Yasiel Puig Entices Yet Again

Over the last two weeks, the hitter walk rate leaderboard features some usual suspects. Joey Votto is first at 31.7 percent. Mike Trout is third at 25.9 percent. But sandwiched between them is Yasiel Puig at 27.3 percent. 27.3 percent! This is the same player who finished the 2016 season with a 6.5 percent walk rate over 368 plate appearances. This is the same player who swung at this pitch:

I’ll be the first to admit that players can do some pretty fluky things over a two-week period. As Dave Cameron recently chronicled, new-Orioles infielder Tim Beckham has been the best player in baseball in August while Puig has found this plate discipline. But I think Puig deserves this attention because he is doing something now that he hasn’t done since his infamous 2013 season.

Puig Rolling BB Rate 2013-17

Overall in 2013, Puig wasn’t much of a walker. But notice his sharp spike in walks about 50 plate appearances into that season. At the time, Puig was hitting close to .400 for the young season, so pitchers were likely testing whether Puig would expand the zone. He did. His 37.6 percent out-of-zone swing rate was top-25 in baseball among 276 hitters with at least 300 plate appearances, and his walk rate quickly declined. Since then, Puig’s chase rate has ebbed and flowed, but recently, it’s gotten very low, closing in on 20.0 percent over his last 15 games.

Puig Rolling O-Swing Rate 2013-17

It’s not exactly news that a player who is walking a lot is also showing good plate discipline peripherals, but Puig is notable because of the corresponding transformation of his batted ball profile. While this base on balls bonanza has taken place, Puig has been smashing the balls he has swung at. His rolling 15-game hard-hit rate is about 45.0 percent, well north of even his best periods from late 2014 to late 2016.

Puig Rolling Hard Contact Rate 2013-17

But despite that exceptional quality of contact, Puig has not experienced a boost to his BABIP. His rolling average on his batted balls is in the mid-.200s, which is no different than it is for his full season this year (.260) and down substantial from his career mark of .325.

Puig Rolling BABIP 2013-17

Over the last two weeks, Puig has slashed a bizarre .188/.409/.406, but his hard-hit rate suggests that major positive regression to his average and slugging could be coming. That’s assuming that Puig can maintain his new batting approach. Dave Roberts seems to have some faith in Puig’s recent performance given that he just moved him from 8th to 6th in the batting order—although, Joc Pederson’s struggles no doubt played a major role in that decision.

Puig has teased fantasy players in the past, but a stronger batting average is really all he needs to become a five-category contributor. He’s already on pace for a 25-15 season with about 75 runs and RBI. Given his recent strides in plate discipline and hard contact, I’m willing to give Puig another chance.





Scott Spratt is a fantasy sports writer for FanGraphs and Pro Football Focus. He is a Sloan Sports Conference Research Paper Competition and FSWA award winner. Feel free to ask him questions on Twitter – @Scott_Spratt

3 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
CJ03
6 years ago

His x-stats look really really good through 50PA for August.
xAVG .296, xOBP .473, xSLG .520, xOBA .428

Damn.