RADIO
Rick Lucks analyzes Didi Gregorius, Eduardo Nunez, and Brian Dozier to see who will have continued success in the 2016 season and which players will see a regression for the rest of the year.
A few weeks back, I lamented Rich Hill's blister problem because it prevented me from including him in my NL trade deadline article. He is back now, but was famously pulled after just 89 pitches despite being perfect for seven innings, again due to blister concerns. Babying him may be the best move for the playoff-bound Dodgers, but he seems like a questionable fantasy asset the rest of the way as a result. SPs with hard pitch caps below 90 have a hard time accumulating wins and quality starts.
Last week I identified three pitchers you probably shouldn't rely on for the rest of the year. Below I have three batters I feel the same way about. Once again, regression is not guaranteed over the season's final couple of weeks, so this could alternatively be viewed as keeper league advice or the start of 2017 draft prep. It's never too early!
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The Fantasy Jury Is Out
Didi Gregorius (SS, NYY)
Could the Yankees have picked a less qualified replacement for Derek Jeter? Prior to this season, Gregorius's upside appeared to be a .260 hitter with little power or speed. As a result, this season's .274/.303/.452 with 18 long balls and seven steals comes as quite a shock.
The most eye-popping number is the 18 dingers, so we'll start there. Gregorius has never before hit as many as 10 homers in one campaign, with last year's nine tying a career best attained multiple times in the minor leagues. Yankee Stadium is great for power hitting, but Gregorius called it home last year as well and his previous address, Arizona, is far from a pitcher's haven. There is nothing in the shortstop's history that suggests this power surge is sustainable.
Gregorius is both hitting more fly balls (34.1% FB% last year to 38.9% this) and seeing more of them fly over the fence (6% HR/FB last year, 10.8% this) relative to last season. He is not pulling more of his flies (19.8% against last year's mark of 23.3%), so I expect the HR/FB to regress moving forward. It should also be noted that HR/FB is up throughout baseball this year (11.4% last year to 13% this), meaning that Gregorius's contributions mean less than they would have in earlier seasons.
If you're in a particularly deep league, Gregorius may be enough of a contact hitter to not kill you from a MI slot. The shortstop's 90.8% Z-Contact% borders on elite, keeping his K rate tiny at 14.3% despite a 9.3% SwStr%. He chases too many bad pitches (39.9% O-Swing%) and never walks (3.2% BB%), suggesting more strikeouts in his future if pitchers can make the necessary adjustments. It probably remains below the league average even in the worst case scenario, though.
Once the ball is in play, Gregorius's career .289 BABIP gives him some batting average upside. This could in turn allow him to pile up counting stats with the right lineup spot. The Yankees don't seem to know what to do with him in the batting order, as he has hit second, cleanup, sixth, and ninth this year alone. While he's been buried lately, he could be a low end sleeper next year if it looks like he'll hit second.
While many shortstops provide SBs, Gregorius should not be expected to do so. His career best in the category is 16 all the way back in Single-A ball, and he has never hit double digits otherwise. His success rate this year is good (seven for eight), but stealing more than a handful is simply not in Gregorius's skill set. Any fantasy value Gregorius has is tied to batting order placement and the fact he plays everyday. Expecting the 20-10 season he's close to this year is a bad idea.
Verdict: Chump
Eduardo Nunez (3B/SS, SF)
Nunez's .288/.326/.438 triple slash line is startlingly close to last year's .282/.327/.431 in 204 PAs. They're even supported by the same slightly inflated .314 BABIP. Somehow, Nunez's counting stats did not get the memo he's having the same season, as last year's four bombs and eight swipes fail to approach this season's 15 and 36 even if prorated.
The steals are probably Nunez's best asset at this point, so we'll start there. While he has never played a full season before, Nunez has consistently run when presented with the opportunity. He twice swiped 28 bags in the minor leagues, and managed to pilfer 22 in about half a season with the Yankees in 2011. Still, most of his steal totals prorate to 25 or so in a full year, not the 40+ he's looking at now. He's a viable SB fantasy play, but probably not an elite one.
Part of his SB total is the fact that he is getting on base a lot. His .314 BABIP is the same as last year's despite indications that it should be lower. He is a well below average line drive hitter, with this season's 16.9% LD% continuing a trend of failing to achieve a league average rate since 2013. His FB% is also up, from a low 27.1% last season to 33.8% this year. This is the primary cause of his power boost (see below), but the BABIP should be expected to suffer a little if it becomes Nunez's new norm.
That is because Nunez is great at using his legs to reach base on ground balls. While his current .338 BABIP on worm killers is unsustainable even for him, Nunez's career mark of .295 suggests a real ability to outperform the league average BABIP on the ground. Nunez's production on the other batted ball types is right on his career averages, so a few lucky hits on grounders are entirely responsible for his elevated BABIP to date.
In terms of plate discipline, Nunez's story is much the same as Gregorius's. His 90.8% Z-Contact% borders on elite, allowing him to post a better than average 14.6% K% despite chasing too many pitches (38% O-Swing%). His overall SwStr% of 7.7% is a little better than Gregorius's, so I don't see the same risk of a strikeout spike. He doesn't walk (4.9% BB%), which is unfortunate considering his legs.
While there is no guarantee that a career utilityman continues receiving everyday playing time, Nunez's current power pace seems sustainable if he does. His HR/FB has risen from 9.5% last year to 10.3% this year, perhaps due to whatever is driving the league wide increase mentioned above. His 33.8% FB% is still rather low, so there is no reason Nunez shouldn't sustain it moving forward. The result of an average FB% and HR/FB is average power, which is really all Nunez is currently providing.
League average power and 25 steals make for an attractive package in deeper leagues or those where versatility matters. With 69 games at 3B and 52 at SS, Nunez should easily qualify at both spots next year. More lenient formats may also give him 2B eligibility based on six games there this year. Sadly, he'll lose OF eligibility in those more lenient formats as a result of playing zero games there.
For the rest of this year, Nunez appears buried toward the bottom of San Francisco's lineup, limiting his R and RBI opportunities. It's possible that enough people expect regression to make Nunez a sleeper next year, but there is no way he sustains his current level of production. The correction is already occurring, as his 2nd half batting average is only .236 to the 1st half's .321.
Verdict: Chump
Brian Dozier (2B, MIN)
Dozier is hitting .282/.355/.582 with 41 HR and 15 SB this year. Considering his price, those stats are league winning. There isn't much more to say about them.
While Dozier has always been a power threat, 40+ is a whole new level for him. He is both hitting more fly balls (44.1% FB% last year to 47.2% this) and experiencing a favorable HR/FB (from 13.1% to 19.6%) that seems to go beyond the league wide power boost. Frankly, I don't trust either number. While Dozier's FB% is up, his GB% is up too (33.3% last year to 36.6%). This means that he has a career worst LD% of 16.3%. Furthermore, in the month of July Dozier posted an 8.6% LD% against a 58% FB%. Months are small samples, but the LD% is too low and the FB% too high to conclude anything other than inaccurate classification of liners as flies in July.
Meanwhile, Dozier's HR/FB appears to be inflated by a 42.1% Pull% on fly balls. Normally I would suggest this as a sustainable power increase, but Dozier's game plan has always been to pull as many flies as he possibly can--his 37.4% career rate attests to this. I don't think Dozier is any better at pulling flies than he used to be, leading me to conclude that his longstanding approach is simply doing better this year. Nothing has really changed from his past performance level.
All of the pulling would suggest Dozier as prime shift bait, especially when you take his 71.6% Pull% on ground balls into consideration. Yet teams have shifted against him less than half of the time (210 PAs without the shift to 198 PAs with it), and he is hitting .309 when it is on. As a result, Dozier's .288 BABIP is a career best. If the shift works at all, something that very few people still question, it should work on the pull happy Dozier. I'm inclined to believe that the shift will work on him, this season notwithstanding.
Dozier's elevated BABIP is the result of both his grounders (.290) and flies (.124) outperforming their career averages (.252 and .086 respectively). The grounders are discussed above, but the fly balls are odd because a spike in HR/FB typically removes many of a batter's best flies from BABIP consideration. The fact that Dozier's HR/FB and BABIP on fly balls are both up suggests fortune is responsible for one or the other, if not both.
If you play in a format that values week to week consistency, you may want to just avoid the tremendously streaky Dozier. Dozier has hit .369 with eight bombs in June, .302 with 13 big flies in August, and .390 with nine dingers so far in September. These are the good months. Despite the stellar overall numbers, the bad months are still really bad: .191 with three homers in April, .215 with two home runs in May, and .242 with six long balls in July. Dozier's entire career has the same trend. His 1st half last year included a .256 average and 19 HR while the second saw only .210 and nine, for example. The streaks are entirely unpredictable, forcing you to live with the bad to get the good.
Dozier offers plus plate discipline, sporting an above average 18.6% K% supported by a 8.8% SwStr% even with all of the power. He's also not afraid to walk, as attested by his 28.4% O-Swing% and 9.2% BB%. The steals are also real, as going 15 for 17 is no reason to give a guy a red light. Dozier is an asset as log as you expect 25+ homers with batting average risk, not MVP caliber numbers.
The other problem with Dozier's power is that Minnesota leads him off, ensuring that no one is on for his first PA and that he depends on a weak lineup's weakest hitters thereafter. As a result, he does not provide the 120 RBI you might expect from his HR total. Dozier is good but not great, making him a chump relative to his current performance.
Verdict: Chump
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