Over the last month, fantasy baseball message boards have been flooded with posts from fantasy owners asking the age-old question, “What is wrong with _____?”  I think evaluating early season disappointments on the hitter side of the ledger is more difficult because there are fewer luck-based metrics to analyze than for pitchers and I feel like it’s tougher to determine when a hitter has truly dropped to a new (and lower) skill level. With that said, I thought it would be helpful to go over which metrics I examine when looking over a slow starting hitter. The following is a primer that will hopefully give you the confidence to figure out “what’s wrong with ____”.

The below is in no particular order, and I suggest using FanGraphs as your first resource to find these metrics to help break down your struggling hitter.

BB% (Walk Rate)- Is he walking less than usual, signifying a sudden lack of patience that may be causing him to swing at bad pitches he can’t do as much with? Or is his walk rate close to his career average, suggesting no skills decline? What about an increased walk rate? This could either be a good or bad sign. Good if the player is young, but potentially bad if he’s old. Walk rates tend to increase with age and often a spike in walk rate at an older age might be compensation for decreased bat speed. In this case, the hitter has consciously become more patient and is taking more pitches, because at this point, he can’t hit as many pitches as he used to be able to and walking is his best chance at getting on base.

K% (Strikeout Rate)- This one is quite simple and intuitive. An increased strikeout rate could happen to a young player who pitchers have “figured out”, so it’s very important to see this rate close to the player’s career average. An older player whose K rate has increased could be a sign that it’s the beginning of the decline phase of his career and the rebound you are hoping for might never come.  

BABIP (batting average on balls in play, or H%, or Hit Rate)- If you notice that an older player has a batting average below your expectations, check out his current season and career BABIP. If his career BABIP was something like .350 and current season down to “only” .320, for example, this might be an example of when you shouldn’t expect the BABIP to rise to match his career average. Many factors contribute to a hitter’s BABIP level throughout his career, but clearly speed and power are two of the most important. A player in the decline phase of his career has surely lost some speed and power and could have a difficult time matching his career BABIP that may have been way above league average to begin with. A younger player, however, has a much better chance of seeing his BABIP rise to near his career level, assuming his career average isn’t dramatically above league average.

GB%/LD%/FB% (ground ball %/line drive %/fly ball %)- Batted ball type data has really gained steam over the last year or so as I’m seeing more and more analysis with it by the day, which is a very excellent thing. Like previous metrics, comparing these numbers to career averages is the key. Is the hitter hitting less line drives than usual? If so, this is the number most likely to rise back to career averages, as opposed to confirmation of a decrease in skill at hitting line drives. The GB%/FB% is more important as a large shift here might mean a change in approach. For example, Alex Rios’ HR outburst in ‘06 and ‘07 was mainly the result of a huge drop in GB% and rise in FB%, a clear effort to hit more fly balls and tap into his power. Garrett Atkins is another example of this in the same 2 years. These are the good changes to batted ball type data. On the other hand, if your hitter is suddenly hitting a ton more ground balls than usual, a rebound in HRs (assuming he’s been a disappointment there so far) shouldn’t be counted on.

HR/FB (Home Runs per Fly Ball)- Here’s yet another metric where age and track record really come into play. Is this a veteran hitter who should still be in his prime, but his HR/F is much lower than his career average? If so, then we should expect a rebound. If we’re looking at a 35 year old hitter though instead, this might be another sign that the end is near and the power decline has begun. A young hitter with a short track record and a lower HR/FB ratio than the previous year or his career might just be due to the normal ups and downs of a young player’s career or a sign that his previous year was either over his head or represented his power ceiling. Fantasy owners sometimes forget that young players don’t automatically improve every single year in a straight line until reaching their peak!

Doubles Rate and ISO, in combination with HR/FB (ISO = Isolated Slugging = SLG - AVG)- In addition to looking at how the player’s HR power has changed, taking a look at his doubles rate could also be an indicator of a change in power skills. I mention ISO above because it’s a better indicator of power than straight Slugging %, since that rate is influenced by batting average. But ISO isn’t perfect to look at because a flukey low HR/FB could drag it down. So next we need to look at doubles rate and see how that compares to previous seasons. If the doubles rate is down along with the HR/FB, then there is trouble as the hitter has experienced an obvious loss of power. If the doubles rate is similar or even up from previous seasons, then we could assume the HRs will eventually come.

Well that basically wraps up everything I look at when trying to figure out what the heck is up with my slow starters. The biggest problem though is it’s very, very difficult to tell if the slow start is due to a hidden injury, which may or may not heal to allow for a rebound, a true skills decline that will be maintained all year, or if it’s just a normal slow start like any hitter could suffer through. Hopefully the above could take some of the guesswork out of it and allow for more informed decisions. Also, if you didn’t notice, age plays a huge factor in these types of analyses. Many times what happens is an older player ends up declining earlier than we were expecting and you have to recognize this and tell yourself that a rebound probably isn’t imminent.

For a look at how all these tools could be used together, have a listen to the premier of The Fantasy Baseball Roundtable radio show if you haven’t done so already. We discussed Derek Jeter’s relatively slow start and I talked about many of the metrics above including ISO.

Questions, comments, criticisms, praise, expert league invitations? Email me at FBGeneralsMike@gmail.com.