it would turn out, early suitors are already emerging, with the New York Yankees appearing to be at the front of the line for the 31-year-old infielder.

It’s interesting that the Yankees would be after Valbuena as an option, especially given that he’s believed to be pursuing a situation where he has an opportunity to get regular starts, even if those starts don’t come at the hot corner. The Yankees wouldn’t appear to be that opportunity, with Chase Headley and Starlin Castro currently locked into third and second base, respectively.

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My goal over the next few weeks will be to reexamine some of the seasons of third basemen throughout Major League Baseball. We’ll start with the bottom tiers, in the form of a couple of groups, working our way up to individual performances that are actually worth discussing.

Since WAR isn’t necessarily a fantasy element, we’ll use something at least a little bit more relevant to our purpose here and organize our 3Bs by their Off rating. And since the objective is to observe the results and performances of the position overall, we have to start somewhere. That ‘somewhere’ just happens to be at the bottom of our 24 qualifying third sackers.

The good news is that no third baseman finished on the negative side of the WAR game. However, there were some that provided negative offensive value to their club, based off of that Off rating alone. The following represent that group, with the exception of Yunel Escobar, who represents the only “league average” player among these seven, if we’re using Off to determine that.

There certainly isn’t a whole lot within this group that will surprise anyone. The strikeout and walk rates fluctuate a bit, depending on the hitter, but the on-base and power numbers are relatively consistent across the board. The wRC+ column gives you a pretty good idea of where this hitters stand, in terms of being considered “league average”, if Off didn’t already do that for you.

With numbers like this, most of this group isn’t terribly interesting to delve deep into, especially because this was largely expected from the majority of the names on this list. But a pair worth exploring just a little bit deeper, and two that we profiled earlier this season, are Maikel Franco and Travis Shaw.

Franco is interesting because he wasn’t supposed to be here. He was expected to take the next step forward as an offensive player and a potential building block for the Philadelphia Phillies. Instead, he ended up providing negative offensive value overall. There’s some power there, to be sure, as he hit 25 homers and notched the second highest ISO among this group of 3B. In that column earlier in the year, I noted Franco’s increase in swing percentage from his tendencies in 2015, particularly against offspeed and breaking pitches. Turns out, that was a trend that continued throughout the year, as he experienced a near 10 percent increase against offspeed and one of about eight percent against breaking.

This is where things get interesting. Turns out, those trends aren’t necessarily indicative of his overall struggles. Even with that in mind, he still only swung at less than two percent more pitches outside of the strike zone, and experienced a swinging strike rate of 11.8%, only a 0.7% increase. His contact rate was also up about a percentage point. And even those figures can be somewhat deceiving, as his 52.0% overall swing rate was a five percent increase (and the 21st highest rate among all qualifying Major League position players). His penchant for swinging at the first pitch crept up near 40%. That’s absurd. And while he was still able to make decent contact (30.7% Hard%) at a reasonable rate (77.1%), he’s going to have to find an appropriate balance between a legitimate approach and the aggressiveness that he’s become known for. That’ll be the challenge with the new hitting coach in Philly.

Shaw is disappointing just because of the start off to which he got in 2016. He hit .314 in April and a still quality .275 in May. Unfortunately, the writing was on the wall that a slump was on the way and, boy, did it come. His next four months saw averages of .214, .246, .167, and .203, respectively. His OBP over those final four months was just .270, while the power dipped from a solid .213 ISO in the first two months (including a .239 mark in May), to just .160 for the rest of the year. In three of those months, he posted a wRC+ at 50 or below.

Given that his BABIP in April came in at .410, followed by a .347 mark in May, there wasn’t any doubt that a slump was coming. Especially since his hard hit rate dipped in the second half by about seven percent, following from about 35 percent to a mark more around 28, finishing just into the bottom half of the third base group in that regard. While luck certainly played into it in both regards (within the hot start and the frigid finish), there’s reason to believe that Shaw can be a serviceable player in Boston. He’s a versatile player with some pop. If he can solidify the approach, as his strikeout rate did rise above 25% in 2016, there will be a place for him.

The place for the remainder of this group, however, remains to be seen. Escobar, Suarez, and Garcia all maintain relative insignificance because they’re merely stopgaps on bad teams. Headley is past his prime and showed some pop towards in July, but was decidedly average for the remainder of the year. Cuthbert was merely a fill-in for Mike Moustakas and will attempt to become more versatile this winter in order to maintain some semblance of value. In any case, Franco and Shaw remain the only intriguing options for this group moving forward.

Next week, we’ll take a look at the middle-of-the-road types before subsequently moving onto those third basemen worthy of individual attention. And visuals.

Fantasy baseball players can, at this point, feel pretty safe in making the judgment that the 2012 season represents an outlier in Chase Headley’s statistical ledger.

The switch hitter went yard 31 times and led the National League in RBIs with 115 that year. He tied a career best with 17 swipes, to boot. He also played in 161 games for the second time in his lifetime; that much playing time isn’t exactly baseline performance level, either, although it’s hardly the No. 1 factor in his limitations both before and after that career year. He posted extremely similar rates in each of the past two campaigns, and they aren’t much different from the three he produced before that legendary rotisserie line.

The object at RotoGraphs is to point out the obvious, so, case closed. Please surf the Interwebs safely. Don’t forget to tip your cloud.

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I suppose it could be Ryan Zimmerman or Brett Lawrie or Manny Machado, but I tend to pick on David Wright so why not be consistent. Third base has been kind of a minefield lately and no doubt there are many of you headed into your championship stretch runs and that’s going to be difficult without a third baseman. Your trading deadline has very likely passed so the best you can do is try to dredge the muck on the waiver wire and hope you can find some decent short term production. Guys like Juan Uribe are probably free. Maybe Mark Reynolds. Probably Will Middlebrooks. But scanning the ownership rates, there are a few other bats I’d recommend with more confidence.

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I don’t really like tiers, but it probably has something to do with the neatness of placing a player in a designated strata. I’ve never used tiers in fantasy baseball drafts because I think it tends to blind you to the nuances of each player and the specific needs your team might have. But now that the season has started, you should be all drafted up and it’s time to brand your cattle.

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It’s probably hard to overstate just how hyped Chase Headley was after his massive 2012, isn’t it? Were it not for the presence of Miguel Cabrera at the hot corner, Headley would have been the best hitting third baseman that season, thanks to his 31 homers, 115 RBI, and 17 steals. While there was something to be said for the fact that a ridiculous second-half hot streak was unsustainable and that he’d hit just 4 homers the year before, it was hard to see him not continuing to be very good in 2013, especially since the fences were coming in at Petco.

And then… *thwomp.* Headley’s home runs fell from 31 to 13.  His RBI dropped by more than half, to just 50, his batting average fell to a career-low .250, and for the first time in a full season, he stole fewer than 10 bases. Read the rest of this entry »

Chase Headley and Lonnie Chisenhall have both failed to meet reasonable expectations this year. As recently as yesterday, they ranked 14th and 31st at third base on this very site. They started the season ranked 5th, and 21st, respectively. In just four short months, the fall has been precipitous.

Third base certainly still boasts its share of superstars, but if you have a few 12-team league teams, there’s no doubt one of them has caused you problems at the hot corner. There number of disappointing black holes have been abundant. But there are a couple players that have been showing signs of life lately that should register on your radar if you’re looking for help.

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It’s fairly likely this isn’t your first spin with fantasy baseball, so you are no doubt familiar with the fact that things go wrong. Despite all your preparation, your undivided attention to the prognosticators and the projection sheets, sometimes the bell rings and one or two of your top picks turn into moldy wet blankets. One of your sleeper picks never wakes. A can’t-miss rookie never arrives.

It happens. It’s part of the game.

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I’m just as guilty as anyone of feeling fed up with players, despite their pedigree. Today, I’ve got a little quick-hitter to try and provide some perspective on two well known players who are really scuffling right now. Both players could be nice little buy-low candidates, although players with name recognition always cost a little more it seems. But sometimes you have to roll the dice when you need lightning in a bottle in order to get back into contention, and that’s what these two have the potential to provide.

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