We’ve had two weekends of baseball so far and people have started panicking or celebrating their imminent fantasy defeat or victory for 2018. It’s a bit of hyperbole, but it’s also not.
As I wrote in last week’s early signs post, some key metrics can help you identify whether or not you should feel worried about Ian Happ and Alex Bregman or if Matt Chapman will be a first round pick next season. All the usual early season caveats apply to the article, sample sizes are small, one hit here or there and your batting average shoots up 100 points, so on and so forth. The goal here is to identify why a player might be struggling or thriving to help you make informed decisions.
With that in mind, here are some early observations from the first two weekends of fantasy baseball:
Note: Half of this article was written on Sunday night and half of it on Monday night, so some of the stats may have changed, even dramatically. It is early in the season, right?
- Speaking of Matt Chapman, beyond his .462 BABIP (.387 xBABIP), some encouraging signs exist that his early season performance is more than good luck. He’s shown elite plate discipline (16.2% swing rate at pitches outside the zone, good for seventh in MLB), his contact has improved (+6% contact, -4% swinging strike rate) and it hasn’t cost him hard contact (51.7% and +16%). It’s still early, but he’s shown a knack in his early career for continuous improvement. A low batting average with his power may not be a forgone conclusion.
- Yadi Molina (.342/.351/.579 xTriple Slash) has come out of the gates hot and the skills are fire. He won’t maintain a 6.1% strikeout rate, but that he has a 93% contact rate with a 46.7% hard hit rate is impressive nonetheless. He also has an improved rate of swinging at pitches outside the zone (-12%). Small sample sizes early in the season are fun, but it’s clear he’s seeing the ball well. Given his strong end of last season and his early success this year, I expect him to finish 2018 among the top three catchers this season (see bold predictions).
- Matt Davidson has started off hot. Is it sustainable? On Opening Day, I tweeted out his rolling 40-game average on key skills, which showed some interesting skill growth recently, especially with his plate discipline. He talked about the approach after his 3-HR day:
Matt Davidson postgame pic.twitter.com/gcrpb42kj9
— Daryl Van Schouwen (@CST_soxvan) March 30, 2018
He’s kept up that strong eye early in the season with a terrific 18% o-swing, and his contact rate has jumped 9% while maintaining a strong hard hit rate (53%). He’s gotten a bit lucky (4 HR on 2.9x HR), but if he can hold on to some of the plate skill improvements and get his batting average around .240, he should hold down full-time plate appearances and contribute 30-35 home runs. Whether he can do that remains a big question. Don’t forget his first 35 plate appearances have come against two of the worst pitching staffs in baseball (Tigers and Royals).
- Chris Owings is the current BABIP champion, carrying a .600 BABIP in 28 plate appearances. He’s been very lucky, with 10 hits on 6.6 xHits, which would drop his batting average from .400 down to .265. I’m not a fan of Owings, though he can provide some value if you really need stolen bases in a deeper format.
- Miguel Sano has also benefited from some good luck early in the season with a .500 BABIP (.257 xBABIP), which may just encourage him to continue his terrible approach at the plate. He currently boasts a 44% strikeout rate and a 63% contact rate, which continues a downward trend for his plate skills that began the second half of 2017. Sell high and sell quick in batting average leagues!
- Last week, I tweeted about Dixon Machado, who–for a moment on Friday–was top 10 in baseball in four great hitting metrics (o-swing%, contact%, hard hit% and batted ball hit 95+mph above 0°). While he has some value in very deep leagues, Machado’s challenge is that he doesn’t hit for much power or have much speed, so the upside is limited. He’s also been batting at the back of the Tigers lineup, limiting his counting stats. A move higher up in the lineup could help, but at this point just monitor or pick him up as an injury replacement.
- Paul DeJong made me a convert toward the end of draft season with his gradual improvement in contact and plate discipline across 2017. He’s benefited from a little bit of batted ball luck (.538 BABIP vs. .471 xBABIP), but what’s more concerning is the 51% contact rate and swinging strike rate above 20%. Early season caveats apply, but those two numbers are very bad and his contact rate was never that low over any nine-game span in 2017.
- Whit Merrifield has gotten off to a slow start, batting .222 (.228 xAVG) with no home runs through seven games. With two hits today and a stolen base, he’s up to .250. All of his skills are either at or above where they were last year and his batted ball profile is remarkably steady. I have no concerns with Whit.
- Alex Bregman has struggled early in the season, but everything looks fine. His walk rate is way up (15.6%) reflecting an improved o-swing% and his contact rate is level. He also has a fairly similar batted ball profile to last year, with a slight average exit velocity increase at key launch angles. Where he hasn’t excelled is making elite contact (1 barrel). I’m confident the elite plate skills will translate into elite contact soon enough.
- A lot of people are concerned about Ian Happ, as his stellar spring has turned into an ugly opening 10 days of the season. Most concerning for Happ and his owners, the Cubs utility man boasts a 56.7% strikeout rate on a 54.7% contact rate and a 23.8% swinging strike rate. You can see why it’s easy to freak out with early season numbers. A peek at Happ’s 7-game rolling averages shows that this is probably the worst seven-game stretch of his career, but he had similar struggles at different points last season, including late last season when he followed up a bad stretch with a 75.4% contact rate over his next seven games. The early struggles shouldn’t change your outlook too much. We probably won’t see the big improvement in contact rate fantasy owners were hoping for to help him hit his ceiling, but there’s no reason he can’t come back to contribute like he did in 2017. The only issue compounding his struggles is the battle for playing time in the Cubs lineup, which may limit his plate appearances until he returns to form or even afterward.
- Julio Teheran has gotten off to a brutal start his year due to decreased velocity (92.0 mph on his fourseam fastball in 2017 and 89.7 mph so far this year) and a tough early schedule, where he’s faced the Nationals (his kryptonite) in two of three games. The good news: Today his velocity was back up to an average of 90.3 mph and he threw his slider on 28% of his pitches, up from 17% in his first two games. The pitch induced 6 swinging strikes (22% SwStr) and helped him limit hard contact after the first few innings. It’s too early to bail on Teheran–monitor his next couple starts for his velocity and pitch mix to see if he’s figured something out.
- Corey Seager’s contact rate and plate skills have actually improved during his slow start, though his hard hit rate is down 12%. The only concern I would have with Seager is if his injuries have had an impact on his ability to drive the ball, but that doesn’t line up with his increased exit velocity at line drive and fly ball launch angles. He’s been a little unlucky (.255 xAVG & 1.0 xHR), but should be fine.
- Byron Buxton has started the season with an impersonation of himself from early last season. The good news? This is a much tamer version, as his contact rate sits in the low 70s instead of low 60s. In fact, he’s actually making more contact on pitches in the zone than he did across the whole season in 2017. The challenge is he’s gotten into the old habit of chasing pitches outside the zone (38.5%, +7.4% from 2017), which has dragged his overall contact rate down. Add a bit of bad luck (.185 AVG vs. .233 xAVG) and it looks bad. It’s too soon to panic.
- Yasiel Puig is doing a lot of things right: he’s making more contact, hitting more fly balls and hitting the ball harder. What he needs to do is get a bit more luck (.205 AVG vs. .257 xAVG) and combine the last two things he’s been doing more of–hitting the ball in the air and harder. All of his exit velocity increases have taken place at lower launch angles, while his exit velocity in damage launch angles (19-39°) is down. That’s the special sauce and the step Puig needs to take to move from fantasy goodness to fantasy greatness.