The MLB season is off and running, and in the FantasyLabs Tools we already have a good chunk of data to dive into. Through the first 10 games or so, some players are scorching hot and others are ice cold. Baseball is a long season, and for the most part hot and cold streaks are the result of luck. A batter can bloop base hits for a week and hit .500, and another batter can smoke line drives directly at defenders and hit .100. Eventually, these short-term trends tend to balance out in the long run. It’s not as if you should expect a lucky player to become very unlucky or vice versa, but you should eventually see him perform at something close to his long-term production level.
I believe that now is a great time to take a look at some batted-ball data to find out which guys are too hot and too cold. Using our MLB Models and Trends tool, we can find players who should be targeted or avoided in the near future.
Too Lucky
Adam Eaton: The Nationals were dealt a bad hand last year, as their newly-acquired outfielder tore his ACL before the calendar hit May. Now, they are getting more than they ever dreamed of. Eaton has been hitting the cover off the ball and is near the top of the league with a 63% hard-hit rate (per Fangraphs), more than double his career average. He has 18 DraftKings points per game on the young year, boasting a Plus/Minus of nearly +10. If we look, though, at his Recent Batted Ball Luck (RBBL), we can see that his early-season production is bound to regress. His score for this metric, which looks at the difference between his batted-ball distance percentile and fantasy scoring percentile, sits at -69, suggesting that he’s been very lucky.
Players with RBBLs no higher than -50 have historically yielded a Plus/Minus of -0.54; players with RBBLs no higher than -69 have yielded a -0.67. Many of these hot players see their salaries rise, which contributes to their price-adjusted underperformance. Eaton was $4,200 on Opening Day, but now he is up to $5,000.
Dee Gordon: The speedy Gordon has been impressive with the Mariners. Dare I say … too impressive? Although he is always a stolen-base threat and someone to consider when leading off, he’s never been a great hitter. Sure, he can slap some singles around, but that doesn’t translate into a lot of offensive output. He has a career batting average of nearly .300, but his wRC+ of 94 suggests that he is a below-average hitter. Right now, he sits near the top (or the bottom) of the league with a batted ball luck score of -82, as his fantasy output has far exceeded his batted-ball profile.
Shohei Ohtani: I was debating whether I should include Ohtani in this, but given that the #OhtaniMania hype train is running at full steam, I figured I had to. Ohtani has four games as a hitter under his belt, and he has homered in three. Not shockingly, his Plus/Minus of +9.6 is near the top of the league. His price has been between $2,900 and $3,900 and now sits at $4,200. Since he’s been batting eighth and will likely remain near the bottom of the lineup, I can’t see too many sharp players paying that much for him, but in lower-stakes tournaments his ownership rate is elevated. Moving forward, he’s not going to hit homers on 75% of his fly balls, and he’s not going to post a wOBA over .500. Let’s pump the brakes a bit and see how he does over the next couple of weeks before calling him the next Babe Ruth.
Too Unlucky
Randal Grichuk: Blue Jays fans probably aren’t too happy with Grichuk, who before arriving in Toronto was inconsistent in St. Louis, showing flashes of greatness and long stretches of atrocity. Right now, the Blue Jays are getting the atrocity, but there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon.
As of Monday, Grichuk is 2-of-38 with one home run, three walks and 13 strikeouts. In 10 games, he has just 25 DraftKings points, and his cumulative Plus/Minus of -44.4 is the worst in the bigs. However, his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is .048. The league average is about .300, but Grichuk is more of a fly-ball hitter, so we should expect to see his in the .250 range. He’s also gotten porked on his HR/FB rate, which sits at 7.7% — well below his career average of about 17%. It shouldn’t be surprising to find his RBBL at 87: He’s been very unlucky.
Players with RBBLs of 50 or higher have historically yielded a Plus/Minus of +0.60 over a sample of 11,000-plus games. Players at 85 or higher have yielded a Plus/Minus of +1.32 over nearly 1,400 games.
Jose Ramirez: Cleveland’s offense has been cold as a whole, but with his luck Ramirez at some point must have spilled the salt shaker while driving across the country in a sheep dog.
Ramirez has two hits in 39 at-bats, and his .033 BABIP is the worst in the league. Coming off a season in which he finished third in MVP voting, Ramirez has an average ownership (12.3%) almost twice that of Grichuk. Don’t get off the Ramirez horse yet, though, as his luck is surely due to turn.
Joey Votto: Votto is also coming off a near-MVP campaign, but he is off to a horrid start. He does have seven hits, but all seven are singles. This isn’t any fault of his, either, as he’s made weak contact just 3.8% of the time (per Fangraphs). Like Grichuk, Votto has a high RBBL (79), suggesting that he has simply suffered from bad luck to start the year. Perhaps the most troubling (but at the same time promising) fact is that he has just one walk. Votto hasn’t had a season with a BB% lower than 15% since 2010. If there’s anything I can guarantee, it’s that Votto will get his walks. If Votto were a stock, I’d be buying by the truckload.
Pictured above: Adam Eaton
Photo credit: David Kohl – USA TODAY Sports
