On pace to set new career highs in home runs, stolen bases, runs, RBIs, AVG…well, everything really, you could say that Todd Frazier is having himself a pretty good year. To put his numbers in perspective and examine when it is most optimal to play him, I’m going to look at the numbers through Fantasy Labs trends as well as compare his numbers to some of the other top players in the league.
Courtesy of Fangraphs, here are the leaders in wOBA for 2015:
This is without splitting for handedness and there are some pretty silly numbers in this screenshot. Here’s what I found scary: look at Frazier’s BABIP compared to everyone else on the list. There are a lot of great talents listed in the top 10, but the large majority of those listed above are screaming for regression. Todd Frazier has put up a .409 overall wOBA without being particularly lucky, as his .294 BABIP is closer to the league average. It also surprised me a little bit to see his K% smack in the middle of the top batters as I’ve always thought of him as a higher K guy. In fact, this is the first time in his career his K% has been under 20%, so he is putting more balls in play than ever before.
Over his career, Frazier has been slightly better against lefties, but he is close to a neutral-split type player. That doesn’t tell the whole story though. Great American Ballpark ranks within the top five in ballparks with the shortest field to both far left and left center. Here is Frazier’s spray chart for 2015:
Looking at the numbers, Frazier has hit 21 more homers at Great American and has a much higher average than on the road. This is one of the best power hitters in baseball who plays half of his games in a park that perfectly fits his power profile. Going back to my “Sticking It To Vegas” article, Todd Frazier was one of the few players in the league who actually gained value when Vegas projected his team to score below 3.7 runs. Combining that with what we just saw, it would take a pretty extreme matchup for Frazier to ever be a bad play at home.
Just for fun, here are his numbers when Vegas projects the Reds to do poorly:
So we can play Frazier against anybody at home. What about on the road? Here he is on the road overall:
You can still play Frazier on the road, but he’s much more matchup-dependent. For example, he adds moderate value on the road when Vegas projects 4+ runs and he is facing a lefty:
He can add a little value when facing a pitcher who ranks in the bottom 30% in SO/9 as well. On a related note, when I moved the slider towards high-strikeout pitchers on the road, Frazier gets mowed down, losing over half a point in Plus/Minus. Anyway, here he is against the bottom 30% of pitchers by SO/9:
Somewhat surprisingly, I did not find any relation between his performance on the road and wind speed/direction. I would have thought that a strong wind to left, where he can hit home runs against righties and lefties, would have elevated his score, but there was no correlation.
So if you want to take Frazier on the road and do well, you can play him against lefties that Vegas hates. Not quite as fun as the “I WILL FACE ANYONE AND STILL HIT A HOME RUN” version of himself that he is at home, but still good to know, I guess.
