Why Averages Are Deceiving — Batter Hard%, Part 2

Yesterday, I used batter Hard% as the first example of why using averages might be deceiving. Along with an explanation as to why, I listed and discussed 15 hitters whose fly ball Hard% most exceeded their overall Hard%. Let’s now shift to the other side and identify and discuss the hitters whose FB Hard% settled most below overall Hard%. These are the hitters whose home run power was actually worse than overall Hard% suggests.

It’s very surprising to find Rafael Devers’ name atop this list, sporting a sub-30% FB Hard%, as he just posted the highest HR/FB rate of his short career. His FB Hard% represented a 10% decline from 2019, which is pretty significant. At age 24 now, I’m not concerned, but do watch his strikeout rate, which jumped a whopping 10 percentage points after improving dramatically in 2019.

Yup, just another reminder that it was a forgettable 99 at-bats for former top prospect Carter Kieboom.

Josh Bell is a perfect example of why splitting out Hard% by batted ball type is important. His overall Hard% declined marginally after his power breakout last year, while remaining above 40%. That’s seemingly a good thing. But that Hard% only stayed afloat thanks to his GB Hard%. That mark jumped by nine percentage points, while his FB Hard% plummeted from 51% in 2019 to just the 30.6% this year. This was the worst FB Hard% he has posted, though he still managed to nearly sustain last year’s HR/FB rate spike. Like many others, his strikeout rate surged and is a figure to watch. This is especially important since he’s not a BABIP guy, so a high strikeout rate means a killer batting average.

Not every rookie hits the ground running like Ronald Acuña Jr. We only got 132 plate appearances from Jo Adell, but his poor debut shouldn’t have been a surprise given his weak Triple-A showing in 2019 with lots of strikeouts, a massive SwStk% mark, and no power. There are a lot of things to like here, obviously, but it’s impossible to know when it’ll click and his exciting skills package translates to big league success. He’ll be just 22 next season, so even if he flops again, remember this and give him time to blossom.

This was a huge drop in FB Hard% for Austin Meadows, as he posted a 44.4% mark last year which helped drive his big breakout. I’m happy to give him a mulligan and buy him at a discount, but worry that platoon-happy Rays might sit him often against left-handed starters, cutting into his counting stats.

After glowing reports in Spring Training and still remembering his former top prospect status and minor league performances, I was cautiously optimistic about Lewis Brinson heading into the season. While his power id rebound off his lowly 2019 numbers, this still wasn’t near good enough to offset his remaining flaws. Is 821 plate appearances of a .237 wOBA enough to officially give up on a player?

While Gleyber Torres’s overall Hard% decline, it didn’t tumble like his HR/FB rate and ISO. Where you really see the decline is in that FB Hard%, which collapsed from 40.7% in 2019 to the 23.8% this year. You don’t expect a 23-year-old to suddenly lose so much power, so he was either hiding an injury or this was just a random 136 at-bat power slump. I had not been close to rostering Torres in the past, but depending on his price, he potentially makes for a decent buy in 2021.

I’m sure some of you weren’t surprised that Alex Bregman was a bust this year in fantasy leagues, even though he remained a solid MLB hitter. His power output fell, but not to distressed levels, so you probably wouldn’t think his FB Hard% fell a whole lot. It did though, by just over 10 percentage points versus 2019. For Bregman, a lot of things went wrong to drive down his fantasy value, such as his career low BABIP, a slight decline in HR/FB rate, a jump in strikeout rate, and zero stolen base attempts. You usually see one or two metrics moving in the wrong direction, but this time it was a little of everything. I still think given his elite contact ability and the relatively small sample size of 153 at-bats, he makes for a nice bounce back candidate at a discount, though I certainly wouldn’t count on a return to 40+ homers.

Wow, it’s weird to see Anthony Rendon’s GB Hard% so high! This was actually the first season it’s been over 40%, let alone 50%. Incredibly, his GB Soft% was only 1.8%, which means just one ground ball all season was classified as soft. It’s too bad he didn’t save that bat speed for his fly balls, but if you exclude his career best FB Hard% recorded in 2019 of 50.9%, this year’s mark was right in line with his history. So you’ll notice that his overall Hard% this season nearly mirrored his spike last year, but this year’s was fueled by the grounders, while last year was fueled by the flies. Once again, this is exactly why you need to split Hard% by batted ball type.

I purposely extended this list to end on Vladimir Guerrero Jr., because although he’s been a perfectly acceptable hitter so far, he has actually been a big disappointment, probably to Blue Jays fans, and definitely to fantasy owners. The first obvious issue is his batted ball profile is poor, as he has hit too many grounders given the type of hitter we think he is, and too few line drives. His FB Hard% declined from his 2019 debut and landed well below the league average. When you’re not hitting that many fly balls to begin with, it’s even more important that the flies that are being hit are being hit hard. Furthermore, he rarely pulled those flies this year, making it even more difficult to knock one over the fence. I still love his contact ability and low strikeout rate, so the foundation is there for Albert Pujolsian type seasons as the absolute upside. He just hasn’t shown anything to suggest he’ll come close to realizing that upside in the near-term.