Third base is a deep position in 2017 and one I’m willing to wait for unless I get Kris Bryant or Nolan Arenado early or Josh Donaldson falls late into the first round. I can think of a handful of guys who I consider undervalued at the position for the production I expect in 2017, including Anthony Rendon (92), Alex Bregman (92), Jose Ramirez (96), Justin Turner (129), Mike Moustakas (201) and Nick Castellanos (206). That’s a lot of value at 3B! I’ve chosen to focus on Jake Lamb, however, because he was awesome early in 2016, got injured, an now appears to be healthy. His ADP of 149 does not reflect something important: Jake Lamb is still awesome.
2016 was a tale of two seasons for Lamb. The turning point came on July 19, when he injured his hand. Reports described it as a bruise, but he went 0 for 19 slump in his first 4 games after the injury and then skipped games on July 26 and 27 to recover. He played regularly the rest of the season. As the numbers for Lamb clearly Illustrate, everything went wrong after the injury.
Jake Lamb Pre and Post Injury
Lamb suffered a bruised hand on July 19 and never recoveredLD% | Pull % | FB Hard Hit % | Total Hard Hit % | HR/FB | Slash Line | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Before July 19 | 21.0% | 50.4% | 58.1% | 42.0% | 28.4% | .298/.376/.626 |
After July 19 | 12.1% | 32.2% | 44.4% | 35.6% | 12.7% | .179/.270/.344 |
Prior to the injury, Lamb’s was raking (.298/.376/.626) with 52 runs, 21 home runs, 63 RBI and 3 stolen bases in 89 games. He thrived in every part of the strike zone, pulling the ball (50.1% pull rate) with purpose (47.8% hard hit rate) and making up for a ground ball to fly ball rate higher than ideal (1.4) with a likely unsustainable 28.4% HR/FB rate (xStats has him at about 18 xHR up to July 19).
After July 20, Lamb maintained a decent hard hit rate of 35.6%, but his batted ball profile suffered, as he exchanged line drives (8.9% drop from 21.0% to 12.1%) for fly balls. An increase in fly balls is not necessarily a bad thing, but when you only pull 17.5% of them (33.8% in first half) and cannot hit them as hard as before (58.1% hard hit rate on fly balls in first half compared to 44.4% in the second) it results in a .220 second half BABIP and 12.7% HR/FB rate. Based on these numbers and the below zone profiles, it’s clear that Lamb could no longer turn on pitches on the inner half of the plate. When he pulled the ball, it was on the ground (68.8% GB) and weak (31.3% hard hit rate). His exit velocity, as seen below, tells the same tale.
Retelling Jake Lamb’s second half is depressing, so I can only imagine how he felt experiencing it. But the good news is that Lamb has had more than four months to heal the hand and get back to crushing baseballs.
We’ve already seen what a healthy Lamb is capable of and there is room for growth. Lamb was quick to change his approach heading into 2016 as a result of changes made by fellow professionals like Josh Donaldson and Statcast data that showed the importance of exit velocity and there is no reason why he shouldn’t also recognize that lowering his ground ball to fly ball ratio will allow him to fully tap into his power. Add AJ Pollock and Paul Goldschmidt to the mix batting behind Lamb in a stacked lineup that plays half its games at Chase Field and the pieces are there for a special season. Obviously this relies on Lamb regaining his first half form, but the possible reward is well worth the relatively minimal risk at an ADP of 149.
(Note: The bulk of this article also ran in an earlier post on the site. Because that article was long and I think the case for Lamb is so compelling, I decided to give it it’s own space with some slight edits.)