By the Numbers: Putting some air under it
Having passed the halfway mark of the season, the home run droughts of Adam Dunn and Vladimir Guerrero don't look like cute little small sample flukes anymore. Similarly, the power increases we've seen from players like Lance Berkman and Asdrubal Cabrera seem to hold more weight, having lasted all the way into July.
But to the contrary, there may still be hope for the likes of Dunn and Guerrero, as well as reason to worry about Berkman and Cabrera. Players can appear to have seismic shifts in their power-hitting skills, only to see those changes wiped away just as suddenly. Remember Adrian Beltre's mysterious contract-year power outage in 2009? His 25-homer thump wasn't gone, but just merely on temporary hiatus. Or consider the case of Michael Cuddyer, who banged 32 homers two years ago and appeared to cement his status as a reliable Fantasy power source. He slumped his way to 14 homers last season, and even with a recent surge, Cuddyer may barely eek out 20 this year.
There is a common explanation in both cases. Beltre and Cuddyer experience massive changes in their home run per flyball ratios (HR/FB), which is a stat that can vary wildly and randomly from one year to the next. For example, when Beltre and Cuddyer were in the midst of aberrant seasons two years ago, there were 11 players whose HR/FB ratios changed by nine percentage points or more. Of that group, only Troy Tulowitzki and Jack Cust maintained similar rates in 2010, while the other nine hitters in the pool reverted all the way back or closer to their previous rates.
Though it's entirely possible that players like Dunn and Berkman could stay on their current course for a full season, they could also revert to their "normal" selves in the second half, especially if their first half changes were fueled by abnormal HR/FB ratios. A more reliable indicator of whether a player is likely to maintain or abandon a shift in his power numbers is his flyball rate. While there are exceptions, once a player undergoes a massive change in his flyball rate -- say, 10 percentage points or more -- it tends to stay near the new level over the long term.
The graph below ranks all major league hitters with at least 200 at-bats this year according to their year-to-year change in flyball rate (measured as the percentage of hit balls that are flies). Among those with the largest declines, Aramis Ramirez, Kosuke Fukudome and Nate McLouth appear to be the hitters who are experiencing the most enduring and impactful downturns in their power numbers. Ramirez's place at the beginning of our list is a little misleading, as he is reverting after a one-year surge in flyballs. In regressing back to his flyball rate norm, Ramirez is the exception that proves the rule, as his changed approach to hitting in 2010 was likely the result of an adaptation to a thumb injury. Fukudome and McLouth, on the other hand, are exhibiting a much lower propensity to loft the ball than they typically have over their careers, and each is suffering from a relative lack of power as a result. The same could also be said for A.J. Pierzynski and Paul Janish, though neither was a significant power source in Fantasy, even before this season.
Not far behind in the rankings are Jose Bautista and Matt Holliday. The drop in flyball rate hasn't resulted in much of a decline in homers, because both are enjoying modest increases in their HR/FB ratios. Those could just as easily swing downward, so Bautista and Holliday could have quieter second halves. Bautista hits so many homers that, even with some decline, he will be an elite-level producer. Holliday, as well, shouldn't see his Fantasy value impacted much.
If drastic changes in flyball rate could be a sign of doom for the rebound hopes of Fukudome and McLouth, the lack of such changes could be good news for the owners of Dunn and Guerrero. Both sluggers are hitting flyballs at rates that are very close to their norms, so their homer totals are being held back by unusually-low HR/FB ratios, as indicated by the color-coding of the bars in the graph above. This has also been the case for Joey Votto, who is having a fine season, though owners surely expected more than a dozen homers from him coming out of the Fourth of July weekend. Because Dunn, Guerrero and Votto could just be victims of the vagaries of random HR/FB ratio fluctuations, each could be primed for much better times going forward.
Scrolling down to the largest increases in flyball rate, we see that Cody Ross, J.J. Hardy, Austin Jackson and Russell Martin are all hitting flies this season at rates that are at least 10 percentage points above last season's. Ross hasn't seen an appreciable increase in his home run pace, but he has been hitting a mess of flyball doubles. Both Hardy and Martin are on a career-best home run pace, though Martin has hit only one homer since May 25. While the uptick in flyball hitting has helped Ross, Hardy and Martin to gain value, it's been a hindrance to Jackson. He doesn't have enough power to benefit from hitting more flies, and meanwhile, all those flyballs have largely been replacing line drives, which could be helping to bolster Jackson's sagging batting average. In fact, it was Jackson's 27 percent line drive rate than enabled him to bat .293 in 2010, even though he struck out in more than one out of every four at-bats.
The long-term increase in flyball rate bodes well for Hardy and Martin to continue to hit for more power than they have in past seasons, but don't be surprised if both show a little less power in the second half than they have so far this year. Both Hardy and Martin have been helped by outsized spikes in their HR/FB ratios. Martin's ratio has already been falling in recent weeks, and owners have seen the result in his recent homer drought. That said, since Hardy and Martin have been hitting flyballs at a steady clip, both should still hit their fair share of long balls in the second half.
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Notice that the aforementioned Berkman is not near the top of our flyball rate increase rankings. His rate has jumped just 3.8 percentage points, from 33.5 to 37.3 percent, while his HR/FB ratio has had the largest year-to-year jump of any hitter in our pool. His current 28.2 percent ratio is not only miles ahead of any of his recent marks, but it even outstrips the best ratios from his peak years. Berkman could be due for a down second half, as could Logan Morrison and Asdrubal Cabrera, both of whom have had similar HR/FB spikes in the first half.
Random fluctuations in HR/FB ratios could be responsible for the disappointing first halves posted by Dunn and Guerrero, as well as the off-the-charts improvement shown by Berkman and Cabrera, but these fluctuations could be reversed at any time. While there are no guarantees that any of these players will change their fortunes after the All-Star break, there is also no reason to assume that they are wedded to the storylines that their seasons have produced so far. Alternatively, the flyball rate trends assembled by Hardy, Martin, Jackson, Fukudome and McLouth give owners a reason to expect that these players will hold onto most of the gains (or losses) that they have achieved in the season's first half.
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| xFIP: Also known as Expected Fielding Independent Pitching. It is an estimate of what a pitcher's ERA would be if it were based on factors that a pitcher can control, such as strikeouts, walks and flyballs. xFIP is a derivative of FIP, which was developed by Tom Tango. Runs Created per 27 Outs (RC/27) -- An estimate of how many runs a lineup would produce per 27 outs if a particular player occupied each spot in the order; ex. the RC/27 for Miguel Cabrera would predict the productivity of a lineup where Cabrera (or his statistical equal) batted in all nine spots; created by Bill James Component ERA (ERC) -- An estimate of a what a pitcher's ERA would be if it were based solely on actual pitching performance; created by Bill James GO/AO -- Ground out-fly out ratio GB/FB -- Ground ball-fly ball ratio Batting Average per Balls in Play (BABIP) -- The percentage of balls in play (at bats minus strikeouts and home runs) that are base hits; research by Voros McCracken and others has established that this rate is largely random and has a norm of approximately 30% Isolated Power -- The difference between slugging percentage and batting average; created by Branch Rickey and Allan Roth Walk Rate -- Walks / (at bats + walks) Whiff Rate -- Strikeouts / at bats |
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