Statcast Year 3: Hits & Misses

Last year in this space, I took a look at Barrel Rate stats from the 2015 and 2016 seasons as recorded by Statcast -- MLBAM's technology utilized to measure player and ball movement on the fields of all 30 stadiums. The idea was to find players whose playing time volume might increase thanks to their ability to consistently hit the ball hard with an optimal launch angle.

While barrel rates supported Gary Sanchez's rookie-year breakout in 2016 as more sustainable than his high HR/FB rate (40.0%) would have led us to believe, my barrel-driven assertion that Byungho Park could provide cheap power in 2017 did not pan out.

With another year of data to parse, and with a few success stories from 2017 where players altered their approach to generate more loft with their swing to get better results from hard contact, we can continue the collective effort of utilizing this new information to try and uncover the next wave of breakouts for the upcoming season.

In a late-season callup in 2016, Aaron Judge posted a league-leading 95.1 mph exit velocity, but he did not get my attention while I was focused on barrel rates, because I was looking at barrels per plate appearance. With an extremely high strikeout rate in his debut, Judge's hard contact, when he connected, was washed away by that particular measuring stick.

Judge went on to help plenty of fantasy owners win titles in 2017, as he was rarely drafted inside the Top 300 overall, and he'll enter 2018 as a frequent first-round consideration following a 52-homer, 114-RBI effort backed by a .284/.422/.627 line. Keep in mind, however, that even the Yankees seemed uncertain of their plans for Judge, as he was reportedly in a competition for his place on the 25-man roster until the final days of spring training.

Finding the next Judge -- or more likely, the next Ryan Zimmerman -- is the pursuit of every fantasy owner throughout the offseason. There are a few things to keep in mind while digging through the various Statcast leaderboards at BaseballSavant.com.

First, small sample sizes can be misleading. Second, hitting the ball hard is great, but not being able to hit the ball with the appropriate launch angle can leave us with players who hit for a decent average, but disappoint in the power department. Finally, health is a critical variable that can significantly alter batted-ball numbers. In fact, there are often distinct turns in production when hitters are playing through an injury, and in some cases, this can help us see how much a player might be compromised by a seemingly benign ailment. In other instances, players may not appear on the season-long leaderboard because they were hampered by injuries for a prolonged stretch.

Exit Velocity

Most of the Top-10 in Exit Velocity is populated by players you would expect to find around the top of the list: Judge, Nelson Cruz, Joey Gallo, Miguel Sano, Khris Davis, Giancarlo Stanton, Paul Goldschmidt and Ryan Zimmerman occupy eight spots.

We're more interested in outliers like Yandy Diaz, who checked in at eighth. Diaz reached the majors for the first time in 2017, hitting .263 with a .352 OBP for Cleveland, but slugging just .327 over 49 games. During parts of three seasons at Triple-A Columbus, he has compiled a .331/.419/.455 line in the International League. Additionally, he's a good defender, who plays on a good team, and he's shown a very good hit tool despite the lack of home runs. Moreover, Diaz has the requisite upper-body strength to generate easy power, so it may just be a matter of working with the right mix of hitting coach and teammates to adjust -- Indians shortstop Francisco Lindor joined the flyball revolution last season, offering some hope that Diaz could follow suit.

Looking for outliers within the Top 30, which is basically the top-five percent of the league, names including Matt Olson, Lewis Brinson, Luke Voit, Rhys Hoskins and Jose Martinez appear.

Olson hit more homers (24) in his 59 games with Oakland last season than he hit in 79 games at Triple-A (23). The approach is pull-happy, which bodes well for the sustainability of his power, but raises some questions about his batting average baseline. Fortunately, he's walked everywhere he's played, including a 10.2 percent rate against MLB pitching last season. Like Gary Sanchez a year ago, he'll see his HR/FB come down, but Olson looks like a solid 30-homer bat with an opportunity to hit in the heart of the order for the A's.

Of the players included in this piece, Brinson has the smallest sample size of batted-ball events (30) to work with. A former first-round pick, there is little left for him to prove at Triple-A, and his inclusion in the blockbuster trade that sent Christian Yelich to the Brewers increases his chances of getting a full season as an everyday center fielder now that he's in Miami. With very few chances to play last season, Brinson struggled to find a rhythm at the plate, and his strikeout rate soared to 30.9 percent in 51 plate appearances, but he's shown the ability to temper whiffs throughout the past three seasons in the minors. He has enough power to deal with the pitcher-friendly tilt of his new home park, while his ability to steal bases and the potential to be a plus defender in center field gives him a chance to secure a high volume of playing time. With that, it's easy to get on board with him as a breakout candidate.

Hoskins appears to be a potential star in the making, mixing impressive power with excellent plate discipline and a more stable hit tool than the typical pull-heavy first base prospect like Olson. Unfortunately, he's unlikely to fall beyond the 50th overall pick of most drafts in 2018, so there doesn't appear to be much room for profit unless Hoskins turns out to be Paul Goldschmidt 2.0.

Martinez will likely hinder Voit's path to a spot on the Cardinals' 25-man roster, and things could become complicated for Martinez depending on the adjustments made by general manager John Mozeliak over the winter. Most likely, Martinez is a lefty-killer, whose 1.340 OPS against southpaws last season (.773 OPS) pushes him into the starting lineup once or twice per week.

Greg Bird doesn't appear among the league leaders in exit velocity from 2017, but there is a sharp difference in his numbers from the first half, when he was playing with a significant ankle injury, compared to his output once he returned from the DL in the second half. After his return from the DL, Bird had a 90.8 mph average exit velocity (up from 87.7 mph in the first half), which would have placed him in the Top-20 overall for the season. As a power-hitting lefty, he's already a great fit for Yankee Stadium, but Bird's 20 homers in 348 MLB plate appearances offer a true snapshot of his upside.

One other name of interest is Mitch Haniger. While his average exit velocity tumbled to 87.4 mph (208th out of 540) last season from 92.1 mph (18th out of 549) in 2016, he lost significant time to a Grade 2 oblique strain in the first half, and returned to the DL in late July after he was hit in the face by a pitch. Haniger finished his injury-impacted season with 16 homers in 96 games -- including eight in his last 30 contests.

Barrels

Only five qualified hitters had more barrels per plate appearance than Randal Grichuk last season. All five hitters with a higher Brls/PA mark will likely have Top 100 Average Draft Positions, while Grichuk might be available in the endgame of most drafts. Keep an eye on his path to playing time as draft season approaches, as he might become even more interesting with a trade out of St. Louis.

Teoscar Hernandez may appear on a lot of sleeper lists this spring, but it appears to be warranted. An extremely low draft-day price will allow him to be a low-risk, high-reward target to fill out rosters. Having just turned 25 in October, Hernandez quietly offered a .908 OPS in 95 late-season plate appearances. The Jays pried Hernandez from a Houston organization flush with outfield talent in the July deal that sent Francisco Liriano to the Astros. Entering 2018, Hernandez could have a starting job to himself, but he'll need to curtail the strikeouts to keep that role after he struck out at a 37.9 percent clip with Toronto. Fortunately, he's kept that number below 25 percent at most of his minor-league stops over the past three seasons. Unfortunately, the addition of Grichuk via trade and Curtis Granderson via free agency could limit Hernandez's chances to play regularly, especially at the outset of the season.

Despite arriving during an era with more tolerance for strikeouts, Matt Davidson is little more than an honorable mention with his appearance on the barrel-rate leaderboard. A 37.2% K% and 4.3% BB% are too much to overcome in the battle to secure plate appearances, even on a rebuilding White Sox roster.

Kyle Schwarber finished in the top-25 in Brls/PA (8.4%), but he was still a colossal bust based on the price that some (including the author of this piece) were willing to pay last spring. He'll turn 25 in March, and it's easy to forget that he lost most of a year to his recovery from a torn ACL in 2016. Schwarber is a left fielder insomuch that a hot dog is a sandwich. I will buy in again at the reduced price this draft season if he is on an American League team before Opening Day.

This article appears in the 2018 RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Guide. You can order a copy here.