The Year of the Rookie Power

It’s been one heck of a year for rookie hitters. Though, if you’re in a CBS league and take a look at the season-to-date value rankings, you will only find one rookie that made the top 50, Kris Bryant. That’s no surprise though as it’s not often a rookie is that good that he’s able to break into elite fantasy territory in his first season. Of course, some hitters were just promoted too late in the season, like Carlos Correa, to build the counting stats necessary. So while the counting stats from this year’s rookie crop are what we generally expect, the power is not.

Take a look at the number of rookies that are included in the top 50 hitters in average batted ball distance:

Nine of the top 50 hitters in distance are rookies! That’s pretty cool. Even cooler is that two of them are in the top five with distances over 310 feet! That’s insane! Exclamation points!!

When do we ever see this much power from a rookie class? Who wants to research how this rookie class’s ISO compares historically? Of course, ISO won’t match up perfectly with batted ball distance, but we obviously don’t have enough historical data from the latter to make such comparisons.

Nearly a month ago, I shared my thoughts in reaction to part of an article on another site in which the author wondered whether Kyle Schwarber is a second rounder next year. Through the previous night, his distance sat at 313.3 feet and ISO at .295. Since then, his ISO has “tumbled” all the way down to…247, while his distance has actually increased by a foot and a half.

So if pitchers were supposed to adjust to him, they clearly haven’t yet. Then again, he is also hitting a robust .156 during this time and struck out 34.1% of the time, so perhaps pitchers are doing just fine. Funny enough, six of his 12 hits over this 88 plate appearance span have been homers. He’s not proving that he’s a second rounder, but he’s surely making us believe that his power is no fluke whatsoever. He’s got 19 games at catcher so far, one more game for eligibility in many leagues next year!

Miguel Sano was supposed to have even more power than Schwarber and was given the holy 80 Raw Power grade by Kiley. He’s certainly shown it with his batted ball distance and ranking sixth in ISO in baseball among those with at least 250 plate appearances. He has also been a serious pull hitter, ranking 25th in Pull%. Pulling the ball + hitting it far = lots and lots of homers. It’s too bad he’s unlikely to qualify anywhere next year and will open the season stuck in the Util slot on fantasy teams. I still cannot believe his BABIP stands at .421 over 232 at-bats.

A complete loss of power is the primary culprit for Joc Pederson’s second half collapse. His ISO has been halved from .257 to .123 and his IFFB% more than doubled. His batted ball distance dipped from 312 feet to about 302 feet. The important thing to note here is that even though a 12 foot decline is significant, his distance remained over 300 feet! Yet, somehow that elite distance yielded just an 11.4% HR/FB rate in the second half. That’s rather bizarre. I was going to say he may be undervalued next year due to the second half, but his HR/FB rate still sits at 20.3%. Perhaps it was just luck evening out. That he attempted far fewer steals than expected and was quite unsuccessful when he did try, also caps his rebound potential next year.

The sample size remains fairly small for Alex Guerrero and it’s too bad we couldn’t get to see what he could do over a full season of at-bats. But for all the power he has shown, his plate discipline has been absolutely horrid. He has walked just six times (2.8%) on the year versus 53 strikeouts (24.7%), which is bordering on laughable. So even with all that power, his wOBA is actually sub-.300. Combined with brutal left field defense and you’re left with a negative WAR player. He probably won’t have a starting job next year either, though he has performed well defensively at third.

Jung-ho Kang’s unfortunate injury reduces his chances of being that intriguing power bat with 20-homer potential from the shortstop position next year.

I’m not sure what to say about Carlos Correa, except WOW, I did not expect this and his performance may prevent me from winning AL Tout Wars. Not bitter at all.

Remember when I highlighted Kris Bryant as one of seven hitters with HR/FB rate upside back at the end of July? At the time, his HR/FB rate was just 12.4%. I said that “he could easily post a 20% HR/FB rate the rest of the way”, and it wasn’t just because of his name and minor league record. Sure enough, since the day that article was published, Bryant has posted a 23.4% HR/FB rate. Given his high Pull%, this looks much closer to what he should be expected to do in the future than a mark in the low teens. He’s not going to replicate that .375 BABIP again, especially with such a high fly ball rate, but I would expect his HR/FB rate to finish much higher next year than where he currently stands. Wherever he ends up being drafted next year, I don’t think he’s going to be overvalued all that much, if at all.