What to do With a Few Potential Disappointments From the Early Rounds

Disappointment is entirely about expectations. Hence the hedging and inclusion of “potential” in the headline. If you weren’t expecting Michael Brantley to have a 20-20 season, he is not disappointing you at all right now. If you were, he has been kind of a bummer. I’m taking a closer look at four players ranked in the preseason RotoGraphs top 35 who may have not performed quite as expected.

I’ve addressed Edwin Encarnacion, Carlos Gomez and Troy Tulowitzki in other articles, so I won’t revisit those potential disappointments. Since we’re already working with smaller-than-ideal samples, I’m not going to include anyone who’s played fewer than 40 games (Anthony Rendon, Yasiel Puig and Jacoby Ellsbury). Statistics through June 24.

Ian Desmond

I advocated patience and laid out a semi-optimistic outlook for Desmond just a few weeks ago, so what’s changed? He’s been horrible in June. Seriously, it’s been really, really bad. He’s struck out 25 times to one walk. Yes, his .191 BABIP for the month has hurt, but that rate can’t shoulder all of the blame. Twenty players have BABIP’s under .230 for the month. Desmond, Mark Trumbo and Anthony Gose are the only ones with negative wRC+ values. The performance is starting to have an effect on his playing time too, as he’s been benched twice in the past week. After the ugly month of June, Desmond’s season numbers look a little more conclusive. His BB/K is the worst of his career and that makes sense because he’s swinging at more pitches out of the zone than ever.

As far as batted balls go, his fly ball + home run distance (the main point I was clinging to when I was positive on him in the previous piece) has slipped to the worst of his post-breakout total by about eight feet. He’s also hitting the most ground balls and making the least hard contact of his post-breakout era.

I’d sell in the majority of situations. Because Desmond is just 29 and has been so good the past three seasons, he can’t be completely written off. For those trailing in the standings and looking for a bold move, he makes an interesting lottery ticket in case the struggles are related to a mechanical issue he can correct.

Robinson Cano

I also addressed Cano recently and I also walked away feeling slightly optimistic considering where he sat last season on that date. And like Desmond, the slight optimism is in danger of evaporating as the end of June approaches. He’s still confusing since he’s not chasing an absurd amount of pitches and while he’s experienced an uptick in swinging strike rate, it’s not large and he had a similar rate in 2012 – his best season. And yet, his strikeout rate is bad (for him) and getting worse with a June BB/K about a third of his career rate.

To get an idea of what Cano can do, he hit eight home runs, with 34 runs, 34 RBI and five steals from July 1 through the end of last season. Even with the spiked strikeout rate, those seem like attainable numbers for him. ZiPS and Steamer both project similar lines, with a few more runs/RBI. Second base is deep this year (Jose Altuve and Ian Kinsler are outside the top 13 in wRC+) so I’d offer a similar recommendation to Desmond: Sell if you can based on his name, buy if you need a lottery ticket, and hold if the listed numbers sound appealing for your second baseman.

Adrian Beltre

Beltre’s awful average is a product of a subpar BABIP that isn’t backed up by his batted ball data. His plate discipline numbers look solid. This is mostly based on a feeling that rushing a 36-year-old back from the DL two days after he can’t grip a bat might not bode well for his offensive performance.

Two minor issues are hard contact and getting behind in the count. Beltre is making the least amount of hard contact he has since 2009, when he produced the lowest wRC+ over a full season of his career. He’s still hitting with some authority as his fly ball + home run distance is right in line with the past two seasons. Pitchers are getting the first strike against him at the highest rate of his career, and while that’s not showing up in his strikeout rate, it could have an effect on his ability to make hard contact. Outside of average, Beltre’s stats for the season look mostly fine, his placement here isn’t really about them since they were overwhelmingly accomplished before his injury. I think he’s a big risk for reinjury or poor performance playing through the injury moving forward.

Michael Brantley

Are you not pleased? This is what Brantley is. Many of you will find his placement here as a disappointment puzzling, but for those of you who expected more power, his four home runs (and seven that ZiPS and Steamer project the rest of the way) feel disappointing. They shouldn’t. The 20 home runs from last season were always a long shot to happen again. Disappointed by his average? His BABIP is right in line with the previous three seasons before last year’s spike. There’s at least more potential for that to bump back up to 2014’s total than there is with the power.

Brantley is a very good hitter, plus his walk and swinging strike rates indicate he’s getting even better. I don’t believe he’s an elite fantasy player and worth a pick in the first few rounds. I’d hold and enjoy the solid four-category production from a player whose excellent approach and talent will help him avoid any batting-average-killing slumps.