With the end of the regular season comes a time for reflection for the majority of baseball fans. What went right? What went wrong? You probably have a few ideas where your teams fell short or exceeded expectations, but what about a completely objective point of view? Throughout this season I have shown what batter and pitcher production looks like when we regress balls in play to look more like what the players should have seen using exit velocity and launch angle. The offseason will be no different as I take a team-by-team look at how the season fared for the club, while going a little deeper on players who were selected in the 2 Early Mock Draft. Provided there is a decent amount of history worth looking into. Player analysis will run from 2015 to present regardless of employer.
The order of release is the reverse of the final season ranking report so you can expect to find some depression leading to elation here. A quick review of that previous post can also give you a good idea of how a team rates compared to their peers as these analyses will focus upon each individual team. Lastly, playoff data has been included, which will not impact the first dozen or so teams, but does factor into league averages, and is included within player analysis. It’s going to take some time, but I would like to get one to two of these out each week which should allow for every team being covered before our glorious game returns to continue threshing our hearts.
COL BOS DET MIA PIT TEX ARI SEA KCR BAL WAS STL HOU
Team Batter Production & Discipline
For much of the shortened season the Chicago Cubs looked mostly like a pretty good offense that occasionally went to bed, but usually held up their end of the deal. The last third of the season shows the bats falling off a good deal as the team got swept up in a tight schedule necessitated by COVID-19 issues for divisional rivals, while seemingly skirting the issue quite well for their own guys. The division winner got things back on track heading into the postseason before the bats completely went to sleep against a pretty good Miami Marlins pitching unit. Strikeouts were typically average or worse with an early commitment to the walk mostly falling off to around average before creeping back up at the end of the year. A few prolonged stretches saw teamwide strikeout rates above 30%, though showed more persistence early on.
Batter Seasonal Line
A team-best rate of production helped Jason Heyward offset less than a full boat of plate appearances in the race for the most productive Cubs batter. Expected production against lefties fell well short, a common refrain for many of the sticks, but he got to all of his very good expectations against righties walking as often as he struckout, to boot. The high walk rate was also common throughout the lineup, though strikeout rates were also elevated for several. The strikeout rate ballooned against lefties, but came in right around the average against righties in a much bigger sample. Expected production against them was fairly similar to Heyward, but he fell a bit shorter in actuality likely driven by the lesser speed. The third best hitter, Ian Happ, showed fairly similarly as Contreras hitting righties well, but well below average against lefties. The switch-hitter might be in name only as performance against lefties hasn’t been up to snuff. He strikes out a bit too much, but the walks aren’t far off from a breakeven discipline profile. Production on contact against righties has been heavenly and he even went a bit better than that to look like a monster in reality.
Not too far behind this trio you’ll find the lefties Kyle Schwarber and Anthony Rizzo. Schwarber was a little better on a rate basis, Rizzo got a few more plate appearances, and both walked a good deal. Schwarber struck out nearly 30% of the time, while Rizzo came in well better than average. Their platoon splits couldn’t be different with now free agent Schwarber being replacement level against lefties and well better than average against righties. Rizzo’s splits were much tighter favoring righties by a touch. Production on contact was soft against lefties by expectations and manifested much worse in reality. He closed with the average against righties by expectations, though also fell a bit short against them in actual results. Schwarber showed a much larger gap against righties with well above average expectations coming in much closer to the average on the field. The curious loss of power for Anthony Rizzo holds him back from fully leveraging a very strong discipline profile, while Schwarber trades some whiff for power that he should probably be expected to get back to going forward.
After that core five who played a ton and hit pretty well the team’s lack of depth becomes fairly obvious as only David Bote was appreciably above replacement. The utility infielder looked better against lefties, though again we see actual results just refusing to get anywhere near good expectations with fairly average walk and strikeout rates. It was a step back against righties with more strikeout and expectations that were a little better than average that he outperformed to a good deal. Sneaking in just ahead of replacement was the backup catcher Victor Caratini who also saw a bunch of opportunity at designated hitter, because the mark of a good team is one who has to have their catcher fill an all-bat position. Caratini was more useful against lefties, and was one of the few guys who saw way better results than his pedestrian expectations would imply. Strikeouts and walks fell off against righties, but the production on contact also dried up helping to offset some of the good fortune against the southpaws.
Most of his 200 career plate appearances came this year for Nico Hoerner, but once again he just wasn’t able to force the issue for playing time mostly driven by weak contact. The walk rate, like so many others came in better than average, and he was one of the guys that didn’t also need to run a big strikeout rate to get there. Performance against lefties was better, still below average, and the smaller side of opportunity if he’s more of a platoon guy. The mid-season acquisition of Jose Martinez couldn’t have fallen flatter as he struck out nearly a third of the time and didn’t provide a single hit in 22 plate appearances. Seeing more time, but nowhere near full, were Jason Kipnis and Kris Bryant. Both hit lefties at an average or better clip, though Kipnis saw massive underperformance and Bryant went the other way with poor production on contact registering a good deal better, but still below average. Both walked more than they struck out with that zone control completely fading against righties as both struck out over 30% of the time, and only Kipnis running even an average walk rate. Well softer than average contact played extremely well for Kipnis and less so for Bryant. Add it all up and they were similarly below replacement at the plate, which seems like a certainty to continue for the former second sacker, and the million dollar question for Kris Bryant in his walk year.
Lastly, we get to Javier Baez who was one of the worst hitters in baseball this year, though that didn’t stop the mock drafters from making him the highest drafted batter for the club. He managed to approach average against lefties powered exclusively by strong expected production on contact that looked much more average in reality. The strikeout and walk rates showed a massive gap, that somehow widened even further when facing samed-handed righties. Expected production fell off a good deal against them, barely outstripping pedestrian actual results. Overall production on contact was around the average, but it needs to be a lot higher to offset striking out a third of the time with almost no walks. Well below replacement production on top of massive opportunity shows a player who cost half a win compared to replacement with the stick.
Team Batter Batted Ball Profile & Production on Contact
There were a couple runs of impressive exit velocity, but much more of the season came in average or worse. There was a general raising of the launch angle starting around halfway through the number of balls in play. Production on contact fell off woefully over the last third of the season after mostly presenting as a strength of the offense. There were a couple periods, one in the middle and one to close out, that featured large shortfalls of actual performance relative to higher expectations without really a corresponding period of length or depth in the gap.
Team Pitcher Production & Discipline
Carrying much more of the load was the pitching which came in average or better for much of the season. Things got out of hand a bit in the middle, but was more than made up for with several troughs in the other direction. Periods of under and over-performance mostly offset though there was an especially nice stretch of actual results toward the end of the season. Strikeout rates showed troughed below 20%, but spent as much time north of 30% and the rest in a good place in between. Walk rate showed a bunch of cyclicity with ups showing a bit worse than average and troughs well better. Spikes on the tails obscured that in between things were mostly in a good place.
Pitcher Seasonal Line
Most teams are happy to have one ace who can perform at a high level over mammoth volume, but the Cubs were fortunate to have two. The bad part is that Kyle Hendricks and Yu Darvish didn’t get a whole lot of help outside of a few smaller contributors out of the pen. Arriving at nearly the same output belied the different paths taken to get there. Hendricks faced a few more batters and relied upon fantastic production on contact suppression, while Darvish was able to amp up the strikeout rate to league elite levels, though yielding harder expected contact around the average. Both showed fantastic production against one side with still good against the other with Hendricks riding the change to bury lefties and the slider of Darvish crushing righties. Both ran excellent walk rates. These two studs form the basis for an outstanding rotation, but didn’t get a whole lot of help in 2020.
Shorter samples for Ryan Tepera, Jason Adam and Adbert Alzolay did not hold them back from being pretty solid contributors. All three ran impressive strikeout rates that ran a bit hotter against righties, but still well above average against lefties. Adam was the best against that latter group due to incredible production on contact suppression, though all three profiled as average or better. Contact came much harder against righties for all three with Tepera and Adam seeing even worse results, though Alzolay overperformed to a massive degree. All three ran walk rates that were far too high with the handedness of the batter hardly mattering. The walk rates have to come down if there is going to be any progression for any of them, but striking out over a third with mostly ok contact against made it more luxury than necessity.
The next best starter was Alec Mills coming in below average, but above replacement. Struggles with lefties presented as a massive issue considering around 50% of the batters he faced were of that variety. The walk rate stayed mostly the same, but strikeouts got up to average against righties while being a good deal below against the southpaws. Contact was also harder when the batter had the platoon advantage, but was a strength when he held that chip. Not having an answer for lefties is a real problem, but facing so many seems like a byproduct of the weird schedule, which might loosen up in his favor going forward. That would help raise the strikeout rate above mediocre levels with average contact playing a bit better. He doesn’t need much to go right to present as a worthwhile backend starter, but if this is it it doesn’t feel like enough.
Three more relievers who presented as average pitchers despite hiding a bit in shorter roles were Jeremy Jeffress, Duane Underwood Jr. and Rowan Wick. Jeffress suppressed contact production very well, but worse than average walk and strikeout rates hurt him. Underwood Jr. and Wick both ran strong walk and strikeout rates, but filling up the zone led to much harder than average contact. All three showed well better against one side over the other with the weaker side being more bad than outrageously so. The team really needed this group to step up when incumbent closer Craig Kimbrel enjoyed a pretty lousy season. The strikeouts were still at an elite level with batter handedness hardly mattering, but it came with league-worst walk rates. Production on contact was strong against righties, who he fairly well dominated even with the free passes, but lefties battered him like a fish fry leading to well below replacement production. That sort of thing may keep him out of the closer’s role going forward, but for fantasy purposes the strikeouts might play in whether he is accruing saves or not.
Another veteran arm, Jose Quintana battled a hand injury that curtailed much of his season, though what he could provide was mostly fine including strong results against lefties. He may present as a nice buy-low arm in free agency. He’ll be joined on what looks like a cooler market by Jon Lester who was able to eat innings for the club, but his contributions came in exactly at replacement level. The walk rate was fine, and he managed to strike lefties out at an above average clip, though he barely saw any. It was against them where he showed plenty of usefulness as he was quite good, but it looks like he can no longer fool righties who hit him very hard and hardly ever struck out. Actual results against righties coming in around the average obscured all that hard contact, but it is hard to see him as a traditional starter going forward. Success against lefties seems more in his wheelhouse, and if he can do that as a follower-type he could still squeeze another year or two out, though it begs the question whether he would have the humility to put his ego aside for the good of the team as an old hoss.
Team Pitcher Batted Ball Profile & Production on Contact
The start of the season saw their pitchers collectively crushing exit velocity, though only once more would they approach such depths. The rest of the season alternated hard hit periods with longer, stronger ones where they stayed better than average. The end of the season, however, shows a fairly long run of hard contact. Translating these characteristics to production on contact we see how strongly the team looked over that first quarter of the season, but that great run presaged the worst run of the season where batters showed well above average expected production that ran even a bit hotter. It wouldn’t last forever as things calmed down from there. Expectations stayed around the average, but the team saw a magnificent run of better than average production on contact before things picked up around average or worse to close things out.
Player Analysis in order of 2 Early Mock ADP
It is important to remember throughout, but especially for well established players, that the most plate appearances anybody received this year was 327 including the postseason (378 for a pitcher). Meaning 2020 production is only a narrow slice of what is being shown for entrenched players with a long history. For players where 2020 makes up a larger part of their resumé the more recent data is going to take up more of the space. Considering what every player had to go through this year I do not think it makes sense to over-weight what we saw throughout this season so hopefully incorporating more track record will be more informative than simply showing what occurred this year. Also, the vertical axes will remain locked to make side-by-side comparisons much easier, but throughout this series please pay attention to that x-axis as it will change from player to player.
Yu Darvish (19)
As the fifth pitcher off the board the mock drafters were already pretty hip to Yu Darvish getting back to the elite levels he had previously shown that were derailed by his elbow issues, Tommy John surgery and the subsequent rehab. He’s back now with incredible strikeout rates that sit above 30%, and with that he has paired the best walk rate of his career going on now for hundreds of his most recent batters giving confidence this is a real improvement to his game. That has led to the widest sustained gaps between strikeouts and walks in his career as shown by all that white space between the two curves. Despite attacking the zone so much he has not seen much change in his exit velocity when batters do manage to make contact indicating that much of his leap forward is powered by the walk and strikeout improvement. Years ago he did more of his work with exit velocity suppression leading to some nice troughs, and while his most recent run doesn’t quite plumb those depths it does come in consistently well better than average. Those exit velocity and launch angle combinations give us the sense that his production on contact allowed has typically been around average. Often, like earlier in the sample, he was a bit better, the middle when he dealt with the elbow issues he was a bit worse, and then has mostly oscillated around the mean since then. When things are going bad it has a lot to do with the walk and when they’re good it’s more of the same as contact just hasn’t budged all that much, which should give us a metric to monitor to see if things are going well. Let the walk rate for Yu Darvish be your light in the dark.
Kyle Hendricks (80)
Co-Ace Kyle Hendricks doesn’t show the concerning long run of poorer performance, but that doesn’t mean he is immune to the occasional blow up or two clustering. Like Darvish, much of his career has been spent on the good side of average, and often in a place that puts him amongst the elites in the game. His perception is held back in fantasy circles because he doesn’t ring up ridiculous strikeout rates, though has shown plenty of jaunts to 30% before setting back down at an average or lower level. He makes up for it by showing a walk rate that is well better than average, especially later in his career as things had a tendency to spike higher with regularity earlier in the sample. Where he really shines, though, is in contact suppression where you see soft exit velocity as the norm. That has led to production on contact estimates that show a pitcher almost always holding batters down and often nullifying them altogether. The lack of strikeouts make him less sexy in fantasy, but he comes in around the average with almost no walks and very little production when batters do put the ball in play making him one of the best pitchers in the game.
Javier Baez (83)
Despite the horrible past season for Javier Baez the mock drafters still felt his power/speed skillset was worth making him the top batter selected from the club. And why not? He had been this bad before, and for much longer earlier in our sample before going on a thousand-plate appearance white-hot tear. While this author prefers to avoid players showing the kind of consistent gaps shown in the strikeout to walk rates it is understandable why others would go back to the well, and as a mid-fifth rounder they are very much putting him back up on that pedestal. The earlier poor run showed suppressed exit velocity that came in below average, but with enough elevation that he could still contribute when making contact. Things really started to take off as that exit velocity spiked up to fairly high levels, though there has been a general trend in his contact trajectories as things hold steady, take a step down, then rinse and repeat. It is hard to deny that when the ball is flying well he can be a pretty productive hitter who can offset the lack of walks and plethora of strikeouts that are inherent in his approach. The problem is when he is more like an average ballstriker, which has the tendency of pushing his aggregate production down to unplayable levels. His ability to play a good shortstop should keep that from happening on the diamond, but your fantasy lineup might not feel the same way.
Anthony Rizzo (99)
The longtime first baseman for the Cubs, Anthony Rizzo, had somewhat of a down season by his standards. Production fell off with both the walk rate and exit velocity showing some cratering. This on the heels of an entire career where he has rarely been worse than even average, and only then for brief stints. The rest of the time shows average to well above, though with enough up and down that he doesn’t really sit at that higher level like we have seen from other premier sluggers. The walk rate has been doing a lot of the heavy lifting and he pairs that average to quite good rate with well better than average strikeout rates that look out of place for a power position. Production on contact has frequently ran above average with stretches around the average and enough forays into weaker contact that it needs to be baked into future expectations. For a big, lumbering player he doesn’t show the kind of actual lower than expected gaps that can show up for those bereft of speed. The exit velocity dip would be of more concern in a more normal year, but even when contact has been down to similar levels in the past it did not stop him from being an above average hitter.
Kris Bryant (114)
Another stalwart slugger, Kris Bryant, has shown some slippage from past MVP-calibre levels with this past season ranking amongst his worst performance. A recent spike that wasn’t exactly short shows he is still capable of reaching past heights, though sustaining that level may be a bit trickier due to the grind of the game eroding his health. A scary headshot in early 2018 continues to carry lasting effects that have made production against right-handers much harder to come by as evidenced by wRC+ splits of 155/167 against lefties before and after the plunking, while against righties he has seen these rates go from 142 to 109, respectively. The flat, average stretch around the event represent his worst sustained stretch (prior to this year), and show a player who may have never reset his subconscious to hang in against same-handers. If true, that takes away a considerable part of his game considering how many he will face. Walk rates have mostly continued to come in at an average or better rate, though strikeouts have returned to heights unseen for this long since he first broke into the league. The commitment to control the zone was evident over a long stretch of his career, though things have seemingly gone back to the earlier levels. Exit velocity gives a strong notion that he was holding a bit more back in order to better control the zone, but the beaning stands out prominently as another trough and things have mostly sloughed off since then. Despite exit velocity well below the average he has been able to sustain above average production on contact throughout his career thanks to his ability to lift the ball. It is unfortunate that his career was altered by German Marquez in early April a couple of years back, but this is what we are left with. A guy who should mash lefties, walk and strikeout at acceptable rates and if he can ever find the ability to hang in better with righties like earlier in his career we may yet again see the monster that lurks only in the shadows right now.
Willson Contreras (136)
Over the past five seasons the Cubs have enjoyed a catcher, Willson Contreras, who can mostly stay healthy, while being an above average hitter most of the time. Quite the luxury considering how many teams are just scraping by. There have been a few spurts that were below average since debut, though most of the weaker stretches line up with back when he was acclimating to the league. The most recent stretch shows a batter who has fairly consistently been an above average hitter, and despite the lack of wheels he hasn’t seen much underperformance as actual results have more often oustripped lesser expectations. Exit velocity has waxed and waned with better stretches able to sit above average with a bit of a trough between that matches up better with when he broke into the league. The lower hard hit rates shows up in his production on contact, but outside of a stretch that looks like it might be due to being banged up he profiles as an above average ballstriker. The bar is low at the position, which gives a bit more shine to a player firmly in the prime of his career.
Ian Happ (140)
Most of the players covered so far have already seen their best ball, and while they may continue to be good players, they probably aren’t getting any better. That isn’t the case of Ian Happ who has been slowly improving his game, though gains have almost exclusively come against righties despite being a switch hitter. Southpaws have been trouble with too many strikeouts and below average contact. While the former improves a little against righties the latter jumps a lot as he really seems to unlock his power when swinging from the left side. Aggregate production has pushed upward in the most recent season after mostly moving around the average, and overperformance has mostly been the norm thanks to an athletic skillset that should see him maximize his hard hit ability. The big improvement this last season was a reduction in the strikeout rate taking him below 30% to more or less sit around the average. The walk rate took a big jump upward a couple years ago and has mostly held on to those gains giving him another avenue to help offset the strikeouts. Exit velocity has consistently sat average or better since his first foray was lower, but even then he showed good production on contact estimates that have never really been below average. His most recent run of expectations is in line with his past big hump showing a player who doesn’t need to do much when he makes contact, only that he needs to make more. Cutting into the strikeout rate can only help, and if the team starts giving him a few more days off against the toughest lefties it could have a fairly massive lift to his overall line.
Kyle Schwarber (188)
For the first time in a longtime Kyle Schwarber not going to be mashing righties in a Chicago Cubs jersey after the team decided not to tender arbitration. That will bring to close an era that was filled with consistent, above average production even if it was a bit lumpy at times. His most recent stretch shows actual results falling well short of expected, which should probably be expected to correct positively given actual results have tracked pretty tightly with true. The strikeout rate is still a problem and will likely always be a cost of doing business as he has very rarely become unstuck on that 30% level where you really need to do some other stuff or risk exile. Some of that other stuff has included a walk rate that has been very strong, for the most part. Peaks north of 15% were more common earlier in his career, but he can still get it up there and troughs still typically stay above the average despite a few weaker stretches making things look worse. Exit velocity has been a real strength, though wasn’t always the case showing a player who has continued to develop at the highest level. His trajectories have often been elevated, but those paths took a turn for the worse in 2020 driving downward to career lows. That sapped a good deal of his production capability this past year, but that was coming off a career best run, which is saying something given how good his contact has been since debut. Where he lands will be key due to the near-certainty that he will continue to be heavily platooned so if he ends up in a place where the ball flies well he very well could could continue to look like a beast, and less so if he is seeing moonshots die at the track.
Craig Kimbrel (308)
The latest run of performance pretty much tells the tale for potential Hall of Famer Craig Kimbrel. One of the best closers of all time has recently washed ashore a rocky island with the question becoming will there be more in the future or can he build a raft to ride the placid waters back to relevance. The outstanding run back to 2015 (and beyond if we had the data) shows how incredibly good he was with strikeout rates around 40% or higher, and usually doing a good job of keeping the walks around or better than average. It is that aspect that really fell off in the last year or two as walk rates spiked to career highs and have sat there since. The strikeouts did come down a touch thich year, but were on their way back. Given there more recent arrival it would seem the weird ramp up had an effect on this aged scholar of the strikeout, leading this analyst to put more stock in a bounceback there than a correction in the free pass. The discipline rates have been key for him due to contact that has often been a bit too hard, and well too high. Fly balls can be a good thing as they rarely turn into hits, but when they do they can really ruin a night. We can see a general rise in his production on contact over time, and this past season showed us what it would look like if actual results caught up to worse expected after mostly outrunning them throughout his career. It stands to reason that given a more normal season the production on contact will abate and strikeouts will go back up and walks might see a dramatic drop, but that’s a whole bunch of ifs. The job can be his leading to stacking saves, but he’s going to have to show that his most recent performance is the outlier in an otherwise standout career.
Jeremy Jeffress (321)
Going only a round later according to the mock drafters we have Jeremy Jeffress who has seemingly been on the cusp of a closer’s role for several seasons, but every time he sticks a toe in the water he shrinks back to a less leveraged role. Given the lack of absurd strikeout rates he holds little value if not compiling saves, though that doesn’t mean he can’t be awfully useful in a real life bullpen. Production has typically been better than average with a long stretch of strong strikeout rate standing out in a river of mediocrity, though he does help himself by keeping walk rates around average or better. His days in Milwaukee show a guy who could really keep batters off balance, and that has more or less continued, though at a worse level. Contact on downward trajectories has helped him show mostly better than average production on contact allowed, but there isn’t a category for that in fantasy (yet?) leaving him a better real life pitcher than fantasy.
Adbert Alzolay (355)
We have a very short track record with which to view Albert Alzolay, but given his outsize importance to a suddenly short rotation it would be worthwhile to look at what he has managed so far. His cup of coffee in 2019 didn’t go all that well, but this past season showed a guy who made the tweaks that allowed him to be an average or better pitcher. The walk rate is going to need to be confronted at some point as you can’t walk one in five and have any amount of continued success, and if he can cut into that weakness while mostly maintaining a very strong strikeout rate (like what we saw from Framber Valdez) then fans and fantasy owners will be quick to sit up and take notice. The contact so far has been a bit worse than average, but showing some more recent improvement, though the samples are so short here that too much stock should not be put upon them. For Alzolay, this upcoming season will be all about the strikeout. There is enough to like elsewhere that if he can improve that big weakness he could be in line for a pretty solid run in a big league rotation.
Jason Heyward (378)
Another of the old dogs of this club, Jason Heyward has long been a supplier of great defense albeit at a non-premium position, though the performance curves tell a tale of wanting more than getting when it came to offense. The earliest part of the sample shows a 2015 where he massively outproduced expectations on the way to a good line and an incredible contract. It’s been mostly worse than average since then, though some creep upward has set in over his last thousand or so plate appearances, and this past season, especially, showed some of the best expected contributions of this sample. His best offensive runs have been keyed by the walk as he has typically ran better than average rates during those times, and getting overly aggressive when not. Strikeout rates have nearly universally sat better than average and often well better. Exit velocity has rarely eclipsed the average by much or for long, and he has never really been able to pair higher exit velocity with higher launch angles that bode well for the ball flying. Unsurprisingly, production on contact has mostly underwhelmed including in this most recent stretch where he was pretty good. The walk doesn’t do much for you outside of OBP leagues, and that looks like his carrying tool on offense, but in real life this is the kind of player who can really help you win even if he doesn’t lead too many highlight reels.
Alec Mills (383)
Attempting to fill the role of mid-rotation starter was probably an over-ask by the club of Alec Mills as struggles with lefties have made him easily countered in his brief career. When that hasn’t been achievable, however he has shown strong ability to limit same-handed righties. Aggregate production has mostly oscillated around the average with good and bad runs alternating and the most recent showing some divergence with true wOBA seeing him as a worse than average pitcher, and actual results showing him to be a good bit better after mostly tracking tightly prior. Curiously, the strikeout rate fell from average or better levels to universally below in this most recent run, though that might have been a purposeful tradeoff given walk rates that were too high and have settled in as average or better. Looking at contact characteristics you can see an enviable stretch in the middle that has since risen to look more average. The tails of his production on contact show a guy who can outperform average or worse expectations, but there was also a bridge between the two where both perspectives marched in lockstep. Worse expectations might be the pony to bet upon, but foreboding worse results to come, though at that strikeout rate he needs a lot to go right to have worth in most fantasy circles.
Nico Hoerner (407)
One of the few players in the organization who is both young and a potential contributor in the near term is Nico Hoerner. Things have not gone all that well in too short of a sample to write the kid off, which should also serve to tamp down draft costs. He does well to avoid the strikeout even at the highest level, and has shown some growth in elevating the walk rate to above average levels, but the production on contact has been pretty soft so far due to weak exit velocity. Beating so many balls into the ground also seems to be leading to a persistent underperformance in production estimates. The case is not closed on Nico, but he’s going to have to start showing an ability to hit the ball hard and on a line if he is going to be taking anybody’s job anytime soon.
Jose Quintana (483)
A freak dishwashing accident all but cancelled the season for Jose Quintana. It has been an unremarkable, though highly productive career for the lefty covering both sides of Chicago. More recent season show more time spent in the badlands, but he has still been capable of putting together solid runs of strong performance. The strikeout rate no longer consistently sits at the average or better showing more volatility wavering from higher highs, but also much deeper troughs well below the average. This may be an indicator of wear and tear taking hold in an older arm. The walk rate has mostly gotten down to very low past levels after spending a chunk of time around the average. Exit velocity has been coming more around it’s own average level for quite some time with past years showing runs of much better hard hit suppression. Lower angles have helped Quintana continue to give up mostly soft production on contact. He oscillates around the average with better and worse runs, but never straying all that far. In the right situation where he can mostly face lefties in shorter stints he may be able to manage his health and platoon issues representing sneaky value, but it all comes back to the health.
Victor Caratini (511)
In close to 700 plate appearances Victor Caratini has been something like an average hitter. The 2019 stretch showed a player who was looking like a sneaky good hitter for a catcher, but the more recent run fell back on lesser times that came prior. This kind of production is great for a backup catcher who doesn’t embarrass himself, but far too often last year the team ran him out there as a designated hitter simply because his average bat was the best they could muster. His strikeout rate bumped up, but that’s a pretty small section of what has otherwise been average or better rates. Caratini has mostly walked around the average, as well, but when flipping over to batted ball characteristics we see a rather scary dive in his exit velocity. Considering persistently higher levels leading into this year it stands to reason that he can get back to that level provided whatever was holding him back will have had time to heal up properly over the long winter. If he gets back to average to quite hard exit velocities he can get back to being the above average hitter we have seen, and he’ll need to get back to hitting it hard due to so much of his contact being down. You could do a lot worse as far as backup catchers go, though it is hard to see him getting the kind of consistent opportunity he saw last year even if the designated hitter is here for good.
Tyler Chatwood (529)
Uneven performance marked most of the career in Colorado for Tyler Chatwood prior to his signing with Chicago on a three year, $38M offer. This past was the last year of what will go down as one of the more benign blowups given his annual average value compared to the revenue the team makes, but outside of a few runs he just wasn’t much help to a staff that could have used him. He wasn’t on the same level as in Colorado so hard to fault the team for outlaying the money on a guy who looked half decent, but glimpses of awful walk rates should have portended the worst in the league levels that followed on the Northside. Strikeout rates often came in below average despite often playing higher in the past. Batted balls were a strength, however with downer angles coming alongside better than average exit velocity leading to production on contact estimates that sat almost exclusively better than average. The most recent run shows sample-best strikeout and walk rates in a really short run, but if he ends up on the right team that can fix the walk issue there might be a third act in the cards for Tyler Chatwood.
David Bote (541)
Utility infielder David Bote is a nice little bat to have off the bench capable of going on an above average tear, but never getting full run at a position likely for good reason given the long stretches of below average production that offset a lot of the good. He has pushed his walk rate up from average to even better, but strikeout rates have tended to stay elevated around 30% for far too long. The tradeoff has mostly been worthwhile given the above average exit velocity, though diminishing returns seem to be showing up as that edge has lessened over time. A lot of downward contact likely means even the harder hit balls are more singles and doubles than doubles and homers. Production on contact has been average or better for much of his career, but not really enough to offset the higher strikeout rate.
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