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In this week’s “By The Numbers” breakdown, we are going to focus our analysis on combining ideal offensive metrics parameters. The goal will be to narrow down the mass field of players that excel in specific areas such as superior plater discipline, contact, and power to find out who has been doing well at all three.
The ideal hitting approach for anyone should be to limit the number of pitches attacked outside of the strike zone, maximizing contact on pitches attacked within the strike zone, and making contact on the barrel whenever possible. For those unfamiliar with FanGraphs, you can find these measurements using O-Swing (percentage of pitches a hitter chases outside of the strike zone), Z-Contact (contact percentage on pitches within the strike zone), and Barrel percentage (the rate at which a hitter strikes a ball at an ideal combination of exit velocity and launch angle).[[ad:athena]]
In order to narrow down the field to a select few, you are going to need to set parameters for each metric that the hitters will need to fall into. For our purposes, the parameters have been set so that any qualified hitter will need to fall below the 25 percent mark in O-Swing while exceeding the 85 percent mark in Z-Contact. By doing this you will immediately have a strong list of players that exceed in both pitch selection and contact (as of Monday, May 31):
Alex Bregman, Mookie Betts, Myles Straw, Will Smith, DJ LeMahieu, Mark Canha, Juan Soto, Jed Lowrie, Yandy Diaz, Max Muncy, Robbie Grossman, Ronald Acuna, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Tommy Pham (hitters listed by highest Z-Contact rate)
There are plenty of names on the list that should not be a surprise, but quite a few that you may not have expected. That is an incredibly important thing to note when doing statistical analysis and combining parameters. You want to see some obvious names. This will tell you that the parameters you have selected will produce the outcome you are hoping to find. However, you also want to see some surprise names. This will tell you what you are truly searching for in the form of players that have a skill set that matches those of the known elite.
Everyone knows that Juan Soto, Ronald Acuna Jr., and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. are fantastic. What the majority does not know is that Mark Canha, Myles Straw, and Tommy Pham have similar traits in some of the most important metrics for hitters. This is where you can find hidden value in fantasy and confirm (or deny) a breakout candidate sometimes.
As we dig in “By The Numbers” we are going to further narrow down the list by the third metric parameter mentioned earlier: Barrel rate. In addition to ideal pitch selection and in-zone contact, we want to know who is hitting the ball with authority once contact is made. The following seven qualified hitters (as of the time this was written) have an O-Swing rate below 25 percent, Z-Contact rate above 85 percent, and a Barrel rate above nine percent:
Ronald Acuna Jr, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Juan Soto, Tommy Pham, Max Muncy, Will Smith, and Mark Canha.
Let’s take a look at some of the outlier names on the list to see if what we are seeing early in the 2021 season is legitimate.
Tommy Pham, OF San Diego Padres
O-Swing: 18.5 percent
Z-Contact: 85.5 percent
Barrel rate: 11.7 percent
Tommy Pham may be a name that truly surprises some to be on this list. The first reason is that the 33-year-old is currently batting .221 over 154 at-bats with a .318 slugging percentage. That is not ideal. However, the veteran outfielder is also carrying a .351 on-base percentage and is batting .273 over the past 15 games (.323 over the past seven).
The right-handed power and speed threat consistently flashes upper-tier maximum exit velocity every season, reaching 112.7 miles per hour so far in 2021. Hard contact has not been the issue, but the brand of contact has been. Pham, from 2015-2019, never posted higher than a 16.4 percent rate of hitting “Under” the ball. So far this season he is sitting at 18.6 percent with the lowest percentage of “Flare/Burners” of his career.
Hey Matt, what on earth is a “Flare/Burner”?
I am glad you asked. First, let’s start with the definition of a “barrel”. To barrel a baseball, the batted ball needs to be struck with an exit velocity of at least 98 miles per hour with a launch angle between 26 and 30 degrees. For every mile per hour over 98, the range of launch angle expands. These are often where home runs are generated.
A “flare” or “burner” is a batted ball event that falls just shy of being classified as a barrel. A flare will have a lower exit velocity, but higher launch angle, whereas a burner will have a higher exit velocity and lower launch angle. These types of hits often correlate with a high batting average but are unlikely to result in a home run.
So, getting back to Tommy Pham. A current slash line of .221/.351/.318 suggests that he is struggling over 154 at-bats. However, a BABIP of .273 and HR/FB ratio of 8.3% indicate a level of bad luck when it comes to both batting average and power. This is somewhat confirmed by an expected batting average of .255 and an expected slugging percentage of .452 on Statcast.
All it will take is for Pham to make a slight adjustment, and for the law of averages to kick in, for the Padres outfielder to start making some noise in June. The injury risk will always be there, but he makes for a prime buy-low as a well-balanced player on a premium offense.
Mark Canha, OF Oakland Athletics
O-Swing: 23.2 percent
Z-Contact: 88.3 percent
Barrel rate: 11.4 percent
Mark Canha is someone who you should be surprised to see on this list considering how productive he has been this season. The 32-year-old is slashing .249/.387/.461 over 193 at-bats with 10 home runs, seven doubles, 42 runs scored, and seven stolen bases. However, the vast majority of fantasy managers may not give Canha the credit that is due to him and may have been under the impression that his first two months were somewhat of a fluke. After all, the Athletics outfielder posted inferior surface stats over the first four years of his career as a bench bat.
Canha showed a glimpse of what he was capable of in the 2018 season when he started to square up the ball more consistently, but it was not until 2019 when the right-handed hitter was given the opportunity to play on a daily basis due to teammate injuries. Over 497 plate appearances, Canha was able to improve his batting average from .249 to .275 while hitting 26 home runs and posting a walk rate in the top-eighth percentile in baseball.
Fast forward to 2021 and the veteran has posted the highest barrel rate of his career (11.4 percent) over the first two months while maintaining the elite plate discipline gained during his breakout. This is mostly due to Canha’s superior pitch recognition and selection. In the chart below you can see that it is very difficult for opposing pitchers to generate a swing out of the zone, which limits weak contact.
Canha has posted a 135 wRC+ since 2018 and is currently the 11th most valuable player in the American League with a 148 wRC+ this season. The question is whether this is a two-month hot streak or the start of increased and sustained production.
It would seem to be the latter with Canha benefiting from a mechanical adjustment that has allowed for a more efficient swing. The highly disciplined veteran opened up his stance slightly this season while narrowing his stance at the plate. This has allowed Canha to command his forward movement and improve his timing when tracking the baseball. The result is improved batted ball contact, which is exactly what you want to see.
Mark Canha is a gold mine of value in on-base percentage leagues, but he has incredible value in standard formats as well. The jump in production is built on sustainable batted ball skills and a tangible change in mechanics.
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Max Muncy, 1B/2B Los Angeles Dodgers
O-Swing: 15.9 percent
Z-Contact: 86.8 percent
Barrel rate: 14.4 percent
Max Muncy, like Cavan Biggio, has been an interesting player to evaluate due to his unique approach at the plate. Each batter is very passive at the plate, consistently posting below average swing rates which have led to above-average strikeout and walk rates.
The issue with this approach is that you allow “your pitch” to go by during an at-bat too often, which can lead to inferior results at times. This is what happened to Muncy in 2020 when he hit just .192 over 248 plate appearances. However, the 30-year-old has more than proven that his approach can be successful by blasting 70 home runs between the 2018 and 2019 seasons.
You could call what happened during the 2020 season the worst-case scenario for Muncy’s approach at the plate. Well, welcome to the best-case scenario in 2021.
The Dodgers infielder has posted the best O-Swing rate of his career at 15.9 percent (league average: 30.8 percent) while not only shedding his below-average Z-Contact profile but posting an elite 86.8 percent (league average 83.6 percent) rate. This has allowed Muncy to not only post a 16.7 percent Barrel rate but do so while continuing to post an elite walk rate (20 percent).
Is it possible that Muncy can continue to produce at this level? Simply put, yes. All of the production that we have witnessed this season has been 100 percent, grass-fed, organic. Muncy has an expected batting average exceeding his own by 10 points while posting a .516 xwOBAcon. However, the issue continues to be the volatility of the approach. You can only barrel what the opposing pitcher offers and that is difficult to do consistently with the passive nature of Muncy’s approach.
The Dodgers slugger has the lowest swing percentage in baseball, a mere two percent above Juan Soto while posting a similar Z-Contact rate.
Now, if you think Max Muncy can continue to replicate the elite process of one the best hitters in baseball, then you should look to acquire him in any and all fantasy leagues. History would suggest that is unlikely, but the results, as they say, speak for themself. Muncy is currently one of the most underrated players in baseball in terms of what he is doing at the plate and while it is difficult to imagine this level of success being sustained, at least in the manner in which he is doing it, it’s exciting to watch.
