Wil Myers Stays Healthy, Runs Like Never Before

It was no secret that I was a big Wil Myers fan heading into 2016. He appeared on my 8 Hitters With Major HR/FB Upside list, which, in part, led to my bold prediction that he’d hit 25 homers and knock in 90 runs. He made me look good. Thank you Wil. But aside from staying healthy, there was another part of his fantasy performance that surprised even the most bullish of the optimists — a hefty 28 steals.

Those 28 steals matched his home run total, meaning that he was just two homers and steals shy of going 30/30! Never in his professional career had he stolen more than 12 bases and never had he attempted more than 18, before his 34 this year. The Padres as a team attempted 170 steals, which ranked as the third highest total in baseball. That represented a significant increase from last year when they attempted just 111, ranking 18th. Some of that had to do with the emergence of Travis Jankowski, of course, but not all of it.

The obvious explanation is a new managerial philosophy. Andy Green took over as the team’s manager this year and it appears that he favors the running game. Even Derek Norris enjoyed a spike in stolen base attempts and he amassed 100 fewer plate appearances than in 2015.

With Green still at the helm, you have to wonder if Myers’ stolen base total is any bit sustainable. For the optimists, he did succeed at an excellent 82% clip, which by itself should keep the green light shining. And although speed obviously wanes with age, Myers will still be just 26 next season, at which point we wouldn’t normally expect speed to fall off a cliff.

But then again, these stolen base spikes don’t typically last, especially from a guy who’s a slugger. Every so often, you see the random stolen base blips, and then they drop back to normal again the following year. Manny Machado and Anthony Rizzo are two perfect examples from 2015 that regressed in 2016. Obviously, cherry picked, but this is what happens more often than not when dealing with home run hitters. No one wants their slugger to land on the disabled list with a leg injury after trying to steal a base.

So basically, with history and common sense as our guide, it would be silly to expect a repeat. But even if he fails to repeat, that doesn’t mean he couldn’t settle into the double digits. I would imagine most projections will forecast somewhere in the low-to-mid teens. But who knows, really. Unfortunately, his steals totally is going to really drive his fantasy value and either make him a profitable investment again or a relative bust.

In terms of his home run power, he pulled the ball a bit more often than last year, but that simply marked a rebound off a bottoming back toward his pre-2015 levels. Oddly, his fly ball exit velocity actually declined this year from 89.05 mph to 87.14 mph, though his distance was essentially flat. For a hitter whose HR/FB rate just surged from 13.6% to a career high of 18.7%, you would expect clearer support from his underlying metrics. Or maybe the so-called juiced balls are the simple explanation. Then again, my HR/FB rate upside list identified him because it appeared he was actually unlucky in 2015. So perhaps that was indeed the case and his results simply caught of to his skills.

Playing first base full-time now no doubt is helping keep Myers healthy. However, he does have that sketchy injury past, is coming off a career high ISO and HR/FB rate, and a sudden explosion in stolen base attempts. That all added up to a career fantasy year that could easily make him overvalued in 2017. I would happily pay for 20/10, but any more than that is a touch too risky given his likely cost.