Recent Hitter Data Analysis - June 6
A stat-fueled look at recent standout hitting performances.
Another day, another new feature here at MLB Data Warehouse! As promised, I’m delivering some recent hitter stat leaderboards, notes, and analysis.
I had none of this scripted before today, so I scrambled to get as much as possible done. There are certainly many things that I could add to this, but I wanted to wrap it up for today and still send something out.
This will come out every Tuesday, a small portion of it for free - but mostly behind a paywall. Subscribe today if you haven’t already, but I’ll give the full thing for free today as an introduction.
We’ll walk through it this first time to explain what’s going on, but in the future it will probably be mostly just a copy-paste without a ton of additional commentary, here we go!
The most powerful single descriptive stat is probably OPS. If you had to pick one number to show what a hitter did on the field, OPS is a good one. The league average this year is .727, here’s your top 15 over the last 21 days:
Last 3 Weeks - OPS Leaders
Aaron Judge (72 PA): 1.320 OPS
Josh Jung (73 PA): 1.158 OPS
J.D. Martinez (75 PA): 1.133 OPS
Freddie Freeman (86 PA): 1.106 OPS
Jeimer Candelario (74 PA): 1.102 OPS
Ryan McMahon (77 PA): 1.063 OPS
Corbin Carroll (78 PA): 1.031 OPS
Corey Seager (77 PA): 1.017 OPS
Luis Arraez (80 PA): 1.017 OPS
Mookie Betts (81 PA): 0.997 OPS
Spencer Steer (81 PA): 0.996 OPS
Yordan Alvarez (82 PA): 0.99 OPS
Bryan De La Cruz (87 PA): 0.962 OPS
Jorge Soler (83 PA): 0.945 OPS
Brandon Drury (71 PA): 0.942 OPS
Pretty interesting/exciting to see Josh Jung up there. His OPS for the year is strong at .855, but since May 16th he’s done this:
73 PA, .400/.466/.692, 4 HR, 16 R, 13 RBI, 19.2% K%
Over this time, he has dropped his season K% from 31.1% to 27.5%. Anything under 28% is going to make this guy a great fantasy player with the power he has, and if he goes stretches under 20% it’s going to be elite like we’ve seen recently.
Jeimer Candelario is also an interesting name there. He has done it without eye-popping underlying numbers. His 11.8% Brl% is well above what we expect from him, so that’s good - but it’s still not like insanely high. The K% is always reliably low, so any extra barrels will make him a pretty good fantasy player. He’s found a nice home in DC there.
Bryan De La Cruz has just had a rollercoaster of a season. He’s gone from the hot hitter tracker to the cold hitter tracker and back a few times, but he’s on the upswing right now.
I liked him a good bit coming into this year, he has a pretty good power/contact/speed combo, but he just seems to lose himself from time to time - or maybe it’s all just random. I don’t know, you can probably just start the guy in deeper leagues and ignore the ups and downs.
And then Spencer Steer is back performing well. He started very well, and then hit the pits, and now he’s climbing back up the charts:
He’s got his K% under 20% for the year, and it’s a very good thing to put balls in play in Great American Ballpark. He trails only McLain on the team in term of average exit velocity:
That’s enough power to play in that ballpark, so he’s a pretty enticing option as a 25-year-old with a pretty good prospect pedigree.
The goal of this game we play is to score points, so here are some leaders on that front:
Last 3 Weeks - Fantasy Points Leaders
Total
Aaron Judge: 225 Points
J.D. Martinez: 220 Points
Freddie Freeman: 217 Points
Corbin Carroll: 213 Points
Corey Seager: 208 Points
Mookie Betts: 205 Points
Bryan De La Cruz: 204 Points
Yordan Alvarez: 202 Points
Ronald Acuna Jr.: 202 Points
Ryan McMahon: 200 Points
Marcus Semien: 198 Points
Pete Alonso: 195 Points
Josh Jung: 195 Points
Spencer Steer: 194 Points
Jorge Soler: 193 Points
Lots of this ^ is going to be dependent on playing time, so I give you the rates too:
Per PA
Aaron Judge: 3.12 Pts/PA
J.D. Martinez: 2.93 Pts/PA
Willi Castro: 2.76 Pts/PA
Corbin Carroll: 2.73 Pts/PA
Corey Seager: 2.7 Pts/PA
Josh Jung: 2.67 Pts/PA
Ryan McMahon: 2.6 Pts/PA
Jeimer Candelario: 2.54 Pts/PA
Pete Alonso: 2.53 Pts/PA
Mookie Betts: 2.53 Pts/PA
Ronald Acuna Jr.: 2.52 Pts/PA
Freddie Freeman: 2.52 Pts/PA
Yordan Alvarez: 2.46 Pts/PA
Wander Franco: 2.4 Pts/PA
Spencer Steer: 2.4 Pts/PA
Certainly, there will be plenty of repeats with the OPS leaderboard since the two things are very correlated, but guys like Willi Castro and Ryan McMahon pop up here as interesting and potentially available bats in fantasy.
Last 3 Weeks - Barrel Leaders
Aaron Judge: 14 Brls
J.D. Martinez: 13 Brls
Matt Olson: 13 Brls
Yordan Alvarez: 12 Brls
Ronald Acuna Jr.: 12 Brls
Austin Riley: 11 Brls
Corey Seager: 11 Brls
Pete Alonso: 11 Brls
Dansby Swanson: 11 Brls
Jorge Soler: 10 Brls
Freddie Freeman: 10 Brls
I’d like to highlight that Dansby Swanson has had some rough luck with his barrels. Maybe it’s not luck and it’s his profile and ballpark, but of all the hitters with at least 15 barrels, he has the worst HR/Brl rate:
He’s a standout on the HR Rate vs. Brl Rate scatter plot:
Other than Swanson, Wrigley Field has played pretty neutral with Brl/PA with an overall rate at 52% - a couple of points above the league average actually, so I would think Swanson will soon see some more balls off his bat finding some bleachers.
We actually should prefer Brl/PA to overall Brl%, because that factors in strikeouts and walks - which is a huge part of the equation, so here’s that:
Last 3 Weeks - Barrel/PA Leaders
Aaron Judge (70 PA): 20.0% Brl/PA
J.D. Martinez (75 PA): 17.3% Brl/PA
Matt Olson (77 PA): 16.9% Brl/PA
Romy Gonzalez (44 PA): 15.9% Brl/PA
Keibert Ruiz (59 PA): 15.3% Brl/PA
Ronald Acuna Jr. (80 PA): 15.0% Brl/PA
Yordan Alvarez (81 PA): 14.7% Brl/PA
Dansby Swanson (75 PA): 14.7% Brl/PA
Austin Riley (75 PA): 14.7% Brl/PA
Corey Seager (77 PA): 14.3% Brl/PA
Let’s do a repeat from the daily notes - premium section, here are your current MAGIC FORMULA QUALIFIERS. I like this a lot because it’s really a special skillset that allows someone to go above a 14% Brl% with a sub-20% K% at the same time. I am certainly that a ton of hitters in the league aren’t physically capable of doing this, so it’s good to see the names that have the ability pop up throughout the year:
Magic Formula Qualifiers - Hitters - Last 3 Weeks
Hitters with Brl% above 14% and K% below 20%
Corey Seager - 77 PA, 18.2 K%, 18.3 Brl%
Freddie Freeman - 84 PA, 11.9 K%, 15.2 Brl%
Justin Turner - 64 PA, 18.8 K%, 14.9 Brl%
Keibert Ruiz - 59 PA, 6.8 K%, 18.4 Brl%
Lars Nootbaar - 60 PA, 20.0 K%, 16.3 Brl%
Mookie Betts - 81 PA, 13.6 K%, 15.3 Brl%
Nick Castellanos - 84 PA, 19.0 K%, 14.5 Brl%
Pete Alonso - 77 PA, 10.4 K%, 17.7 Brl%
Ronald Acuna Jr. - 80 PA, 11.2 K%, 17.9 Brl%
You could say that Keibert Ruiz has been the least lucky hitter in the league so far this year, and there’s more evidence for that all the time in the next section, which is only in the daily notes every morning:
Last 3 Weeks - wOBA vs. xwOBA Comparison
Top 10
Lars Nootbaar - 60 PA, 0.242 wOBA, 0.375 xwOBA, 0.133 Diff
Pavin Smith - 60 PA, 0.235 wOBA, 0.35 xwOBA, 0.115 Diff
Miguel Rojas - 54 PA, 0.261 wOBA, 0.365 xwOBA, 0.104 Diff
Willson Contreras - 66 PA, 0.217 wOBA, 0.317 xwOBA, 0.1 Diff
Keibert Ruiz - 59 PA, 0.324 wOBA, 0.423 xwOBA, 0.099 Diff
Dansby Swanson - 75 PA, 0.343 wOBA, 0.44 xwOBA, 0.097 Diff
Bobby Witt Jr. - 73 PA, 0.284 wOBA, 0.371 xwOBA, 0.087 Diff
Kyle Schwarber - 83 PA, 0.36 wOBA, 0.443 xwOBA, 0.083 Diff
Ronald Acuna Jr. - 80 PA, 0.367 wOBA, 0.446 xwOBA, 0.079 Diff
Michael Harris II - 61 PA, 0.167 wOBA, 0.245 xwOBA, 0.078 Diff
Bottom 10
Spencer Steer - 81 PA, 0.43 wOBA, 0.315 xwOBA, -0.115 Diff
Isaac Paredes - 64 PA, 0.35 wOBA, 0.242 xwOBA, -0.108 Diff
Alex Bregman - 82 PA, 0.409 wOBA, 0.31 xwOBA, -0.099 Diff
Yuli Gurriel - 62 PA, 0.387 wOBA, 0.294 xwOBA, -0.093 Diff
Maikel Garcia - 56 PA, 0.399 wOBA, 0.311 xwOBA, -0.088 Diff
Luis Arraez - 78 PA, 0.442 wOBA, 0.355 xwOBA, -0.087 Diff
Corbin Carroll - 77 PA, 0.436 wOBA, 0.354 xwOBA, -0.082 Diff
Ezequiel Tovar - 67 PA, 0.397 wOBA, 0.319 xwOBA, -0.078 Diff
Geraldo Perdomo - 57 PA, 0.29 wOBA, 0.213 xwOBA, -0.077 Diff
Stuart Fairchild - 58 PA, 0.324 wOBA, 0.248 xwOBA, -0.076 Diff
Keibert has been there consistently for weeks now, just really getting hosed on his hard contact. We see that Steer isn’t quite performing up to his .430 actual wOBA - but most of the time when you post a wOBA/OPS that high, there’s going to be some luck involved. The .315 xwOBA isn’t great, but it’s not horrible either.
And now for something completely new that requires some explanation. The 15-day rolling charts are popular, so I wanted to have a section here that shows us which hitters are currently at their peaks in 15-day rolling Brl% and K%.
A 15-day rolling chart takes your season in sections of 15-days, and then calculates the stat over each 15-day span, and then plots it day by day. It looks like this:
So for the first 15 days of the season, Riley had about a 5% Brl%. In late May, he started hitting more barrels, raising that 15-day rolling mark every day for awhile. Now he’s reached his peak at 22.2%, so you’ll see that shown below.
This doesn’t just take the guys that are at their peak TODAY, it looks at guys that have reached their season peak in the last 5 days.
As the season goes on, these lists will get smaller and smaller since there will be more 15-day windows to beat, so I will probably adjust this to show guys that are within X points of their peak, or something - but I think it’s a cool concept, so here’s the list:
Season-Best 15-Day Rolling Performances
Players at or near their peaks in 15-day rolling stats
K%
Trea Turner: 16.4% Rolling K%
Ha-Seong Kim: 16.9% Rolling K%
Kyle Tucker: 8.3% Rolling K%
Josh Jung: 18.5% Rolling K%
Brendan Donovan: 9.1% Rolling K%
Jeremy Pena: 15.6% Rolling K%
Marcus Semien: 9.7% Rolling K%
Daulton Varsho: 9.5% Rolling K%
Mookie Betts: 12.5% Rolling K%
Freddie Freeman: 11.3% Rolling K%
Ozzie Albies: 8.5% Rolling K%
Andrew Vaughn: 13.6% Rolling K%
Adley Rutschman: 9.0% Rolling K%
Anthony Santander: 18.8% Rolling K%
Cal Raleigh: 12.7% Rolling K%
Austin Riley: 20.6% Rolling K%
Ezequiel Tovar: 21.1% Rolling K%
Andres Gimenez: 8.8% Rolling K%
Alex Call: 15.5% Rolling K%
Francisco Lindor: 14.1% Rolling K%
Pete Alonso: 11.6% Rolling K%
Lane Thomas: 20.3% Rolling K%
Amed Rosario: 9.1% Rolling K%
Brl%
Nick Castellanos: 17.0% Rolling Brl%
Dansby Swanson: 23.9% Rolling Brl%
Ke'Bryan Hayes: 10.9% Rolling Brl%
Ryan Noda: 28.0% Rolling Brl%
Brendan Donovan: 9.5% Rolling Brl%
Tommy Edman: 12.8% Rolling Brl%
Jeremy Pena: 13.3% Rolling Brl%
Marcus Semien: 10.0% Rolling Brl%
Tyler Stephenson: 13.5% Rolling Brl%
Jonathan India: 10.4% Rolling Brl%
Ty France: 8.9% Rolling Brl%
Austin Riley: 22.2% Rolling Brl%
Andres Gimenez: 4.1% Rolling Brl%
Taylor Ward: 13.2% Rolling Brl%
Gio Urshela: 6.7% Rolling Brl%
Francisco Lindor: 13.5% Rolling Brl%
Luis Garcia: 11.5% Rolling Brl%
Jeimer Candelario: 13.3% Rolling Brl%
Keibert Ruiz: 20.4% Rolling Brl%
C.J. Abrams: 12.5% Rolling Brl%
It’s quite good to see Trea Turner not striking out nearly as much lately. His K% was in the mid-to-upper twenties all year, but it seems to be on its way back down now. I would imagine it will stay this way, since that’s who he has been for years now, but you can’t roll out the possibility that it will come back up.
That’s all the analysis I have time for here, hope you like this!