Who Are These Powerful Men?

There are a lot of players in Major League Baseball. There are even more in the minors. I’m not a prospect guy and rarely know names much outside the top 10 in baseball. So when a player is called up, I often times never heard of the player and unless I know him as a top 10 prospect, I generally don’t even bother to do the research to determine if he’s worth a pickup. In a shallow league, 90% of the time, the answer is no. But then that hitter keeps hitting home runs and I wonder to myself “who the heck is this guy?!” Let’s discuss some of those players that led to such a reaction.

Ian Happ was recalled back in mid-May and figured to be up for a short period while the Cubs were dealing with a rash of injuries. Instead, he has kept hitting and has remained with the big club since. Upon his recall, his name sounded vaguely familiar, but certainly not as familiar as the team’s number two prospect should have been to me! In our scouting report, he was graded with a future Game Power of 50, which is solid, but clearly not as high as his current power display suggests. You can see in the table above that his HR/FB skills have legitimately been elite, with a high barreled ball rate driving an xHR/FB rate of around 21%. This power is significantly better than he had shown prior to 2017, but he first hinted at the breakout at Triple-A this year. It makes it a little easier to believe in, especially since he’s just 22 when power growth could occur quickly.

In all his stops in the minors, just once did Chris Taylor ever post a HR/FB rate in the double digits, and that was barely so, when he posted an 11.1% mark at High-A all the way back in 2013. Now suddenly he’s sporting a 20.3% mark and has hit 12 homers. The 13 homers he has his this year (including one at Triple-A) is the same number he hit from 2014 through 2016 combined! Since he has also swiped 12 bases and is hitting .310, he has been one of the most shocking five category fantasy contributors this year. Of course, xHR/FB isn’t fully buying it, pegging him for a low teens HR/FB rate. That would still be far better than he has done over the majority of his career, so this appears to be real power growth, or just another side effect of the so-called juiced baseballs.

As I was watching Sunday Night Baseball, Paul DeJong hit yet another homer, and that act alone inspired this article. Who the heck is Paul DeJong is something I have been wondering the last couple of weeks. He now has 12 homers?! He was ranked as the team’s 13th best prospect heading into the season with a 45 Game Power grade. He posted a 14.9% HR/FB rate in Double-A last year and his power surged at Triple-A this year when he posted a 22% mark. With the homer last night, his HR/FB rate is now going to stand higher than it has at any previous level. xHR/FB likes him second best on this list, and while it isn’t giving him full credit for a 20%+ mark, a high teens mark is still much better than I would have guessed for a player I never heard of.

The one real concern here is his atrocious plate discipline. He has walked just four times all season, while striking out 56 times. That works out to a putrid 2.3% walk rate versus a 32.6% strikeout rate! His issue is that he swings at everything, including way too many pitches out of the zone, and he has trouble making contact as well. It’s almost as if he’s closing his eyes, swinging at every pitch as hard as he can and eventually he’ll make contact and the ball will fly out of the park. Doesn’t seem like an approach that could result in a sustainably high level of performance.

The Brewers claimed Jesus Aguilar off waivers at the beginning of February, and after many seasons in the minors, had only amassed 58 plate appearances spread across three seasons in the Majors. A big spring training that saw him hit seven homers and post a 1.376 OPS won him a bench job as a possible short side platoon mate to Eric Thames. That never happened when Thames opened the season scorching hot, but injuries have given Aguilar an opportunity and he has accumulated 205 plate appearances anyway. While he has never shown immense power in the minors, it has always been of the above average variety and he paired a high fly ball rate and high teens HR/FB rate to hit 30 homers in Triple-A last season. This year he has posted the highest HR/FB rate of his career, but his FB% has dropped into the low 30% range. Unfortunately, xHR/FB rate isn’t a believer. Surely his home park helps, but a single digit Brls/BBE shouldn’t ever lead to a sustainable 20%+ HR/FB rate.

Brian Goodwin was in the DeJong camp of players I absolutely knew nothing about and didn’t even both to research when he was called up. He was promoted in early May as a bench option, but injuries and his plate performance has earned him an every day job. He was ranked just 18th among Nationals prospects and slapped with a weak 40 future Game Power grade. He has been in the double digits in HR/FB rate in the minors before, but never this high. Also boosting his home run potential is his fly ball tendency. Nothing here appears too fluky, so he should continue to earn value in deeper leagues for as long as he’s holding a job.