The Hitter FB% Decliners

Yesterday, I discussed 10 hitters whose FB% has increased the most compared to last year. So now let’s check in on the other end of the list — the hitters whose FB% has declined the most versus last season. These hitters may be in danger of disappointing in the home run department.

Brian Dozier turned into such a power source once he started pulling a ton of fly balls. Not only is he hitting far few flies this year, but the flies he is hitting are being pulled significantly less often. His FB% Pull% is about half of his 2016 mark. Both of those declines are a bad sign for his power. The worst thing is that even with the reduction in fly balls, he’s still popping up the flies he is hitting as frequently as ever! So his BABIP hasn’t had much of an opportunity to jump. Everything else looks good though, such as his contact ability, walk, and strikeout rates, but the home run total isn’t going to come close to any of his last two season marks unless he gets that FB% back above 40%.

Kevin Kiermaier isn’t the type of hitting you want a ton of fly balls from, so a conversion to more of a ground ball hitter is probably a good thing. But this looks quite extreme, as his GB% is hovering near 60%, which is reserved for the slap hitters with no power, which he is not. More alarming is the strikeout rate spike, but his SwStk% has only increased marginally, so it may just be a small sample fluke.

Robbie Grossman has been performing like he typically has, except for the complete lack of fly balls. But it’s not all bad, because many of those flies have become line drives, and you can’t really complain about that. He’s not going to be much of a home run threat with this batted ball profile, but should continue to be a darn solid hitter for the Twins and a decent asset in AL-Only OBP leagues.

What’s up with Twins and former Twins?! Trevor Plouffe can’t blame the current Minnesota water, but maybe it’s just delivering a delayed effect. You haven’t realized that Plouffe hasn’t lifted the ball much this year, because the rare times he has, the ball has flown out of the park, resulting in an unsustainable 33.3% HR/FB rate. He’s never posted a FB% below 36%, so this is a significant decline. Since he’s never hit for average, he needs to hit for power to contribute to fantasy rosters, which he’ll have a tough time doing without a high 30% to 40% fly ball rate. The insane strikeout rate doesn’t help either, but a league average SwStk% suggests that’s coming way down.

Travis Shaw has enjoyed a nice beginning to his Brewers career, which has undoubtedly led fantasy owners to pick him up in any leagues he was undrafted in. But his power is on shaky ground as his sub-30% fly ball rate means he needs a 20%+ HR/FB rate to be a positive contributor.

Man, this was not the start many had envisioned for Alex Bregman who used an early pick or paid a fair sum for the right to his stats. The underlying skills look good, but he has yet to hit a long ball and went from being a fly ball hitter last year to a ground ball hitter. Now with minor league batted ball data on player pages, we could see that he was a fly ball hitter in the minors, so it’s head scratching what has happened here. For anyone smarter than me than could analyze his swing, has his hitting mechanics changed that has made it more difficult to loft the ball? I would have advised buying here, but am definitely concerned about the flip-flopping in his batted ball distribution.

Last year, Evan Longoria posted a career high FB%, so it should have been expected that he would decline from that peak. But, can you believe that in his nine year career, he has never posted a FB% below 40%?! Talk about consistency. Some of the lack of flies is because of the whole line drive thing, which is fine, though they are being offset by all the pop-ups and therefore haven’t actually boosted his BABIP. He probably looks the most fine on the list simply because his FB% difference is off a career best and if you add some of the liners back, he’d be up in to the high 30% range, which isn’t much lower than his career mark.