If it’s sexy to talk about Miguel Sano, and it is, then there’s one way to make it unsexy like Ruffles you find in your butt crack the next day and become the lone dissenting voice in the sea of fantasy baseball ‘perts. That is coming out against drafting him. I feel like the guy that opts for sorbet at the ice cream place because dairy upsets his tummy, then holds up the line asking why they don’t make any dairy-free flavors using coconut milk. I’m that guy! I wouldn’t be surprised if saying Miguel Sano is overrated gets me stoned, and not the good stoned like Coco Crisp looks before every game. It is a really unpopular opinion. I can understand it. Sano hits bombs. Like unprecedented, roof-shattering bombs. His bombs are adjective-inducing and his strikeouts are agita-inducing. Which one will win out? That’s all this post comes down to. Here’s what I said in the top 5 Designated Hitters, “For each blurb, I zero in one stat. Sometimes I balloon out to other stats if it’s needed. For Sano, I went straight to his 35.5% strikeout percentage. Since 2000, only one player had a 35.5% or higher strikeout percentage over a full season, Chris Carter in 2013 who hit .223 that year. Sesame Street breakdown: When you’re striking out more than a third of the time, you can’t hit for a good average. This was brought to you by the letter K. Last year, Sano hit .269. Do you know how Sano hit for such a high average? He had a .396 BABIP. For those that don’t understand or care to know BABIP, I’ll make it simple. Everything Sano hit last year found a hole or a bleacher seat. A high BABIP either means a hitter was lucky, they’re fast or hit the ball hard. Sano is not fast, he was lucky and hit the ball hard. Since he hits the ball so hard, he could have a higher than average BABIP, but .396 isn’t higher than average, it’s obscene. He could’ve easily hit .190 last year. No one seems to be talking about this. I Googled “Sano strikeout percentage” and found a Bleacher Report article titled, Miguel Sano is Great and Here’s a Slideshow to Prove It. I then Googled “Miguel Sano” “Strikeout Percentage,” and I found two articles and one was written by me in 2014. Not even joking. Then, I opened up my search to “Sano strikeouts” and I found lots of results. I don’t mention this because it’s my only Google history I can talk about. I’m talking about it because no one else is. Sano is a bad luck streak away from hitting .175 in the majors. Sano connected with only 33.8% of pitches outside of the strike zone. One player in the last 15 years has been that bad, Wily Mo Pena. Last year, Melvin Upton connected with 41.2%. Previously, Upton connected with 55.3% of pitches outside the zone in his career. Sano makes Melvin Upton’s wild swing look like he studied under Charley Lau. Sano isn’t just bad with pitches outside the strike zone. He’s historically bad. It took me five minutes to figure this out. How long do you think it’s going to take major league pitchers and Sano never sees another strike? Say Opening Day? I’m not sure how Steamer is projecting Sano for a .255 average. Sano hit .236 in Double-A!” And that’s me quoting me! Anyway, what can we expect from Miguel Sano for 2016 fantasy baseball and what makes him overrated?
The overrated part is easy, I see him being drafted in the top 40 in some drafts. ESPN has him at 35 overall. To beat a dead horse and risk pissing off PETA, in the Winter Leagues this offseason, Sano hit .241 in 54 ABs with 15 Ks. This is a league where Wilin Rosario hit .297 and Ronny Paulino hit .270. It’s a small sample size so I don’t want to get too tied up in that, but it shows that he’s not exactly trying to fix anything. I tried to find similar comps with his Hard Contact percentage (which was very high for him last year) and his strikeout percentage. Here’s some names that jumped out: Jim Thome, Ryan Howard, Carlos Pena and Adam Dunn. As mentioned in the opening quote, no one came near Sano in Ks and pitches he connected with outside the strike zone. Even these all-or-nothing swingers I just mentioned never came that close to him. The closest one was Jack Cust in 2007. Cust hit .256 that year when he had a 32.3% strikeout percentage, 26 homers and a 43.9% Hard Contact rate while only connecting with 35.4% of pitches outside of the strike zone. That’s as analogous as we’re gonna find for Sano. That was Cust’s first full year, then the following year he hit .231 when pitchers figured out how to pitch him. Cust kayin’. Now Sano is obviously younger than Cust was then, so can adjust and be much better in the long-term. For this year, Sano looks like a prime candidate for a sophomore slump as he figures his shizz out. Finally, I didn’t talk much about him not having eligibility anywhere in some leagues, because he should be an outfielder from Jump Street, so he’ll have a position everywhere even if it is Depp position. Finally II, The Return of Finally, I hate not drafting Sano, I do. If he puts it together with his Ks this year, it might be the last time we can draft him outside of the top 20 for many years, but he is way overhyped for a guy who represents this risk. Also, a big welcome to Googlers of “whore presents this risk.” We won’t judge you, but you messed up your spacing!
