Wilin Rosario’s Deeply Troubling Splits
I’ve been a staunch supporter of Wilin Rosario for awhile now, and was especially high on him coming into this year. As I pointed out in my preseason Bold Predictions column, the 25-year-old had hit 49 homers in his two previous seasons, and was reportedly set to start playing some first base, to keep his bat in the lineup on an everyday basis.
As it turned out, Rosario played first base for a measly 25 innings in 2014, likely due in no small part to the fact that Justin Morneau had his best season since 2010. Still, that extra playing time for Rosario never materialized. He ended up hitting the disabled list twice — once in May with a viral infection, and again in August with wrist inflammation — limiting him to 106 games.
Still, after back-to-back seasons with a weighted on-base average in the .350 range (.348 in 2013, .356 in 2014), Rosario’s wOBA was all the way down to .319 this year. He hit just 13 home runs. All told, a guy that likely cost between $15-20 in auctions this spring ended up providing just over $3 worth of actual production.
In many ways, Rosario’s peripherals are unconcerning, and he even did a few things particularly well this season. His plate discipline — long considered a weakness — was the best of his career. His 5.6% walk rate was a nice improvement from his 4.4% career rate coming into the season, and he made significant strides in his strikeout rate as well. His 17.1% K-rate was his career-best by far, as his previous low was 23.2% in 2012.
Rosario’s average fly ball distance (286.91 feet) was nearly identical to last year (285.29 feet), which doesn’t help explain why his isolated power dropped from .194 to .168. Furthermore, when Rosario did hit homers in 2014, they were anything but cheapies due to the thin Colorado air — according to ESPN’s Home Run Tracker, all seven long balls he hit at home this year had enough to get out of at least 25 parks.
But let’s stop a moment and talk about Rosario in Coors, or rather, Rosario’s complete and total reliance on Coors to inflate his production. It’s obvious that any hitter is likely to produce better in Denver than pretty much anywhere else. You don’t need to look much further than the Rockies’ ridiculous .902 home OPS this year, compared to their paltry .636 road OPS.
Yet, as I discovered when researching my Bold Predictions review last week, Rosario’s problems reside in a double-whammy of very troubling splits. First there’s the lefty-righty split…
- vs L (106 PA) – .310/.340/.610, .950 OPS
- vs R (300 PA) – .252/.293/.363, .656 OPS
…which is mighty concerning in its own right. Then you throw in his home-away split…
- Home (217 PA) – .343/.387/.540, .927 OPS
- Road (189 PA) – .183/.212/.306, .518 OPS
…and notice that it’s even more dramatic than his lefty-righty split. Finally, let’s overlay the two and look a set of numbers which will likely cross Rosario off your 2015 draft board:
- Road vs R (141 PA) – .158/.191/.211, .402 OPS
Rosario has always hit lefties better than righties, and he’s always hit better at home than on the road. Now, however, the problems have been heightened to a point where he’s a must-bench against right-handers on the road.
It bears noting that Rosario’s perceived decline in the power department may be partially the result of a 2012 that could end up looking like an outlier in his career data set. That year — in which he clubbed 28 bombs and posted a .260 ISO — his 307.03-foot average fly ball distance was good for 5th in the majors, not to mention 20+ feet longer than he’s shown in the two years since.
As long as Rosario’s in Denver, he’ll still get to spend half his games taking advantage of the league’s best hitting environment. That alone might be enough for him to remain a top-12 catcher, but his alarming platoon splits — and general worthlessness on the road — make him a guy I’m not touching in fantasy leagues next year.
Scott Strandberg started writing for Rotographs in 2013. He works in small business consultation, and he also writes A&E columns for The Norman Transcript newspaper. Scott lives in Seattle, WA.
Scott, love the work, but this really isn’t a double whammy; he’s really only showing one bad split, albeit a horrible one:
Home vs L: 358/397/642, 168 wRC+
Home vs R: 338/384/503, 127 wRC+
Away vs L: 271/286/646, 142 wRC+
Away vs R: 154/188/206, -10 wRC+ (!)
Reason for optimism: the -10 wRC+ came courtesy of a .196 BABIP.
Still, away games vs. righties account for over a third of possible starts for Rosario. His lefty and home splits are quite good, but you can’t use him every day, and that’s costly.
I do agree that he does have some troubling trends, but he finished as the 10th ranked catcher (minus Santana) despite the virus infection and the wrist.
Also, last year he was only slightly better at home than the road.
I am much more willing to write this year off this year as a lost year and trust his previous track record as opposed to a sign of things to come.
You mean his .344 BABIP with a 3.2% bb rate in 2013?
I do.
His home/away splits weren’t as bad in his first two years either. In 2013, he hit .290 with 11 HR away; .293, 10 HR home. In 2012, he hit .240 with 10 HR away; .297 18 HRs home.
I’d give him one more year before I cut bait, unless he brings something decent back in trade.
steamer likes him to post a line closer to 2013 next season. i think he could be a real bargain depending on his pre-season ranking and if you have the roster spots, he’s a fantastic daily play.
In my opinion, that Steamer projection is closer to his 2015 ceiling than it is to a responsible expectation. It’s projecting him to some how completely regain his power stroke, while also maintaining his plate-discipline improvement? Yeah, right. That’s not a likely outcome, it’s a best-case scenario.
Also, how many people make daily matchup plays with catchers? To do daily plays with a position that thin, you’d have to be in a league with tons of bench spots and very few teams.
Is it really that hard to believe that a guy who previously walked at a 5.9% clip with great power can’t return to form? I expect the K’s to be above 20%, but 23% for a guy with his power and position eligibility is hardly an atrocity. I doubt Weis lets him get nearly 500 PA’s because Weis isn’t a great manager, but I do expect that his ISO will be around .200 again and that he can sustain that walk rate. Otherwise the counting numbers don’t look absurd and I’d bet on the ballpark figure of .260/.310/.480, right in line with his career averages.
Rosario hit more ground balls last year than ever before. Moreover, his HR/FB rate went down DESPITE (as the author accurately mentioned) a relatively constant avg fly ball distance.
More ground balls means less opportunities to hit for power. The fly ball distance says the power is still there.
His FB% was north of 36% for both 2012 and 2013, and dipped to 31% for 2014. The “double whammy” in this case, is the decrease in flyballs and the “unlucky” drop in HR/FB rate (given consistent FB distance) from 25% to 17% to 13%.
25%, like his 2012 season, looks to be an outlier but his power numbers should project much closer to 2013 than 2014.
I had Rosario in a couple of my leagues, although I dropped him in the H2H league. The biggest issue I had with him that that he only played around four times a week, and it wasn’t always righties that he was benched against. This greatly limited his effectiveness in daily or weekly leagues. This led to me being quite a bit under under my games limit for catchers.
Living in England meant that the Colorado home games would usually start for me at 3am, so I would not be able to swap him for another catcher if he wasn’t starting. If they were an eastern team, then it would be easier to swap him for another catcher from the bench if he does not start, as there would be plenty of games that day starting later.
There was a very similar article about his hitting splits on here a couple of months ago. Prior to that I was only playing him at home or at hitter’s parks. I just left him out against righties on the road after that. I got a batting average of around 0.300 out of him, and a few home runs, so I can’t complain too much.
I had Lucroy in my other rotisserie league, and ended up with 162 games played at catcher (with help from the odd start from other catchers here and there). I am considering having him again, but he may now be over priced.
fwiw, when I can identify obvious platoon conditions for a hitter, it makes me more likely to draft them – assuming it’s a league with some bench depth. I can just turn those away righties into a Dioner Navarro night.
I do the same in the outfield, 1B, etc. But a position as thin as catcher? Most leagues don’t have the roster depth to go around carrying a backup catcher, IMO.
I think you can get away with streaming a 2nd catcher in 1 catcher 10-12 team leagues. I agree in that I love drafting players with stark platoon splits or play for the Rockies. If you know when a player is likely to perform better or worse you can plan smartly and take advantage of it.
I followed Rosario closely. He was benched unreasonably all the time by Walt Weiss – even if Rosario had just come off a good game and had rested recently. It took Weiss forever to recognize that Dickerson should play everyday. I have little faith in how Weiss sets his lineup.
Agree on Weiss. He does not set his lineup based on production and splits so its a crapshoot on any given day for Rosario.
Amazing on how accurate Scott’s FAN post is. Coming into 2014 Rosario looked like the 1st pick in our drafts for the catcher position. Turn to 2015 ,Now he is heading to the minors… Great analysis SS!!