As many of you know, I went in a new direction to get inspiration for what player I will cover. I took a page out of Who Wants to be a Millionaire’s playbook and I asked the audience. That audience only has four choices though…you guys had over four hundred. Here are you results:
There isn’t much need for a drum roll though, unless none of you read the titles of these things. Ah yes, Michael Brantley, how your owners love you so. If you were lucky enough to draft him, probably after 200th overall, you’re getting a great bang for your buck. Brantley is a top ten outfielder right now, and arguably a top five one. On draft day, the tenth outfielder was going around twenty-fifth to thirtieth overall. And the player drafted probably had a name like Giancarlo Stanton, Yasiel Puig, or Jose Bautista. Just for kicks and giggles, let’s compare Brantley’s season to everyone’s favorite outfielder, Mike Trout:
Player | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OBP |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Trout | 49 | 16 | 54 | 9 | .303 | .394 |
Brantley | 49 | 11 | 46 | 9 | .320 | .386 |
Looks comparable, if you ask me…
Category One: Injury Risk
I always have trouble writing this section of the article. Most players don’t have anything significantly outlandish when it comes to being injury prone. In turn, it can make this section slightly dull. I try to compensate for this by lowering the point value in this category. Unfortunately for us, Brantley is pretty run of the mill when it comes to injury risks.
Brantley has had his share of missed games, just like any other player. He recently missed three games after a mishap sliding into second base. Here is a poor attempt of GIF making by me:
Clearly this injury wasn’t his fault, as getting kneed in the head is an extenuating circumstance. He is back in action now, and he seems to be picking up where he left off (3/9 with an RBI). So I’m not too worried about him on that front. 2011 was Brantley’s first year in the majors, and the only year Brantley has hit the DL. He was able to play 114 games that year. Combined between 2012 and 2013 he played in 300 out of a possible 324 games, or 92.59%.
Anticipate 145+ games from Brantley.
Score: 4 out of 5
Category Two: Everything Else
Since Brantley is one of the biggest breakouts this year, I want to see what’s different when compared to the last few years. First I’ll start with hit location.
Brantley is great at using the whole field to his advantage. Below is his spray chart from 2011 until present:
If you want to see what that spray chart looks like in number form, I’ve got that too:
2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | Total | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pull | 47.50% | 36.48% | 33.54% | 43.62% | 39.36% |
Center | 34.17% | 40.88% | 43.04% | 34.04% | 38.79% |
Opposite | 18.33% | 22.64% | 23.42% | 22.34% | 21.85% |
Just over one in five of Brantley’s hits go the opposite way. Notorious pull hitters have about one in ten hits go the opposite way (Mark Teixeira or Gary Sheffield). And he is consistent when it comes to that twenty percent mark, never straying more than four percentage points away from it. The reason I bring this up is because of this next graph:
All of a sudden he is getting hits in the opposite direction, and a lot of them. I don’t know why he is doing this, but I’m going to throw out a guess, so bear (or bull) with me.
In general, pitchers tend to pitch Brantley low and outside:
I do not have this data, but I would suspect that pitches that are low and outside are harder to pull because you have to reach for them and it is harder to get around on a pitch like that. Given this information, I am going to assume a larger portion of balls hit in this section will be sent towards left field. I am going to look at the nine boxes in the bottom right corner for this, spanning from the center of the zone (431, 5.85%) to the bottom left corner (529, 7.18%). This is Brantley’s average per year in that square:
2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Average | 0.275 | 0.285 | 0.298 | 0.330 |
That looks pretty significant to me. Especially since pitchers love throwing to him there. I’d say this section of the strike zone has to do a lot with Brantley’s improvements this year. Part of that might go hand in hand with this next chart:
2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | Total | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Z-Swing% | 50.30% | 57.10% | 59.60% | 60.70% | 54.70% |
Z-Contact% | 94.70% | 96.50% | 95.50% | 95.40% | 95.70% |
Z-Swing% is how often a batter swings at pitches inside the strike zone. Brantley has gotten much better at doing that, 20.68% better to be exact. When you couple this with the fact that he is making roughly the same amount of contact as always, the end result is more balls being hit. Now some of those are bound to go out of play, but many of them will stay in play. This, in turn, can explain some of the reason that his BABIP is up to 0.324 this year, from 0.304 last year. Quick players are able to sustain higher BABIPs, so I wouldn’t expect regression on that end. Since I haven’t done further research on MB’s speed, I’m basing his speed solely on him averaging fourteen stolen bases a season between 2011 and 2013.
There is one last thing I wanted to look at: Is Brantley struggling or exceling with certain pitches? I charted Brantley’s average against different pitch types. Below is said chart:
I removed the pitch types that didn’t have drastic changes in average, or didn’t have a large enough sample size. As you can see, hopefully, Brantley has gotten very good at hitting cutters and curves. While he has lost some steam with the curve from last year, where he batted 0.392 against it, he has been consistently gaining ground against the cutter. He is hitting an unreal 0.500 against it this year. I do expect that number to fall, but by how much is uncertain. He clearly has the cutter’s number. It’s up to Brantley if he decides to call it back the next day. On the other hand, he seems to have forgotten how to hit a changeup. It doesn’t seem to be affecting him too much, since he is still sitting pretty with an average well over 0.300 and ninety four hits over seventy six games.
Score: 10 out of 15
Overall Score: 14 out of 20
Weighted Score: 140%
Remember to leave a comment about the player you want analyzed for next time!
Jeremy is a contributor for Razzball Baseball. He had a last name, but he lost it in ‘Nam. You can follow the soldier of misfortune on twitter @Jeremy_Razzball, just don’t trigger his flashbacks.
Tip of the turban, Jeremy. Good stuff.
what the Turbanator said….goes double for me…
Very nice.
From an analytics perspective, what do you think about J.D. Martinez?
Figuring things out and breaking out at the magical age of 27’ish, or just having a decent run? Even if he’s figured something out, he’s obvioulsy not going to stay this hot.
Since we’re in Detroit, what up with Miggy?
I just traded Springer, Hammels, Kazmir and Donaldson for him. A lot, I know, but my team is pretty solid otherwise.
12-team. Weekly roster. 5 SP, 2 RP
C Mike Zunino
1B Justin Morneau
2B Dee Gordon
3B Miguel Cabrera
SS Asdrubal Cabrera
OF Mike Trout
OF Giancarlo Stanton
OF Matt Kemp
OF Khris Davis
OF J.D. Martinez
UTIL Curtis Granderson
Bench Mookie Betts
Bench Mark Trumbo*
Bench Jason Heyward
SP Yu Darvish
SP Julio Teheran
SP Josh Beckett
SP Jake Arrieta
SP Taijuan Walker
RP David Robertson
RP Danny Duffy
Bench Mike Minor Atl
Bench Henderson Alvarez Mia
DL James Paxton* Sea
@YoMammaSoUggla: JD was a decently hot prospect a couple years back, so it’s not a complete surprise he comes around. Hold him and ride the wave. That was a lot to give up for Miggy. Shoulda held onto Donaldson.
Great post, Jeremy!
Best CI guy for ROS: Belt, Fatt Adams, LaRoche
@Buddo Chezuski: Belt all day.
Cool post, but have to point out that Trout’s season line as of today is .315/55r/19hr/62rbi/10sb and Brantley’s is .316/55r/12hr/54rbi/9sb.
@jmill: Yeah yeah…I wrote that part a couple days back and I didn’t update it. Oops!
H2H points league rest of season, pick 3: Beltran, A Rios, Werth, M Morse, Eaton
@Swaz: Rios, Werth, Morse. By a decent stretch.
Good shizz, son. Too bad Kipnis seems immune to the Brantley bug.
Trade question for you: Khrush for Shields?
Got a glut of OF and trying to make up ground in ERA/WHIP/QS; 10 teamer ESPN. Dude is looking to move Shields – you think he perks up under my tutelage or just fux with my ratios the rest of the way?
Sanks, holla at ya boy!
@Richie: Keep Khris. Shields isn’t looking too hot right now.
I streamed Jason Vargas in a standard 5×5 12 team mixed league, do I hold him for his start against the Rays? I am above pace for IP and have been thinking of putting a reliever in, such as Tony Watson since I have a sizable lead on Wins and Ks but need help in ratios. Thoughts?
@Benny: Why take a risk on it?
Wow super informative; great post. As an owner of Brantley, also glad to see these results!!
Jeremy who you like more right now Jayson werth o james jones?
@Joe: Jones. I wasn’t a fan of Werth a couple months back. Jones is looking good.
Whats your thoughts on altuve ROS? I offered brantley for him as i have plenty of OF depth.
Great post! Arenado coming off DL. Chisenhall has done more than carry his weight. So, who do I look to trade? Arenado or Chisenahall. I was gonna shop Chisenhall, but want to make sure I’m looking to dump the right guy. 12 team h2h. Thanks!!
@Tulogit: You’re making the right choice.
If you had to drop one from this group. Who would it be? I have Arenado coming off Dl
Heaney, Ventura, Tijuan Walker
C-Ramos
1b-Goldschmdt
2b-altuvie
SS-Hanley Ramirez
3b-Beltre
Of-Braun
Of-Carlos Gomez
Of-billy Hamilton
Dh-Edwin Encarnacion
B-George Springer
B-Anthony Renton (2b,3b)
B-Carlos Santanna (c,1b,3b,dh)
B-Kole Calhoun
Dl-Arenado
P-Bumgardner
P-tanka
P-scherzer
P-Zimmerman
P-Anibal Sanchez
RP-holland
RP-Robertson
B-sonny gray
B-Cory kluber
B-yordana Ventura
B-Tijuan walker
B-Heaney
@Bob: Walker or Heaney. Leaning walker because I want to see more of Heaney.
I’m in a keeper league and have held onto both Goldschmidt and Abreu all season. I think now might be the time to sell. Who do you like long term?
only 1 DL spot, who do I hold – Wacha or Gattis?
I know defense doesn’t do much for fanstasy pools. However, as a baseball purist (ie old) I love to watch Brantley play CF…..dude has a Cannon. He is like Jackie Bradley Jr., except he can hit.
ROS Brantley or Polanco. Brantley?