January 22, 2021

Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Willy Adames had the seventh-highest swinging-strike percentage of any hitter in baseball last year, helped along by a 48.3% contact rate on swings at pitches outside the zone--11th-worst in the league. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise, then, to learn that Adames also had the third-highest strikeout rate in the league at 36.1%. A statistically improbable .388 BABIP (fifth-highest in MLB) kept his slash line from bottoming out, but Adames is not the type of all-around hitter who can survive these low-contact and high-strikeout tendencies over the long haul. His quality of contact on batted balls was a mixed bag; he was top-20 in the league in line drive rate, but he continued his career-long tendency to hit considerably more grounders (43.2%) than fly balls (31.1%). Since the beginning of 2018, Adames is one of only 11 players with a GB/FB ratio of 1.50 or higher and a HR/FB rate of 18% or higher in at least 1,000 plate appearances. In other words, he doesn't hit many fly balls and has been abnormally lucky in terms of how frequently they've cleared the fence. With number-one overall prospect Wander Franco waiting in the wings, one has to wonder how long Adames can realistically maintain the everyday shortstop role in Tampa without cutting down on the strikeouts at the very least. He doesn't carry much risk in fantasy leagues since he can be drafted in the final rounds, but the potential for reward isn't through the roof either.--Chris O'Reilly