What to Make of A.J. Pollock
With injuries starting to compile across many a fantasy team, the waiver wire is becoming an attractive place to find some value on your rosters. While many have already started on this boat, I wanted to do a bit of an analysis on A.J. Pollock as he is someone I have recently added to fill in, at least for the time being, while some of my better players are on the disabled list.
Pollock displays the ever so essential power and speed combination. How much of each is the thing to focus on. What I love is that he has combined his home run power with other extra base hits, and also that he has stolen bases at a rather high rate.
When it comes to Pollock, I think it is easy to point to his average and subsequently his on base percentage declining probably in the near future. With a career .275/.329/.434 line, even if we expect him to improve on those marks a bit, he is probably not the .315/.364/.546 guy he has been so far. But again, the attractiveness with Pollock lies in his home runs and speed. Playing in a great ballpark in Arizona and providing quality defense should allow Pollock the ability to earn playing time and keep his numbers up despite playing in a crowded outfield. Plus, at age 26, he is right around the start of his power peak so while he hit only eight home runs last season, the five he has hit this year seem more like a progression rather than an aberration.
One of the downsides to Pollock is his position in the batting order. This month, he has batted leadoff twice but otherwise has not hit higher than sixth. As he continues to hit he will continue to hit in more attractive lineup spots, but for now one concern is that you are only going to get three plate appearances from him on normal nights and four on the high end. It is also worth noting that in the thirteen games in May he has seen his line rise from .258/.305/.449 to its current levels. He is riding a hot streak right now, and five of his six steals have come this month as well. Make no mistake, if you are acquiring Pollock via trade or picking him up on the waiver wire, you are buying him on a high at this point in time.
Even though we are buying him on a high, I am a fan of Pollock maintaining success in the power and speed departments enough to outset the likely decline in his rate states. I expect his RBI totals to start to pick him if he is hitting in the six or seven spots regularly, but the hope is that the Diamondbacks move him toward the top of the order and he helps boost your runs more than the RBI. If they do make that move to have him hit consistently in the top of the lineup, expect the steals to jump up as well. After all, in his past two years he has stolen 18 bases and been caught just four times. The Diamondbacks are looking for any way to win games, and if Pollock is running successfully look for him to continue to nab bases with regularity.
Ben has been at RotoGraphs since 2012 and focuses most of his fantasy baseball attention toward dynasty and keeper leagues.
when mark trumbo return?
July 1st
are we expecting parra/ross to platoon with trumbo and pollock starting most days?
It is a mystery.
A little deeper analysis would be useful. Looking at skills development, it’s pretty clear that Pollock is having a mini-breakout, considering who he is: walk rate trending up, FB% up, ISO noticably up (career 159, this year 231). That said, only a minibreakout–he is still the same guy, only moreso. But, this is a guy who was one of the most highly rated “Mayberry Method” guys (as measured by BaseballHQ/Baseball Forecaster Ron Shandler, one of the measures he uses to spot imminent breakouts. So, while he is not going to have a 1000+ OPS the rest of the way (and maybe never again for longer than a week), he is clearly a capable hitter getting better, and worth a long look for those who have to field CFers or deep leagues with multiple OF spots.
I think he could be useful in standard leagues honestly. His batted ball distance is up big time. I think 20 HRs is his floor.
After reading this “article”, I still don’t know what to make of AJ Pollock…
Can you please look a little bit deeper than his slash stats? “he’s probably closer to his career numbers than his current numbers” isn’t exactly helpful analysis. Is his batted ball profile/plate discipline any different? Obviously I could look this up myself, but I assumed an article about “what to make of AJ Pollock” would have something about AJ Pollock besides his triple slash lines.
“Plus, at age 26, he is right around the start of his power peak …”
I thought Eno’s research showed that power peaks before 25 these days. Obviously it’s case-by-case, but I don’t think we can assume his power peak to be in the future.
Out of curiosity I looked up Ben’s previous piece on Gavin Floyd and it was similarly devoid of actual content. So for anyone who bothers to read this far, here are some things about A.J. Pollock you might find interesting:
The current .371 BABIP is definitely on the high side, but looks somewhat plausible given a history of strong BABIP totals in the minor leagues, at least until you see that his line drive rate (which typically correlates with high BABIP) is an abysmal 12.7%, good for fourth worst among major league hitters. Now add in that he currently has an 18.0% infield hit percentage (second only to Brett Gardner), and it screams imminent decline in batting average.
So what do we make of the power? Well, he’s not actually hitting fly-balls more often, which is what you’d typically like to see as evidence of a true power breakout. Instead we’ve seen a tremendous jump from Pollock’s usual ~10% home run rate per outfield fly-ball up to 20.8% of his fly-balls to the outfield going over the fence. Sorry, but I’m not buying a jump that large as anything more than a particularly good week affecting a small sample. Now add in some bacon bits of disappointment in the form of a career low contact rate at 78.1%% and A.J. is showing no signs of being genuinely better than his 2013 self.
So if you have him, sell high. If you don’t have him, don’t bother picking him up. He’s the same guy he was last season.
Does all that “actual content” come with SSS dressing?
I need help reacting to a recent trade made in my league
Kyle Seager, Sea
Wil Myers, TB
Yordano Ventura, KC
For
Miguel Cabrera, Det
Torii Hunter, Det
Drew Smyly, Det
that’s as shady as shady gets. i mean triple crown winner for what? if your league is decent, the reactions will come from everyone.
is this a keeper league? the guy getting miggy was robbed. In all honesty you can very easily make the case that either team can win this trade. When I commish I give as much leeway as possible for owners to make their own decisions on how to build their roster, if you veto and the trade ends up going other than how you expected you are a terrible leaguemate. Dont complain about any trade that is plausible. Allow owners to own their own team.
Is this an OttoNeu league, or a league with salaries? The salaries would be important in evaluating the trade. If Miguel Cabrera is costing his owner $55 out of a $400 cap, and if Seager, Myers and Ventura are extremely cheap (e.g. $5 each) then this trade would seem very different than its face value.
For what it’s worth, I get an xBabip of .317 so he should likely be batting more in the .265 range than .300+. His LD rate of 12% is extremely poor.