A few months back, I did a piece in search of Isolated Power, or “ISO” for all us baseball acronym lovers. You can read the full article (HERE).
In that article, we discussed:
- ISO is calculated one of two ways:
ISO = (2B + 2 x 3B + 3 x HR) /ABs
ISO = Slugging % (SLG) – Batting Average (BA)
- How we rate ISO:
- What is considered a barrel:
- And lastly, we looked at a variety of players who are considered “power hitters” based on 2023 ISO projections.
Again, you can read the full article (HERE) if you desire. I’d recommend it, but perhaps I’m a little biased.
It’s this last part that I’m going to look at today. True, we’re only about a month into the season and we don’t have enough plate appearances to truly evaluate our power hitters but it doesn’t hurt to see if the projections are generally tracking or out in left field.
Here’s the current status of our 8 pre-season power hitters (through April 20):
Of course, it’s too early to make meaningful judgments on full-season HR potential based on these early ISO numbers. It is nice though to see some of these players start the season providing validation to pre-season predictions.
A few notes before moving on:
- You’ll recall from my previous article I took a deeper look at Hunter Renfroe. I have far too few shares of him across my fantasy teams and it literally brings a tear to my eye every time I see him go deep behind Ohtani and Trout.
- I own a fair share of Rowdy Tellez and I’m happy to see him continue to mash RHP (0.942 OPS). Still waiting to see improvements vs LHP though…
- Teoscar Hernandez – BUY-BUY-BUY! That’s all I’m going to say here.
- Brandon Belt – Many of us hoped the move to TOR and that powerful offense would be a fountain of youth for Belt. If so, he hasn’t partaken yet! BB& is down. K% is up. Contact % is down. ISO is almost non-existent. GB% is almost double his average. LD% and FB% are both down. I want to find something here to provide some hope but there’s not much to go on. AVOID for now.
- Joey Gallo – Interestingly enough, all his HRs have been on the road and his road OPS (1.113) is more than double his home OPS (.500). He’s trimmed his K% from a 3-yr average of 36% down to 31% to date. Contact % is up to over 65%. FB% is a massive 76.5%. When you’re hitting fly balls at that clip, coupled with an average EV of almost 100 mph and have a launch angle of over 30o, the prospects of loading up on HRs is very nice. Ride this wave as long as he allows!
Here are some other early-season ISO risers, with positive supporting metrics, to keep an eye on:
As analytics begin to normalize over the next month or so, look to shop at the bargain bins for players to inject some life into your summer lineups. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be taking a look at some names you may want to keep on your radar and stash at the end of your bench.
As always, keep sifting through the number. That’s where you find the gems!
Follow me on Twitter: @Derek_Favret.
Until next time, my friends!
