Rates & Barrels - Future Expectations for This Year's Strikeout Rate Risers & Fallers

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

Eno and DVR discuss Ronald Acuña Jr.'s massive improvement in strikeout rate as he continues to build a NL MVP resumé, and dig into other year-over-year risers and fallers in that category while trying to determine the future expectations for the biggest movers in both directions.  Rundown 0:49 Ronald Acuña Jr.'s Massive K% Improvement 7:50 The Value of a Good Two-Strike Approach 12:41 Other Hitters with Positive Gains in K% 18:37 Selling Out for Power 23:33 Giancarlo Stanton's xStats v. ROS Projections 29:32 Improved K% and Weight on Future Projections 33:47 Biggest Fallers in Strikeout Rate 38:28 Luis Robert Jr.: Making a Fair Trade-Off to Max Out Power? 46:58 Thairo Estrada's Uphill Battle to Stick in Everyday Role 49:28 Brett Baty's Demotion 55:34 xStats Remain Underwhelmed by Isaac Paredes Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Get 20% OFF with our code RATES at calderalab.com/rates to unlock your youthful glow with Caldera + Lab! #teamcaldera Give ZBiotics a try for yourself. Go to zbiotics.com/rates to get 15% off your first order when you use RATES at checkout Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it is Wednesday, August 9th, Derek Van Ryper here with Eno Saris. On this episode, we discuss Ronald Acuna Jr., who appears to be running away with the NL MVP award here in 2023. We talk about some of the improvements he has made, most specifically a lower K rate than ever. We'll dig into some other hitters that have made similar improvements, try to figure out how exactly that can happen. This was inspired by a great Twitter question we received from one of our listeners. So we'll look at some other risers and fallers in that category, and time permitting, maybe a few mailbag questions as well.

Let's begin, though, with Ronald Acuna Jr. himself. You know, you don't usually see someone cut their K rate down to 12.2%. I mean, his previous low was last season, 23.6%, and maintain the amount of power that Acuna has shown us this year. There's usually some kind of trade-off. Struck out less, not going to hit as many barrels. Making some weak contact. Nope, not the case

here. So I started doing some digging. Looked at the O-swing percentage. Is he chasing less? Nope. He wasn't a bad chaser to begin with. Hasn't changed that. Is he swinging differently? The overall swing volume? Nope. 45.9% this year, career 45.4%. That's the same too. But he's making a lot more contact and he's doing it everywhere, both inside and outside the strike zone, which is just

incredible improvement, which led me to a bunch of follow-up questions that we're still sort of cobbling together answers to. But is there a swing change? Is there an approach change? Is there a combination of those two things? Is there a third factor, some sort of off-season training? You've talked about Donnie Ecker being a firm believer in training dirty. Is there something new that Acuna has added in that's enabled him to be a lot better? has added in that's enabled him to be a lot better. And the first thing I landed on, digging into the numbers, was that he previously could be beat in the upper part of the strike zone. And that hole has been mostly closed.

You can still beat him a little bit up and away, but up and over the middle of the plate, up and in, Acuna is destroying the ball. And he didn't previously have a lot of success in those ranges. But you found some other things that kind of help explain how he's improved this much without giving up the amazing power that he brings to the table. I think it all goes hand in hand in a way. And, you know, what's most difficult is, I think, for myself and maybe many of our listeners is like watching video and being like, ooh, his thing is in a different place. His hands are in a different spot.

Yeah, I mean, that's what you're looking for. But we went through and watched some video and like, he did make a big change early in his career, sort of 18 to 19, somewhere in there. He went from having his hands sort of behind his ear to where he's now holding him sort of right out from his chest, you know? And so, and that actually is kind of hard, even if you start doing the like, you know, amateur line drawing and like, look, you know, here, because you're looking from different angles all the time. So it's possible he has made a small change to where those hands are in space,

but it's hard for us to see. Cause it just looks like it's not like from here, you know, next to his ears to like, you know, at his number, at his letters, you know how it is now.

It wasn't as big a change like that. But if you're looking between 2022 and 2023, you don't see anything like that. There's nothing like, Oh, that's what he's doing different. But at the same time when you look at someone who was beat high in the zone you can just look at contact

rates over at fangraphs on the heat maps like you said he's able to now make contact high in the zone high and tight in a way he wasn't before i would say that there has to be some part of this is mechanical you know because those are pitches that were there before that he's hitting now he used to miss he's hitting now so i would say you know from what i know of hitting that it probably has something to do with the ability to get on plane faster so so somehow you know kind of making that that turn in the back faster. Oftentimes, you can use your torso to change. If you think about it, if you stick your bat out, that's your bat path. Kind of like if you do that practice swing, you put that bat out there, that's your bat path.

If you can kind of move your torso up and down, you kind of create an arc, and that's what you can cover. And so, you know, there are things you can do with what they call side bend and forward bend. There are things that the way that your torso comes through, you can create more coverage. For example, just talk to Chaz McCormick, who's pulling the ball a lot more. And he said he couldn't pull the ball before because he has this extreme closed stance and he used to be crouched and if you try to bring a bat through sort of high and tight from crouched over with the with the screen closed stance you're like it doesn't work that's not so what did he do he just became more upright and just by standing more upright

chas mccormick can you know it's just easier you feel it and but i i looked through the video and i couldn't i couldn't see that that acuna was more upright but i would i would just assume that there's some sort of mechanical uh change that he's made that has allowed that's unlocked like he's always been a middle end guy and now you can see that he can hit high and in too and uh you know there are high ball hits around the league like Correa, Bregman you know a lot of those guys uh Simeon those are guys that can turn on the high and in fastball and and do damage with them and Acuna has joined them he's a guy who can hit the ball low and now he's joined the high ball

hitters and become a very complete hitter so there's always at least i think some portion of his mechanical yeah so that's the mechanical aspect of it and then there's also swing decisions within the count right not ending up in two strike counts as often so you ran a search over at baseball savant and tried to see has Acuna been more effective has he been a better hitter in two strike situations and I think you kind of found what looks like a decent connection between changes in those situations and another broader group of players who are all on the k percentage improvers leaderboard because we talk about the fan graphs year to year stat grid as a good way to look at players that have changed for better or for worse in various categories.

And there's a lot of overlap between the K percentage improvers and the players that got better in two strike situations. Yeah, I think the guy that unlocked this for us, we were looking at Raphael Devers, who's a guy who, you know, his first few years was like a 25, 27% in 2020, got it down to 21.5 in 2021. And now in 2023, Raphael Devers has a 19.7% K rate. It's one of his better numbers. It's been a gradual improvement. But when you look at some of the component stats, there's very little difference between his swinging strike rates, his chase rates. He still chases a lot.

He still swings and misses a lot. But he has improved his strikeout rate even with those flaws. And so it's kind of like, how can you improve your strikeout rate if you're swinging and missing and chasing as much? Like, what's the math there and the math is when do you whiff right um and so if you can somehow have a two strike approach i think uh that can can really uh change your relationship between your swing strikes and your and your strikeout rate and so when i ran this the light Bell light bulb went off because yes the first three guys aren't who we're talking about they didn't show up when we

were looking around I think they they don't play enough they didn't we don't know their true talent yet so we don't know these guys but they they show up because they used to string swing and strike so much in two strike counts that any improvement has been a big improvement so shea langoliers stone garrison and mundo sosa collectively swung and missed at over 27 percent of the balls that they saw in two strike counts last year so not great uh that led to a lot of strikeouts this year they collectively are swinging and missing at around 18 17.8 to 18 so they are the three biggest improvers they are not who we're talking about because i just don't we don't know their true talent they're also just so far outliers and they strike swing and strike

enough that you're that you're like okay yeah you improved you need to do that again you know but behind them once you get this bias of like the biggest swing strike rate guys out of the way you get all the guys on our list i mean every single one when you were looking at you know swing strikeout rate improvers you put a rundown together you put a bunch of names on it i don't know i'm gonna blow up the rundown now because i'm gonna list all these guys but you know they're just in order on this list. So Cody Bellinger went, he's the fourth biggest improver. And I bet you, if I change the, uh, the, uh, the qualifying rate, basically for swing for 2022, you'd get rid of Langelier's Garrett and Sosa, right? Like those guys were kind of

part-time players last year. We didn't have full samples for them. So Cody Bellinger basically is the number one improver in two-strike swinging strike rate. And he went from 17.8% to 9.3%. And that improvement is the biggest, I would think, among regulars. Behind him, Torres is seventh or second depending on Hayward is between them. I don't know. Hayward is kind of a part-time player too. If you really want to go with full-time players,

you go Cody Bellinger, Gleyber Torres, Michael Harris, Luis Garcia, Kerry Carpenter, David Peralta, Cedric Mullins, Adolis Garcia, and carpenter david peralta you know cedric mullins adolis garcia you know and uh acuna is you know in the top 15 you know and it's just those are all the names on the rundown you know like that's you know all these guys made a a market improvement uh in particularly in swing strike rates on two strike counts so i feel like you know that's partially that and and that i think is is such an interesting thing because it is the confluence of exactly what we're talking about it's the confluence of mechanical

and approach right like a two strike approach is mechanical a lot of times you will choke up you will reduce your your your uh your toe tap i think i've seen some swings of lacuna this year where his like his his leg kick or whatever is not as big so maybe he's had a smaller leg kick in two strike counts you know uh you will you'll reduce you know all sorts of things where you're just trying to get to the ball as quick as possible. And then your approach is to see it in certain places and to just try to go the other way. See it longer, not try to pull it out in front. And I think it served these guys really well. Mark Trumbo was the guy who told us basically what the rabbit ball era players said, which is, I'd rather swing and miss and strike out and give the next guy in line a chance to hit a homer than to weakly ground out.

And I think that made sense when the ball flew so easily. so easily. But now that the ball is a little bit more normal and there's so many strikeouts, I think these players have rightly realized I can put the ball in play and have some success in two strike counts. And it's probably going to be better for me if I do that than to just strike out again. I just pulled up Mark Trumbo's player page because I hadn't heard the name in a while. And I'm going to throw you an immaculate grid gift for some sort of future grid. Mark Trumbo had a

47 home run season for the Orioles. So if you're ever looking for the low percentage high home run total Oriole Mark Trumbo's 2016 season is here to help you. The thing that I saw on the rundown very similar what you mentioned, the biggest

improvers in K percentage other than Acuna, right? Cody Bellinger was on that list. 11.9% improvement in the K rate. He's at 15.4%. We've seen this before back during his MVP level seasons with the Dodgers. This is a skill that Bellinger unlocked previously and has now returned back to it. We've talked about some of the interesting things, the underlying quality of contact numbers that make projecting his future more difficult. But given what he brings to the table with his glove, given that there's a lot less swing and miss in his game again right now, his future looks a lot better today than it did this time last year.

Luis Garcia got sent down by the Nats, but a 12.5% K rate. This is a guy that should be a low K percentage player. I don't know why they think he'll figure anything out at AAA. He goes down to AAA and hits for more power than he does at other levels and then comes back and kind of does a lot of the same things we've seen when he's been an up and down player for them. I saw William Contreras was a big improver. He actually was an improver in overall swinging strike percentage too. So I don't know if he made the two-strike approach adjustments, but overall just swinging and

missing less, and he's such an important part of that Brewers offense. I just wanted to gloss over Luis Garcia too much. I don't know if my bias towards deep league players is too obvious.

But I don't want to gloss over him too quickly because I do feel like there are, you can now identify the pieces and he can still put it together. So there's a 113 max EV and a 7.5% barrel rate in 2022 for Luis Garcia that came with a 44% chase rate. And then this year he's as a 34% chase rate and And then this year he has a 34% chase rate,

and the max EV and the barrel rate went down. These things go hand in hand. I saw it a little bit with a more accomplished player, Marcus Simeon, that I had hoped to talk to yesterday but didn't get to. But his max EV is down two ticks. His barrel rate is down, and his chase EV is down two ticks. His bail rate is down. And his chase rate is down. His swing strike rate is down.

And his strikeout rate is down. So there is also just a let it travel overall philosophy. Or a I'm not going to swing out of my heels at every pitch kind of philosophy that can help you. It can hurt you in some ways and can help you. I just want to say that I think that Luis Garcia has the chance to like, you know, at 23 years old, has the chance still to come up and be able to hit the ball 112, barrel the ball 7 to eight percent of the time chase it like 35 percent of the time use his natural ability to make contact strike out maybe 15 percent of the time and have league average power if he puts all that together you're talking about a guy who should hit 275 with 15 to 20 homers uh and and a non-zero stolen bases. So as bad as things look for Luis Garcia this year, he's going to be on my draft and holds next year. He's going to be on my only leagues next year.

He's going to be a bench player, a bench MI in 15 team leagues. I can't necessarily push him all the way to 12 and 10 team leagues, but Luis Garcia is definitely a name that I will retain as you know as a viable person to pick yeah I think for the deep leagues especially that still makes a lot of sense I'm just a little surprised the Nats have decided to give him time at AAA because I think fixing the flaws against top level pitching is the better long-term development decision Gleyber Torres also a big improver, down to a 14% K rate, usually in the low 20s. I still can't figure out why Yankees fans get as frustrated with Gleyber Torres as they do. He's a really solid player. Maybe it's that he's not a superstar.

He's just very good, but you can live with this. Gleyber's been this player, if you could frankenstein a little more barrel rate right take his 2022 barrel rate with his 2023 k percentage you could start to like talk yourself into at least another 30 home run season maybe it's still in there but that's the sort of trade-off that lowering your k rate and losing some power that's what i expected to see with acuna when when i was like oh wait he's striking out that much less the barrel rate must be down and it's not and it's so it's so amazing to see a player that can hold those gains the other improvers inside the top 10 for strikeout ray and i set the criteria at 200 plate appearances

from last season and for this season kyle isbell was on there, down at 19.3%. Which is where he should be because he does not hit the ball hard. Well, he doesn't. Kyle Isbell... He's not a zero. He's not a barreler. He's a lower end barreler. He's up to 5.7%.

40% hard hit. 40% hard hit is pretty good. Maybe he just needs a new org at some point. He doesn't walk a lot. The glove has to continue to be good in center field. He also suppresses offense in a way that doesn't help him. Yeah, so he could be another deep, deep league player that just because of his defense,

he might end up with good counting stats. To me, it's not as promising as Garcia because of the age difference, but for certain leagues, there's probably a case to at least take the shot one more time in 2024. Especially if there's probably a case to at least take the shot one more time in 2024 if there's like some sort of something happens in the offseason you know the the the outfield depth chart changes or he changes teams or something you know like like there could be a team that says you know there's a guy on our list that's going the other way, Michael Taylor. You know, is it impossible that, you know, a team like the twins, you know, goes in a different direction and says we need a defensive center fielder and we need more contact rate.

Right. And the tricky thing. So Taylor is the you can sell out and go to your career worst career k percentages but you could also barrel the ball more than ever and if you play great defense and your two choices are hit more barrels and be like an 85 to 90 wrc plus guy or strike out less and be a 75 wrc plus guy one of those guys stays in the league and one of them doesn't and i think taylor's doing the thing that keeps him in the league a bit longer i mean the defense again is a huge factor there um david peralto is on the top 10 improvers list for k percent i still see a guy that's probably trending toward the end of his career given his age and all that yeah i mean this i don't know if anyone's going to use him

as more than a part-time player next year ke Kevin Kiermaier, also with health, has improved this year. He's kind of in that ideal fourth outfield role. Yeah, he's hurt right now, so he doesn't help. He's where he often goes, unfortunately. But I think they've done a good job of, like, you know, a team that's, you know, I think Tampa, like, had to depend on him a little bit more, and Toronto is more like,

no, we're adding you as an extra piece, you know? Mm-hmm. So they extra piece you know so they were able I think they were able to get a lot out of him in terms of only using him in the right moments uh in terms of platoon stuff uh giving him load management you know all sorts of stuff and and the the injury he's on for now is not one of his typical kind of soft tissue injuries it's he you know he got a laceration on his arm by making a big catch up against the fence. A minor injury that he'll be back from soon. The hip stuff he was dealing with was pretty serious too. Giancarlo Stanton down to 24.4%.

There's a massive gap between his rest of season projections and what he's done so far. You didn't put this on the rundown, but we got a question, or maybe I got it. I don't know where I got it, so sorry. Thanks for the question, and I'm sorry I'm not giving you a shout-out. But Ramon Laureano? I couldn't replicate that.

It was an email. Ramon Laureano's projection for the rest of the season. I ran the auction calculator, and I came up with a number outside the top 100, like outfielder number 147 the rest of the season. I ran the auction calculator and I came up with a number outside the top 100, like outfielder number 147 the rest of the way. So I don't know if there was a glitch in the calculator or in the projections or if the settings were just weird, but his rest of season projections look normal to me. I noticed him when I was writing everybody up as one of the best names available at the trade deadline in terms of his rest of season projection. Maybe his rest of season projections are normal to you,

but they are a far distance from where he is, especially if you use the bad X because he's at 84 WRC plus last year was at 96 WRC plus and the bad X has 106, you know, so that's a number he hasn't reached since 2021 um and so you're kind of like i can see like looking at that and being like well dude hasn't been this guy for a while now why are you projecting these things for him um and i get that same sort of vibe from stanton and And yet, I know how it happened. Stanton is still barreling the ball 16% of the time.

His career rate is 17%. His max TV is 118. His career is 122. He's still spanking the ball. And he's done it with a better K rate. So I can see how, despite having 96 wrc plus this year and a 115 last year this is very loriano-esque a 137 in 2021 the bad x says 135 rest of season because he's still hitting the ball hard and he's making better contact and you know it's basically saying yeah he still has that like 250 260 in him but i get you know why people don't believe it

and you know loriano's a little bit younger in satin's case a projected bounce back is 33 years old you don't necessarily believe it um but i have rostered him in a couple places just being like hey he was free for me this is a good k rate for him it's still a really good barrel rate he could still go off and um but i have to say i don't know that i believe it so much that i would like in real life would i trade for sant no way unless they ate all of it and right and in the real life the test case for mo loyano was nobody wanted him when they had to pay for him. No, but Cleveland took the chance for free, though. For free, and I get it. Right? I mean, definitely for free

would take the flyer. There are plenty of players on depth charts worse. San Francisco? Yeah, and Ramon Laureano could have just, you know, commuted a little further and kept the same living situation. That would have been a little more convenient for him. But the playing time opportunity in Cleveland,

probably a little bit of a wider window there. Here's the question with Stanton, and it connects to stuff people ask us about a lot. If you look at rest of season projections, those are more optimistic than the X stats. But even at this point, the X stats say he deserves a 230 average and a 508 slug, which okay, I think I can sort of split in the difference between the player he's been, the player the projections say he'll be the rest of the way, and it sort of

fits in with what has happened on balls in play for Stanton going back to last season. Now we're looking at his last 700 plate appearances, and he's probably running about a 210, 215 Bbitt sort of merging those together his sprint speeds in the fourth percentile right he's a bad runner are you saying like all the infielders are on the on the edge of the grass or whatever right like we're at the point now in

his career where teams can play him a lot differently this happened to albert pooh holes happened to other sluggers where the defense plays you in a way where you will run lower Babibs. They will take more hits away from you because they can. They can cheat against you because of your flaws as a player. So that's where I might say I can convince myself if I'm either picking up Stanton in a shadow league or more likely trying to trade for him or I'm chasing power, it's likely still a liability in batting average even though power and run production should still be there.

I'd focus a little bit more on the 514 expected slugging than the 232 expected BA because the expected BA can factor in sprint speed. I'm pretty sure it does. I don't know that it has the ability to factor in sprint speed i'm pretty sure it does um but i don't know that it has the ability to factor in sort of like secondary effects you know like you know like does it does it use sprint speed linearly where it's like you know this is the effect of sprint speed where it's like well actually there's a cliff once you're like the slowest person in baseball there's there are things that the defenders can do when you're the slowest person

in baseball that they can't do when you're in the 10th percentile. You know what I mean? Right. And you want to do that because he still hits the ball so hard that you want more time to react to it. But you have the benefit of positioning yourself that way because he doesn't run well. If he ran better, it would be something you wouldn't be able to do quite as easily, or at least we would take advantage of it as much on the defensive side. Michael Harris is the last player among the improvers that we should talk about, down to 18.4%. Got up to that really slow start post-injury when he came back to begin 2023. He's still buried in that Atlanta lineup for now.

If you think about the longer-term view for keeper in Dynasty Leagues, there's a world inael harris hits a lot higher in the atlanta lineup someday than he does right now but that'll probably hold those counting stats back a little bit in the short term the skills though look just as good if not better they did upon arrival and he was a player that was kind of in the what top 30 top 35 for adp and i wasn't on board right away because of the What do you think will happen to Zoe's ADP next year? That's what I was going to get to.

Is he going to be a round or two cheaper in 2024 drafts even though he's been better in some of these underlying metrics? I think I'll be more inclined to draft him next year. If the price is the same, would you still be in? I think so, because now I'm looking at him and I'm like 22.

You're starting to put up the numbers you put up in the minor leagues, except for the walk numbers, right? Then your chase rates got better, and your chase rates got it got better and your contact rates got better and now you're looking like everything looks like it does in the minor leagues except for walk rate now if you can bump that walk rate from six to eight or nine and you've got a nine percent walk rate eighteen percent strikeout rate 200 iso all things that are like within his grasp. Yeah. Then why aren't you you know, you've got to be one through four. Yeah, the summer ADP, I've seen ten NFC drafts that have run since July 1st. 48th overall is where he landed with a range of 33 to 82.

Oh, my God. If he like if he dropping like if he's dropping into the seventies in my draft, he's not getting past me. I don't think that happens. I think the latest he's going to go is going to be about pick 50, if the current path holds. And I think even that is going to be an early draft season thing. People are going to dig in a little deeper, and he's going to creep back up close to where he was going this year. But I'm in.

There is a weird thing that happens at 45-50. If it's under 45 in 15-team leagues and everyone's so focused on, I've got to leave these first three rounds with a starting pitcher, will you go so far as to go bat starting pitcher Michael Harris as your second bat and not take another starting pitcher or not take a closer? I think I'd love him to death in the fourth round where either he's my third bat or I went bat, pitcher, pitcher, bat. but so it'll get there'll be some like there are these like sort of tricks in the game of when to take players and stuff where he's going to be on the cusp of some stuff but generally I think I like him better I like him better now he's improved and he's improved in ways that I think are really

important for his future and if he was going to be a guy who struck who walked four percent of the time and struck out 24 percent of the time that wasn't going to be a guy who walked 4% of the time and struck out 24% of the time. That wasn't going to be a guy that I could depend on to be at the top of the lineup. It'd be more of a guy that was in there a little bit more for his defense than his offense. You know what I mean? Yeah, but I think there's a lot to like in this profile right now here in year two for Michael Harris. The other part of the question that goes back to the beginning of our episode, Mags on Twitter wanted to know how much weight will the improvement in Acuna's K

percentage have on future projections, right? Like what's it going to spit out if he stays in this 12% range, something close to that compared to those previous norms that were quite a bit higher. I started to look back at other players that have made big leaps over the last few years. There's a handful of guys. Trevor Story back in 2018. Got down to 25.6%. Came down from 34.4% with the K rate. In the years after that, he stayed pretty close to 25.6%.

He was like 23 to 26.5% for the next three seasons, and then he jumped up over 30% in 2022, but the elbow injury he had probably was a factor, and leaving Colorado, going to Boston probably contributed to that as well, plus some other injuries. Devers, who you mentioned earlier, big improver back in 2019, got down to 17% in the K rate, jumped up in the shortened season, which I basically

threw out for these purposes. 60 games or less, your K rate can do some pretty funny things, but then 21.5%, 18.6%, 19.7%. Kept those gains once he got there. Maybe the trickiest one of all, Matt Olson. His previous range,

his improvement year was 2021. He got down to 16.8%. If you look back at the previous season, it's the useless 2020 season. He was over 30. His previous ranges were 24.7% to 27.8%. So that's still a massive improvement, even if you go off of what he had done pre-2020. You look at what he's done in the time since then, back up to 24.3% in 2022 and 25.6% in 2023. So just a one-year blip.

I don't know how it happened. I don't know if he'll ever get it back again, but he doesn't need to. He's a really good player the way he is. But that might go down as one of the more unusual hitter K percentage seasons we'll ever see. Because his approach didn't ever look like an approach that was going to yield a much better k percentage he did it for a full season too he wasn't hurt well like he played 100 games that year and honestly there's no risk that that's that's true for acuna like because you know it just could be just one of those one shining seasons

where it's like this is his mvp you know mean, he's 25 years old, and he's now fully healthy, and maybe next year they attack him a little bit harder. They find a way to – he's still not great out over the plate and up. Maybe they just managed to use that, hit that corner more often than they do this year or whatever it is. Certain sort of scouting reports have to it is you know there's certain sort of scouting reports have to catch up and there's still there's still that risk and what you can see is in rest of season projections which you know are good proxy for next season you you've

seen already an improvement and you know preseason projections Acuna was uh 23 to 24 percent right now it's 17 to 18 percent with Zips being the laggard at 19%. But all of those are at least a 4% improvement over his preseason projections in terms of strikeout rate for Acuna. They're definitely going to change their projections for next year. I would say that he'll be projected for about an 18% strikeout rate next year. Yeah, I think splitting the difference between last year and this year

is usually a good place to start. It doesn't surprise me that that's basically where the rest of season K-rate has gone. So I really appreciate that question from Mags on Twitter. And I think it's also interesting, unless you're in a league that counts all of Otani's stats as both a hitter and a pitcher, I think Acuna is the clearest 1-1 that we've had in a few years looking ahead to next year. Your KDS sometimes, you don't take the first pick because you like the combination of players that you get from other spots. I think it's a slam dunk. It's 1, and then what do you want after that based on all the stuff we're seeing right now?

Maybe in leagues where you can use Otani as a pitcher or hitter, he's actually 1-1. But, I mean, that's specific to your league. Yeah, very, very unique circumstances if your league plays that way. As far as the hitters that have gone the other direction, guys that have gotten a lot worse by K percentage. We mentioned Michael A. Taylor earlier. DJ LeMayhew, a guy that has really made putting worse by K percentage. We mentioned Michael A. Taylor earlier, DJ LeMayhew, a guy that has really made putting the ball in play the cornerstone of his profile.

That's just what he does. Well past age 30 now, you see massive losses in the K percentage column for a player like that, and you start to think, ooh, is the end near, or is at least going to be an offseason where a massive rebuild is in store if he's going to salvage something these next couple seasons? Yeah, 100%. I totally think of a booming strikeout rate as one of the ways to kind of spot you know a precipitous decline if you look at the age

aging curves on on components one of my favorite pieces of all time is bill petty's uh piece uh called uh hitter aging curves uh plate discipline it's it's 2012 so it's a bit old i wonder i wonder uh you could maybe use a refresh but um for my eye a lot of these things reached ring true still which is there's a massive downturn in your ability to make contact on pitches outside the zone at 28 and then there's a a plateau from like sort of 32 to 37 and then another one another decline after that and then in terms of making contact on making, uh, contact on pitches in the zone, that's fairly steady, but at 33,

uh, it takes a pretty big downturn. Um, and so if you, you know, put that together, if you're making less contact in the zone and making less contact outside the zone,

uh, after 33, that's, uh, ripe for, uh, you know, problems, you know know and then in drops in both what interesting thing you'll see also is a batter zone percentage starts going up big time in 33% and that's just a reaction to oh I can beat you in the zone now you know and so that's that's terrible because if

you're missing those pitches in the zone and you're not doing damage to them, that's sort of when things fall apart. And in fact, this is the best zone percentage against DJ LeMayhew since 2018. So they've begun doing the thing where, you know, they're like, wow, you're not even making contact on pitches in the zone like you used to. You're definitely not doing damage on them. And I'm not afraid of you. And I'm coming in there. And you're whiffing anyway.

So that's usually a really bad combination of skills and situations. Yeah, I mean, could be some lost bat speed. Who knows if the various injuries he's dealt with in recent years have become part of the problem. Also interesting to see that DJ LeMah he was pulling the ball more than ever. That's just not his game. So it just, it seems like there's a, a lot to potentially try and fix.

It's a guy that's probably around for a couple more seasons at the Yankees because he's got three more years left on that contract extension that he signed a few years back. It was a lead. It was a, it was a deal. When it was first signed, I didn't get,

because it seemed like a lot of money for a team that already had a lot of players at his positions. And then immediately he had 655 plate appearances with the Yankees and 136 WRC+. And I said, okay, all right, all right. Yeah, they had room for him. And then that was his last good season you know you know the next two seasons you know he managed to you know i guess you know i guess the last three seasons 2021 2022 you you you think they're really bad seasons but he did manage to put up two wins in each of those seasons playing all over getting on base it's a nice like real life profile it just

hasn't been useful in fantasy for all those years right yeah because the low home run totals right that 2019 26 homer year that that kind of sticks out like a sore thumb but it's a little bit like the jeff mcneil thing even when they both had those massive power seasons they both had multi-position eligibility. The fantasy circles around those guys, they were treated the same way at that time. McNeil being a few years younger, I look at those two and I think, if I had

to bet on one for next year, I'd be more inclined to bet on McNeil because he'll be 32 next April and LeMahieu just turned 35 in July. So the three-year age difference helps hasn't had the huge you know strikeout rate you know changes or anything yeah so I don't know if there's at least as of now I don't know if I have a reason to believe in a big bounce back for DJ LeMahieu

the other player that I think is really interesting on this list is Luis Robert you look at 28.7% for the carry that's up 9.5 percentage points. Is this just the true talent really kind of coming through since we're seeing more of him this year than we have in past years? This is healthiest season so far. The benefit has been a career high barrel rate. So you're going to swing and miss more. You've got to hit more barrels. He's done that.

We're seeing Robert swing less in the zone, but he's still chasing out of the zone the way he really always has, just under 40% with that chase rate. So is it what you see is what you get right now, or is there still something here that makes you think he could whittle away a little bit at that K rate based on some better numbers in the past and do it with the power that he's shown at various points throughout his career well you know between 2021 and 2022 he had basically a 16 strikeout uh 16 swing strike right and he's not even showing on this because how many plate appearances do you have between those two seasons come on like last 2021 was 296 2022 is 401 all right so i'm gonna i'm gonna set the the level at 500 plate appearances between 2021 and 2022 combined i'm gonna sort by swinging strike rate and there he is 21st uh worst swinging strike rate uh you know those two years and it hasn't changed that

much this year my My point is, those are the years that he had a combined 19.8% strikeout rate, despite having this 15.6% swing strike rate. And I'll just put out there that that doesn't make any dang sense. Because if you look at everybody else that's on this page, I have a top 30 page here with all these guys sorted by swinging strike rate. There is not a single other person that has below a 20% strikeout rate. So he's the only one that swung and missed that much in those two years and had less than a 20% strikeout rate. The next one is Edmund Sosa with a 21.9, and he only had 516 plate appearances. So we could have changed the number of plate appearances, and he only had 516 plate appearances so we could have changed the the the number of plate appearances and he disappears right the next one is willie castro with a 227 again this is not

someone that you'd say i know his true talent right and the only person that should give you any hope the next person on the list is nick Castellanos with a 22% strikeout rate. But this is a guy that we've always said there's like a weird combination with Nick Castellanos of like great hit tool and a lot of swing and miss. Right? Isn't that, that's sort of, you know, that's sort of the book on Nick Castellanos as I've written in my head. And if you go past him, the next person is Eloy Jimenez at 23, Nick Gordon at 24. And if you took an average of this page, it's like 28. So, you know, I think this is more just us learning a little bit more about who Luis is.

Because Robert, like, he, you know, he always swung and missed this much. And I think this is who he is. And it's really, it can be really fun to watch. And it's really valuable in fantasy. And I don't know that I'm going to ding him too hard uh for this aspect of his game but if you combine it with the injuries um i think a little bit of a trap next year um cost is sort of a factor you know don't you think cost will skyrocket a little bit i mean he's going to end the season 40 20 maybe he's got a shot at it. The July ADP that I mentioned earlier, 27th overall.

So in a 15-team league, back of round two. You're not worried that there's a trap in there at all? No, there's definitely trap potential because of the injuries. And his injuries were, if memory serves, more soft tissue, right? So they're always the kind that can come back. What about Roberts? Like leg injuries? Honestly, it was mostly legs. I gotta get

the injury log going for him again. But it's just that approach. The K rate matches how much he chases outside the zone for me. Those numbers make sense. The way they were didn't make sense. And then it comes back to are you comfortable with the way they were didn't make sense and then it comes back to are you comfortable

with the way the way you have to take a potentially near 30 k rate over a full season with the injury risk are you comfortable enough with everything else to to let that go we've had to answer that question with adelise garcia i was just i just called up adelise gar's face. But Adeliz Garcia actually chases less. He's chasing less this year. The previous two seasons, he was in that right around 40% club. If the barrel rate's good enough, if you can also steal bases,

if you play every day by design, which Robert does, of course, as long as he's not hurt, I think this can work. Adelise Garcia is walking more than ever, up to a 10% walk rate this year. She's chasing a lot less. Yeah, I mean, geez, doing this at age 30.

So if you look at the guy that's kind of on the upward trajectory, being a few years younger, the guy who's on the better team, making unexpected changes at age 30, straight up, who do you prefer? Rest of this season and then even for 2024, who do you think is the better player between Robert and Adelise Garcia? I'm going to take the younger player, at least for me. I feel like now we're like, what is the source of Adelise Garcia's improvement? There there's, we've gone through, you know, uh, different aspects in terms of approach.

Uh, maybe he's got Donnie Ecker now, maybe in terms of, you know, how he, uh, gets ready for games. Uh, and then maybe just familiarity with the league because, you know, he's a late debut Adelise Garcia. Um, so, you know, now he's just getting familiar with the league because you know he's a late debut idyllis garcia um so you know now he's just getting familiar with the league i think some of those uh aspects are true for uh for robert because he was his playing time was so inconsistent due to injury that this is like one of the times that he's like getting going so like what if next year despite all these terrible flaws, he chases 39% of the time and swinging strikes 15% of the time and gets that K rate down to just like 25%.

He's projected at 24%. What do you get at the 25%? You know, there could be some gains in batting average. There could still be like a 290-30-30 season in there. There could be. The other factor in all of this is like, what is the rest of that lineup going to look like for the White Sox? Oh, gosh.

Going apples to apples and just looking at them side by side, Garcia's running a lot less he's seven for seven as a base dealer but 25 bags last year down to seven this year that'll happen with better teams too like don't don't run you know the guy behind you can drive you in right so maybe you can comfortably see a difference of 15 to 20 steals favoring robert but if you were betting on run and RBI production what are you 15 20 more at each column probably for Garcia based on what we know about those two lineups today

and then the average thing is really tough because unless the K rates coming down have a hard time believing it despite flashes of it before I don't see Robert reaching that 290 average that the bad the bad x has him at 290 for a rest of season crazy 290 projection with a 23.5 strikeout rate

i just i don't know if i believe that one i mean i said it i just said it but i said it more like maybe he could do it next year with you know runway and having played healthily for two seasons in a row. Yeah, it's going to be a tough one to think about in the months ahead. And then the last player going the wrong direction on the laggard board, Tyro Estrada, has a 25.2% K rate, chasing more outside the zone than he did in the previous two seasons. I think it's going to be tough for him to continue playing in an everyday role if he's unable to bring that

K rate back down. I think that's something that would nudge him into 80% or 85% playing time share and down from the 100% share that he was previously getting. Especially just because of his team. They're just going to be a team that, like, says,

oh, you know, against tough lefties, we're going to, I mean, against tough righties, we're going to start setting you a little bit, you know? We're going to identify who you strike out against the most. You've got, you know, some issues with split fingers or curveballs, you know, according to pitch type values and i'm not saying this is exactly what it is but maybe they did some modeling they're like you know your swing could have some issues with those and there's a big uh righty on the mound with curve balls and

you know you've got you know a 315 true talent obp when you're striking out 25 of the time and you know we kind of we we think that, you know, Brett Wisely can do a better job or whatever it is, you know. There's always a Brett Wisely waiting to steal your job in San Francisco. It's got to be frustrating. You're always looking over your shoulder. Ah, Nissan Diaz, Brett Wisely. Oh, I want to do something real quick.

Batting leaders qualified San Francisco Giants. How many do you think they have? Just qualified leaders? Like enough players who played enough? How many batters do you think they have that are qualified for the batting title?

Two? Wade Jr., J.D. Davis, and Michael Conforto. Yeah yeah i wasn't sure if uh davis has 408 you don't even have 400 plate appearance yeah it's it's not it's not normal it's working for them but it's not normal i thought we're accustomed to a couple of quick things to follow up on shane mcclan, highly unlikely to pitch again this year. We were concerned about that and we talked about it a bit more in detail on Monday's episode. Potential winter of uncertainty. We'll see what the next couple

weeks bring as far as potential updates on him. Brett Beatty was demoted recently by the Mets, which I don't know how I feel about that either. It's a little bit like the Luis Garcia situation where if you think he's major league ready, unless you think that he's actively doing long-term damage, like he's losing confidence and falling apart in a way where there could be some longer-term issues, why wouldn't you just let him keep playing? Defensively, there are issues to iron out for Brett Beatty.

That's been very clear so far this year, and he's underperformed as a hitter for a guy that I thought was going to come up and hit right away. It's been a 77 WRC plus over 311 plate appearances. I'm curious, given both of those issues in his first full opportunity this year with the Mets, how much has your long-term outlook for Beatty changed? Two things come to mind. One is I interviewed him at the Futures game and said, are you concerned with all the ground balls?

And he said, I'm just trying to hit the ball hard, baby. You called your baby? Huh? Did he call you baby? No. I mean, he did it with his big smile you know like you know he he he's got a engaging personality and um you know i was and i and i bought it and yet this is the issue this is the issue he still has a 53 51 ground ball right and though he has hit the ball 113 113.7 this year brett baby uh is not

lifting the ball enough to take advantage of that power so the other thing that i think of is that i talked to a front office executive recently and they mentioned that um they'd seen value in a reset that they they'd done some research on this and that there is a possible value in resetting well yeah i guess you have to consider your environment too there's a to me there's actually a pretty clear difference between the nationals rebuild new york and the mets dumpster fire right now like yes there's a there are different levels of pressure in those two places at this time, despite the Mets 2023 shortcomings. And beyond just Washington versus New York or how bad it is in Washington versus how bad it is in New York or how quickly they want to to do it in Washington,

is that Jeter Downs was hitting 175, 301, 333 with a 60 WRC plus at 25 years old in AAA for Washington. This is the person they've called up to play more second base. Yeah, that's very Nats. I don't get that. In New York, at least, you get the benefit of a reset with Brett Beatty, perhaps some work on mechanics outside of like everyone bugging you every day

about why you're hitting the ball on the ground so much, outside of the lights. And then you also get the added benefit of answering the question can mark vientos play third base and and you know can he make enough contact to take advantage of what is prodigious power and barrel rates so you can answer two questions about mark vientos better if you can play him every day uh with brett beta down the minors so you know just brett you know basically mark vientos being better if you can play him every day uh with brett baity down the minors so you know just brett you know basically mark vantos being better than jeter downs uh you know and then also the value of a reset i think there is a slightly different situation also luis garcia has been

around longer than brett baity so is that all these things i think think it is maybe we were harsh, too harsh on Washington given we're giving the Mets a little pass on this one, but I do think the situation's a little bit different. Beatty has torn the cover off the ball in his brief time at AAA, so this may be a pretty short demotion. You'd like to see him come back for most of the rest of the season and put some things together and hit the ground running in 2024. It wouldn't be surprising to me if it happened. I'd like him as a player to get back in your late season trades. If you're looking to head to next season, I think he could be in the heart of that order. I don't think Vientos can play third.

I mean, yeah, there's an even greater defensive question with Vientos. I also think the Mets could help themselves out by saying goodbye to Daniel Volgebach. I also think the Mets could help themselves out by saying goodbye to Daniel Vogelbach. I know we like him on this pod, but free yourself of Daniel Vogelbach on the roster, and then you've got a DH spot where Beatty doesn't have to necessarily be in the field every day,

or Vientos doesn't have to be in the field. You at least give yourself one more spot to look at those players, and you can't have a guy that's an everyday or big side platoon DH with a below average line. You can't tolerate that if you're a contending team. So that might be the move that eventually happens just to let both Beatty and Vientos play together

on a regular basis at some point down the stretch. Yeah, and those projections that say that Vogelbach can be 10% bad on the league average, they seem to be calling back to sometimes when he hit the ball harder. 6% bail rate this year. Yeah, where

did that go? My goodness. I don't get it. I've seen him hit and be... I'm surprised sometimes by how it seems more like a guy who's trying to hit for a single than a guy who's trying to hit for a homer. Ground ball rates spiked up to 47.6% this year. Hard hit rate's still there. I don't know. What are you doing, though?

What's the upside here? It's not part of your future. It's like an okay, credible DH for one year on a $4 million salary or something. A soon-to-be 31-year-old DH. You can get this one right, Metz. A couple mailbag

questions here. Let's actually just pick one for today. We'll save one for a future episode. We mentioned XStats a little bit earlier in the episode. This one came from Rob. Rob writes, I know Eno has been on Parades since preseason and has really been working out. When I look at his Fangraphs XStats, I see expected numbers really far below the actual results. Would you guys mind walking through how to interpret this situation?

Thanks as always, Rob. We've talked about Parades probably back in May or June. And it's just yanking the ball. Just pulling the ball to get to the power and doing that really, really well. I think the comp at the time that you put out there was Brian Dozier. That worked for Brian Dozier for a very long time. Alex Bregman. Bregman does it as well. Marcus Simeon does it actually a little bit. Yeah, so is that a satisfactory,

is that a full explanation for this? Or are we looking at a correction for Paredes, but maybe a guy that will continue to outperform his X stats so long as he maintains this sort of unique skill? Yeah, it's a tough one. unique skill? Yeah, it's a tough one. I would say that there's a little bit of tenuousness to it to where

I wasn't at all surprised to see Parades involved in trade offers in Dynasty Leagues. Right. I was sort of like, ah, yep that makes sense and then and i didn't take them i didn't take those offers you know uh so i i think it's a little bit tenuous year to year because you're you're you're relying if you look at dozer just look at his home run totals

look at bregman look at his home run totals like you know uh it isn't necessarily something that leads to consistent power every year you're you're trying to make the very most of the barrels you do have by pulling every single barrel i get it but i i think that that is not something you can do all the time it's like how do you think the batter could like point to a place in the field and like hit the ball there over and over again it depends how big you make those pie wedges to some degree. Yes. Right.

To some degree. Yes. But also once it becomes obvious, also they're trying to hit those pie wedges. How long till pitchers find a way to not let you hit it to those pie wedges? Right. How long does it take for opposing teams to work up a game plan that

reduces your ability to just yank homers against them. I do find Paredes risky, but in a one-year league, in a redraft league, it's YOLO time. He's hitting 250-22 homers. He didn't cost you anything.

I kind of doubt that he's going to go all the way down to a 222 XBA and a 364X slugging. But even if he did, I don't think it'll be such a precipitous fall off. Even if he did do that, you'd still end the season with a guy who hit 230, 240, and 30 homers for you. Yeah, it's been a really, really nice late-round pickup, especially with the position versatility. You know, you can play them almost anywhere.

But as you'd expect, all those homers clustered up on that left side. I saw the Ballys or whatever the Rays regional network is these days. If it's still Ballys, I don't even know. But they had the graphic up. It's all down the line. Right. They're all in the left in the left pie it was done this for a lefty too yeah yeah and i just think if you're going to do that then and you get the ball in the air a lot even though it's a good strikeout rate and a good walk rate it could be a low average good obp future it could be a 230 325 330 line with a kind of up and down slug cap that's reminds me of kepler it's a little bit like that that's that's at the downside of

the range right so it's a big it's a big range of outcomes the bad versions of max kepler versus the good versions of bregman and dozer well, if the good version of the latter players is possible, you might want to be in again on Paredes. And I didn't even look at where he was going in those July drafts. See, the market's generally skeptical. 173 was the ADP for a guy that's first, second, and third base eligible. Have you ever tried selling Max Kepler? You can't. You know. No. Who's buying? a guy that's first, second, and third base eligible? Have you ever tried selling Max Kepler in a dynasty league?

You know. Who's buying? For a few years, I know you were into him. Who else was fully buying into Max Kepler? I think I bought him in my dynasty league and I didn't have to pay much. I thought, yeah, I got a cheap guy.

Hey, I got 19 homers and 10 stolen bases in 2021 with 306 OBP. That plays in our league. I didn't get hurt too badly, but I do think the downside of Kepler is worth thinking here. As long as you don't pay too much, if you get him thrown in or something, but if he's the centerpiece for a trade, I'd watch out a little bit. I don't know if you get him thrown in or something, but if he's the centerpiece for a trade, I'd watch out a little bit.

Yeah, Isak Paredes, 29.1% hard hit rate, down from last year. He was at 38.7% last year. Part of what we liked about him was that he was hitting the ball hard and not striking out. He's still not striking out a lot, but losing a lot from that hard hit rate, that is a bit of a red flag. The gap is hard to completely explain, but a lot of it is a pretty unique approach that's enabled him to get away with it at least for now it might be pretty telling if the rays flip him this offseason like there's a shelf life for holland i think

a particular player can pull that off treating him like a reliever yeah we got a couple good seasons out of him we're done yeah that's that's one thing I would keep an eye out for if he's still a Ray next year then well they probably believe he can pull this trick again for another season in 2024 we are going to go on our way out the door a reminder you can reach us by emailing us

ratesandbarrels at gmail.com you can drop a comment under this video on YouTube you can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris you can find me at Derek Van Riper. If you don't have a subscription to The Athletic, $2 a month gets you in the door at TheAthletic.com slash Rates and Barrels. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels.

We're back with you on Friday. Thanks for listening. Thank you.