In sports, we must always look forward. We’re in a
particularly dangerous stage in baseball right now: enough games have been
played where we start to overweight year-to-date (YTD) production, thinking
that what a player has done so far is indicative of what he’ll do in the
future. Research on this topic suggests that is a dangerous—and frankly,
false—assumption.
In fact, research
by Mitchell Lichtman, co-author of the The
Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball, tells us that rest-of-season
(ROS) projections are more predictive of future performance than current
performance in nearly every single way (as measured by wOBA)—whether we’re one
month or five months into the season. Put another way, if you were to project
how a player were to perform on the last day
of the season, you’d still be better off using ROS projections than YTD
performance.
Of course, this isn’t a novel concept. Shortly after I
mentioned this pending piece on the recent Roto
Pope podcast, The Athletic’s Eno
Sarris conducted a similar exercise—identifying players with the biggest
discrepancies between their YTD actual, YTD expected and ROS projected OPS.
Sarris also highlighted a key update to Lichtman’s 2014 study—the advent of
Statcast data, which we can use to better understand “expected” production and
unearth new insights, such as potential injuries through lower exit velocity
readings.
We also did a similar
exercise on these very pages just a couple months ago. Looking back, you
can see the value in looking forward—for instance, if you had invested in the
top recommendation at the time, Matt Carpenter, you’d have acquired a player who
recently homered in six straight games and moved up 400-plus spots in the
rankings since then (from 454 at time of writing to nearly top 30 today).
After research of this piece, I stand by each of those previous
recommendations to differing degrees and, depending on acquisition cost, would
still recommend investing—Carpenter, Carlos Santana, Yadier Molina, Ryan
Zimmerman and Joey Votto. But the point of this exercise isn’t to regurgitate
previous analysis. Instead, let’s highlight some new names—hopefully one of
these players provides a 10x-type surge like Carpenter.
METHODOLOGY
First, let’s clarify the difference in approach for this
analysis. The objective of this analysis is to identify hitters with the
biggest discrepancies between YTD performance and ROS projection—ideally with
supporting evidence provided by expected stats. To do this, I used the
FanGraphs Auction Calculator to determine hitters’ ROS value across each of the
available projection systems—Steamer, ZiPS, Depth Charts and THE BAT.
I then calculated the median value from the four projection
systems for each player, ostensibly creating a ROS ranking. To understand YTD
performance, I re-visited the Auction Calculator and ran a report for YTD
values. After removing less-interesting players—as defined by a median ROS rank
of less than 100—I was left with a tidy list of 100 players.
Let’s highlight a few of the more interesting cases below,
as judged by a relatively large discrepancy between their YTD and ROS ranks—that
is, they’re projected to be much better than they have been thus far. According
to Lichtman’s research, they “should” play much closer to their projection
moving forward:
NELSON CRUZ
YTD Rank: 150 | ROS Proj. Rank: 32
YTD Rank: 150 | ROS Proj. Rank: 32
Cruz has been a divisive player by production calculators,
ranking anywhere from 53rd among hitters (ESPN) to 150th
(FanGraphs)—both figures deflated by a freak ankle injury that forced him to
the DL and a relatively slow start. Yet, all he keeps doing is hitting,
currently ranking in the top 10 among max exit velocity (EV), average EV and
percentage of balls hit 95+ MPH, with a .289/.378/.539 “expected” triple slash,
per xStats.org. Projections see him as the 32nd best hitter moving
forward, a bettable rank and a price you may not have to pay.
EDWIN ENCARNACION
YTD Rank: 153 | ROS Proj. Rank: 42
YTD Rank: 153 | ROS Proj. Rank: 42
Apparently, projections don’t want to let go of these old
sluggers, Cruz and Encarnacion. That might also highlight a market inefficiency
to exploit: unsexy names like Cruz and Encarnacion don’t cost full freight. Is he
worth buying though? At 35, he’s certainly declining—walks are way down while
strikeouts are up. Still, he ranks top 25 in barrels per plate appearance and his
expected triple slash of .251/.334/.498 is still plenty tasty. Projections bake
in aging curves and E5 should come at a discount.
KRIS BRYANT
YTD Rank: 105 | ROS Proj. Rank: 16
YTD Rank: 105 | ROS Proj. Rank: 16
Sticking with sluggers but moving to the younger end of the
spectrum, Kris Bryant has been disappointing for those that drafted him in the
first two rounds expecting a superstar performance. He did miss some time with
a sore shoulder that landed him on the DL. His power is down and exit velocity
figures don’t suggest the power hitter we conclusively thought Bryant was after
his 39 homers in 2016. Still, he’s 31% above league average as a hitter and his
expected wOBA is 10-15 points within his previous years. His 11 HR to date are
disappointing, to be sure, but his expected 15 HR are a lot more interesting and,
assuming his shoulder is okay, projections think he should continue on that
expected home run pace, particularly as Wrigley heats up in the summer.
OTHERS CONSIDERED
|
Player
|
YTD
Rank
|
ROS
Proj. Rank
|
|
Khris Davis
|
131
|
48
|
|
Marcell Ozuna
|
116
|
37
|
|
Anthony Rizzo
|
79
|
17
|
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Remember, on the whole, players are most likely to perform
to their ROS projections rather than their current performance. This thought
process may lead to some misses, but the idea is that owners in your league may
start to overweight YTD performance and rank. Exploit that recency bias by paying
for YTD performance, pocketing the difference between that and their ROS
projection.