Archive for Draftsreet

Andrew McCutchen is really good. Groundbreaking stuff, I know. McCutchen gets a ton of a press; he did win the MVP last year, after all. Despite that, it feels like we don’t talk about the things that make him so, so good enough.

So far this season, among qualified batters, six batters have walked more than they’ve struck out. Those batters are: Victor Martinez, Jose Bautista, Coco Crisp, McCutchen, Kurt Suzuki, and Carlos Ruiz. Martinez has accomplished this feat by only striking out 6.6% of the time; Suzuki has taken that same path, striking out 8.1% of his plate appearances. Bautista has done so by slashing his strikeout rate, while also upping his walk rate a little closer to his unbelievable 2011 campaign. Crisp and Ruiz have been able to keep the scale in their favors by walking at a career high clip. As for McCutchen? He’s maintained his contact rate, while chasing even fewer pitches out of the zone. Only seven qualified batters have chased a fewer percentage of pitches out of the strike zone.

In 2012, McCutchen slashed .327/.400/.553, good for a 158 wRC+; 2013, .317/.404/.508, 155 wRC+. This year, his line is: .321/.435/.550, 177 wRC+. McCutchen’s hitting for the same amount of power he did in 2012 (.229 ISO versus .226), while besting his career high walk rate by more than 3%. Andrew McCutchen is an incredible player, and he’s currently maxing out every portion of his offensive profile. It’s a thing of beauty.

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I was going to riff a little on Corey Kluber today, but Fangraphs’ newest addition August Fagerstrom took care of that yesterday. I moved onto to Dallas Keuchel, only to remember that Mike Petrellio wrote about him wonderfully. Finally, I said: “I guess I’ll write about Phil Hughes.” Too late, Jeff Sullivan already beat me to it and I can’t compete with him.

I found someone to talk about, though. Jimmy Rollins. Rollins’ obituary was written by most fantasy players late last season. His power had vanished, and his speed was just waning with age. Not so fast. Using wRC+, Jimmy Rollins is having the best offensive season of his career, by a rather large margin. Rollins has only posted a wRC+ better than 105 once, when he posted a 119 mark during his 2007 MVP season. He’s currently (Friday afternoon) sitting at 132. His power has bounced back, and so has his walk rate.

His batted ball profile hasn’t changed much, but his approach at the plate has. Rollins is swinging at fewer pitches than he ever has. His 38.5% swing percentage gives him the 16th lowest swing% in the major leagues. You may be wondering, why does that matter so much? Well Rollins has always had pretty good contact skills, so dropping the percentage of pitches he’s swings matters a ton. His overall swing% has dropped; likewise his o-swing%. He’s chasing less, and even when he’s chasing he’s making less contact, therefore putting fewer bad balls (which usually don’t amount to much) in play. Rollins is swinging less, but it appears when he swings he’s swinging at pitches he knows he can do damage with. It’s an approach that has helped countless people over the years including: Brian Dozier, Adam Lind, Edwin Encarnacion, and Jose Bautista (go Blue Jays, I guess?).

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Eric Stults‘ wasn’t hit hard after all. In fact, he was barely hit at all. Baseball, man. It’s a weird game. And speaking of weird, despite the fact that Brian Dozier is completely legit, it’s weird to see his name at the top of leaderboards. He went deep again last night – bringing his total to ten. Weird game, indeed.

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Let’s be honest, if you’re watching baseball tonight, you’re watching Jose Fernandez and Alex Wood square off again. If that wasn’t your plan, you should immediately make it your plan. Last week – when the two first met – it was magical, as Jeff Sullivan wrote. Even if you aren’t a huge fan of either team, tune in for the fact that the two men above are two of the quickest working staring pitchers in the game, which is always a plus.

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