RADIO
Welcome to Contact Rate Risers and Fallers! Our premium tools allow us to get out ahead of trends in player performance, including contact rate. Every Wednesday, we'll be looking at some players that have seen an increase in contact rate and some that have seen it decline.
Contact rate can foretell a player's batting average and general hitting statistics, and any drastic change could signal a shift in performance. Contact rate shifts often act as a precursor to hot streaks and slumps.
Here is a breakdown of some of the biggest fantasy relevant risers and fallers in contact rate over the last seven days.
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Contact Rate Risers
Austin Hedges (C, SD): 94% contact rate last seven days (+23%)
Hedges has been swinging a hot bat ever since returning from the disabled list in July, and last week he hit .294 with a .941 OPS and one strikeout in 17 PA. Strikeouts and poor contact rate have been a problem for Hedges ever since he debuted in 2015. He was highly regarded for his glove behind the plate and power as a prospect, but batting average was always going to be a problem. In the second half Hedges cut his strikeout rate to a very manageable 20%, and it coincided with a .255 BA and .815 OPS, the best sustained production of his career. He also has a .261 ISO and 10 of his 14 home runs in the second half. As far as catchers on the waiver wire go, options are pretty thin, so Hedges is a fine hot hand play to ride out the rest of the season. He is splitting time with Francisco Mejia right now, but is on the strong side of that platoon.
Mike Zunino (C, SEA): 79% contact rate last seven days (+19%)
The Austin Hedges of the American League, Zunino also had an uptick in contact rate the last week. Unfortunately, Zunino hasn’t quite had the hot stretch that Hedges has experienced. Perhaps performance needs to be relative here, because Zunino is hitting .225 in September, his second highest batting average in any month behind a .226 clip in July. Over the past week he hit .263 with a .679 OPS and four strikeouts in 22 PA. The fact that a 79% contact rate, hardly above league average, presents such a large jump for Zunino is concerning by itself. His 64.5% contact rate and 37.2% strikeout rate would rank in the bottom three among qualified hitters if Zunino had enough plate appearances to qualify. That would all be okay if he delivered the same power he had in the previous two seasons, but his ISO has dropped over 50 points this season and he has just 14 extra-base hits since the All-Star break. Zunino is 42% owned in Yahoo leagues, while Hedges is 31% owned. That’s an easy swap to make, because Zunino’s uptick in contact rate isn’t encouraging for his overall production.
Michael Conforto (OF, NYM): 88% contact rate last seven days (+17%)
Is good Michael Conforto back? He was locked in last week for a .375 BA, 1.241 OPS and four strikeouts in 35 PA. Conforto also already has seven homers in September and a .269 ISO in the second half. The first four months of the season were quite miserable for him, and there were concerns that the shoulder injury Conforto suffered in 2017 was going to have a permanent impact on his performance. He’s hopefully putting those concerns to bed with the most consistent power production all season. He would go on hot streaks here-and-there, but we never saw the elite power that Conforto flashed in 2017 until recently. His strikeout percentage has dropped recently and that has coincided with his uptick in production. Here is a chart comparing Conforto’s rolling strikeout rate compared to his wOBA (from fangraphs.com).
They invert each other almost perfectly, and he has only a 17% strikeout rate this month, by far the lowest of any month this season. Another encouraging sign is Conforto’s improvements against left-handed pitching. In 178 PA versus lefties Conforto is hitting .250 with an .808 OPS and .238 ISO, better than his numbers against righties. He’s only owned in 68% of Yahoo leagues, so check your waiver wire just in case Conforto is out there. His stock is looking up for 2019, and hopefully his poor overall numbers ding his cost come draft day next year.
Contact Rate Fallers
Tommy Pham (OF, TB): 47% contact rate last seven days (-24%)
Oh Tommy Pham, for the sake of your fantasy owners will you please get your eyes fixed? This must be the third or fourth time in 2018 that Pham has not only appeared as a faller in this article, but been the biggest faller in contact rate of the week. He goes through these extended stretches where hitting the ball is akin to walking on water. Last week Pham hit .235 with a .644 OPS and nine strikeouts in 20 PA. The frustrating part with Pham is that all the raw tools of a superstar are here. When he does make contact Pham crushes the ball with a 92.8 MPH average exit velocity, tenth best in the majors (min. 150 batted balls). He also has a .501 xSLG and .378 xwOBA, both All-Star level numbers. Since coming to Tampa Bay Pham does have a .922 OPS, but it has come with injuries and cold streaks like this one. 2017 was an amazing season for Pham and was backed by his peripherals, but unless something changes with Pham’s vision issues, such as surgical intervention, he will fail to live up to his potential. Depending on draft cost he is still an interesting player to take a shot on in 2019, but he shouldn’t be taken in the top-75.
Kyle Seager (3B, SEA): 55% contact rate last seven days (-22%)
Mr. Reliable has been anything but in 2018. Often cited as the paragon of unexciting consistency, Seager went five straight years between 2013-2017 with a batting average between .249-.278, between 22-30 homers, and an OPS between .764 and .859. The high end of those numbers all came on a career year in 2016, otherwise things were even more bunched up this season. Barring a crazy hot streak it’s unlikely Seager will raise his OPS above .700 or his batting average above .230. He actually got good results last week with a .364 BA and 1.098 OPS in 26 PA, but he also had 10 strikeouts and a .636 BABIP during that stretch. That’s the type of hot streak Seager would need to carry his numbers up, but this isn’t sustainable. His down year looks like a combination of poor luck and diminished skill. He has a .249 BABIP and .158 BABIP on groundballs (compared to a .281 BABIP and .228 BABIP on grounders for his career), but also has the highest strikeout rate and lowest contact rate of his career. Seager’s .289 wOBA puts him in the bottom 7% of the league, and while he certainly isn’t that bad, his .327 xwOBA doesn’t suggest the eventual bounce-back will be anything special. He’s a fringy corner infielder, now and forevermore. Well, at least until he declines beyond usefulness that is, which will probably come in the next three years.
J.T. Realmuto (C, MIA): 58% contact rate last seven days (-21%)
Realmuto picked a bad time to slump. Over the last week he hit .105 with a .524 OPS and eight strikeouts in 23 PA. He’s actually been struggling since the beginning of August, and since August 1 Realmuto is hitting .209 with a .716 OPS and 22% strikeout rate. His poor performance probably went largely unnoticed by his owners and baseball fans since he was still a better hitter than the average major league catcher. His batting average is 30 points lower, but his OPS is 40 points higher and his strikeout rate is better than the average backstop. That’s not a totally fair comparison to make since Alex Avila is probably dragging those numbers down on his own, but it goes to show how much better even a bad Realmuto is compared to most catchers. He can’t and shouldn’t be benched. Better to play the stud than risk the championship with a hot waiver wire add, no matter how well Austin Hedges is hitting right now. He is neck-and-neck with Gary Sanchez for the title of number one fantasy catcher going into next season.
