2020 wRC+ Splits: Risers and Fallers

Baseball in 2020 is unlike any season that I can remember. The designated hitter is now present in the National League. You will not find any more LOOGYs with the institution of the three-batter minimum rule. Doubleheaders are now a combined 14 innings of baseball. Extra innings now start with a runner on second base. There will not be an All-Star game played in 2020, but MLB has called for an expanded postseason. We have cardboard cutouts, and only the Philly Phanatic to cheer them on.

There are of course many other quirks and nuances for this short season. One item that will not be taken away is player consistency and inconsistency. What I mean by that – is the ability for some players to ride hot streaks for weeks at a time, only to cool off thereafter. At times, players begin the season with a slow start, but manage to turn their season around. There are, of course, those players whose skills appear to be the same throughout the year.

Today, I will take a quick look at the current year’s ‘half-season’ consistencies and inconsistencies.

Definitions & Methodology

To set the stage, let us first define what we mean by the ‘half-season’ to date. We will break the season into two sections.

• First Half (1H) – July 23, 2020 to August 16, 2020
• Second Half (2H) – August 16, 2020 to September 7, 2020

These 3+ week spans are certainly not the official baseball half seasons. They merely are the splits of the current year to date. In actuality, they more closely represent the first two thirds of the short season – but for now, we will refer to them as the ‘half-seasons.’

Next, we will define consistency. For this analysis, we will focus on wRC+.

With regards to their metric wRC, FanGraphs notes the following:

Weighted Runs Created (wRC) is an improved version of Bill James’ Runs Created (RC) statistic, which attempted to quantify a player’s total offensive value and measure it by runs.  In Runs Created, instead of looking at a player’s line and listing out all the details (e.g. 23 2B, 15 HR, 55 BB, 110 K, 19 SB, 5 CS), the information is synthesized into one metric in order to say, “Player X was worth 24 runs to his team last year.”  While the idea was sound, James’ formula has since been superseded by Tom Tango’s wRC , which is based off Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA).

wRC+ uses wOBA, park factors, and league run environment to produce an all-in-one encompassing leaderboard metric. The ‘+’ refers to the normalizing of the statistic, i.e. it is scaled so that 100 is league average. A wRC+ of 142 means that the player was 42% better than league average. A wRC+ of 94 means that the player was 6% worse than league average, etc.

In today’s article, we will look at the difference between a player’s first-half wRC+ and second half wRC+. To rule out some noise, we will only consider players who accumulated at least 35 plate appearances in each half.

Finally, we will classify each player as either a gainer or fader. A gainer is a player with an increase in wRC+ from first half to second. A fader is a player who exhibited a decrease during the stated time. A player with a low absolute difference in half-season wRC+ will be referred to as a stable player.

2020 Gainers

Here are the largest 2020 half-season gainers:

Brandon Belt jumps out as the largest gainer from the first half. Over the past 3+ weeks, Belt is batting .444 with 5 HRs, 14 runs and 14 RBI. His walk rate has grown to an immense 18%, up from what was already a very decent 10% to start the first half of the season. Some of his success seems to be luck aided; he has compiled a .500 BABIP in the second half, which is clearly not sustainable. Belt, who is has a career 123 wRC+, is likely more overplaying in the 2H than underplaying in the 1H.

The same is not true for Red Sox star Rafael Devers, whose second half is closer to reality than his abysmal first. After an incredible 2019, Devers was primed to be a major offensive force in the American League, as one analyst predicted an MVP season.

In the first half of 2020, Devers hit for a .182 average. I stepped on the scale this morning, and I saw a larger figure than that. Since then, Rafael has turned around his season. He is sneakily hitting .321 with 5 HRs and 20 RBI. I would still bet on the upside with Devers going forward.

There are a few other players who catch my eye – who were fantastic early on in the season, and then got even better! The players who had at least a 125 wRC+ in the first half, who had at least a 175 wRC+ in the second half are:

• Ronald Acuna Jr.
• Marcell Ozuna
• Freddie Freeman
• Michael Conforto

Wow. Almost every player above is a member of the Atlanta Braves.  These figures do not even include the Altanta 29-run rout on Wednesday night. The Braves have catapulted themselves into first place in the NL East over the past three weeks.

As for Conforto, he is currently 2^nd in the National League in batting average for the season overall at .348, trailing only Trea Turner. Turner barely missed being mentioned with the other Braves, as he only had a 121 first half wRC+.

2020 Faders

Here are the largest 2020 half-season faders:

Charlie Blackmon is the largest fader in 2020. After three weeks of flirting with a .500 batting average (yes, a .500 batting average) – we knew that he would most certainly descend towards earth. What we did not know was that he would crash, with a 26 wRC+. In other words, Blackmon has been 74% worse than the league average over the past few weeks. Yikes! Regression is a powerful force.

Daniel Murphy and Carson Kelly are the two members of this leaderboard who faded to a negative second-half wRC+. Kelly is batting just a mere .154 in the 2H, with just 1 HR and no walks. Murphy has a .170 average, and no homers. There is upside though for Murphy, who struck out less than 10% of the time during that span, and hit for just a .186 BABIP. Expect some bounce-back.

Now for the players who were super-awesome, and who are now ... just awesome. Below are all those who had at least a 175 wRC+ in the first half, and hit for at least a 125 wRC+ in the second half:

• Juan Soto
• Jesse Winker
• Mitch Moreland

The Padres made a number of mid-season trades this year, and with one of them acquired the ageless Mitch Moreland. Mitch has been outstanding in 2020, but he does exhibit a large righty/lefty split. His wRC+ against righties this year is 173, while vs. lefties is only 66. With Eric Hosmer now on the shelf, Moreland will likely get lots of playing time going forward.

Juan Soto was my pre-season prediction for this year’s NL MVP. Soto missed some time in the beginning of the season, as he tested positive for COVID. As soon as he started playing, he hit the ground running. He has accumulated 1.4 WAR on the season – a top 20 figure in the NL despite the missed time. In his declined 2H, Soto is still batting a lofty .305. No need to worry.

Jesse Winker is quietly having a heck of a season for the Reds. He is batting .293 with 10 HRs, 20 runs and 18 RBI. I do not worry about his second half fade, as he is walking at a 15% clip. Winker is simply an undervalued professional baseball player.

2020 Most Stable Players

Just for fun, here are the most stable players in all of baseball across both season halves:

All of the above players exhibited less than a 10-point difference in their wRC+ between the halves of the season. Of course, consistent hitting is wonderful if the consistency is at a high level such as for Travis d'Arnaud, Nelson Cruz, Franmil Reyes and Anthony Rendon. Sometimes the consistency shown is rather poor – as exhibited with Jose Peraza, Javier Baez, Ryan McMahon and Kevin Newman.

Particularly impressive are the players who can stay at a high offensive level for a prolonged period of time. Jake Cronenworth is a lesser-known player to many, but he is an underrated one. He hit for an almost identical 150 wRC+ in both halves. Cronenworth is batting .325 with four HR, 21 runs and 19 RBI. With a strikeout rate of only 17% in 2020, he should continue to have a high floor for his batting average as the season moves along. He also has swiped 3 bases and carries positional eligibility flexibility, which makes him quite valuable in fantasy baseball - especially in rotisserie formats.

Will these consistent players keep it up for the remainder of the season? Check back here later on in the season.

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