Power and Plate Discipline, 2015 Fantasy Baseball

I should probably start off by apologizing to some of you as the title of this post might be somewhat misleading. This is not a Fifty Shades of Grey movie review. For those of you who arrived here with those expectations, I’m sorry. I’m not sure how it could have happened. Nothing in this post references BDSM, dominant/submissive tendencies, or bondage at any time. It’s all very confusing.

What this post does intend to cover is the MLB hitters who displayed above average power and plate discipline during the 2013 and 2014 seasons. The main idea behind this exercise is to identify players who are power assets without being liabilities in the batting average category.

Let’s take a look at the search criteria that were used to identify these players:

Minimum 500 Plate Appearances

Isolated Power (ISO) of .170 or higher

BB/K ratio of .5 or higher

Although the league average ISO tends to vary slightly from year-to-year, that number can generally be expected to hover around the .140 mark, so .170 represents an above average (yet still only semi-elite) number. The BB/K requirement simply ensures that any qualifiers possess an above average awareness of the strike zone. The 500 PA criterion theoretically allows for a wide variety of players to qualify, from platoon options to players who missed a large portion of this two year span due to injury to rookies who logged close to a full season’s worth of regular playing time. Very simple search requirements. Hopefully this K.I.S.S. method will produce results that make your “Love Gun” tingle rather than conjure up memories of Paul Stanley sans makeup.

To provide some context, here are the MLB averages in some key statistical categories for hitters during the 2013-14 seasons:

Season	BB%	K%	BB/K	ISO	AVG	OBP	SLG
2013	7.90%	19.90%	0.4	0.143	0.253	0.318	0.396
2014	7.60%	20.40%	0.37	0.135	0.251	0.314	0.386

As you can see, the ISO and BB/K criteria utilized for this exercise are significantly higher than the MLB averages during this span. Which players managed to make the cut? Here are the qualifiers, sorted by ISO:

Name	Team	PA	HR	R	RBI	BB%	K%	BB/K	ISO	AVG	OBP	SLG
Edwin Encarnacion	TOR	1163	70	165	202	12.40%	12.40%	1	0.27	0.27	0.363	0.54
David Ortiz	BOS	1202	65	143	207	12.60%	15.20%	0.83	0.255	0.286	0.375	0.541
Mike Trout	LAA	1421	63	224	208	13.60%	22.50%	0.6	0.254	0.305	0.405	0.559
Giancarlo Stanton	MIA	1142	61	151	167	14.70%	27.10%	0.54	0.251	0.271	0.382	0.522
Miguel Cabrera	DET	1337	69	204	246	11.20%	15.80%	0.71	0.248	0.329	0.405	0.577
Paul Goldschmidt	ARI	1189	55	178	194	13.70%	21.40%	0.64	0.246	0.302	0.399	0.548
Troy Tulowitzki	COL	887	46	143	134	12.10%	16.00%	0.75	0.243	0.323	0.408	0.566
Jose Bautista	TOR	1201	63	183	176	14.40%	15.00%	0.96	0.239	0.274	0.383	0.512
Steve Pearce	BAL	521	25	65	62	10.60%	19.40%	0.54	0.236	0.284	0.37	0.521
Hanley Ramirez	LAD	848	33	126	128	9.80%	16.00%	0.61	0.216	0.308	0.382	0.525
Lucas Duda	NYM	980	45	116	125	12.70%	24.20%	0.52	0.214	0.242	0.35	0.456
Anthony Rizzo	CHC	1306	55	160	158	11.40%	18.60%	0.61	0.212	0.258	0.353	0.469
Andrew McCutchen	PIT	1322	46	186	167	12.30%	16.30%	0.75	0.209	0.316	0.407	0.524
Josh Donaldson	OAK	1363	53	182	191	11.20%	17.60%	0.63	0.2	0.277	0.363	0.477
Carlos Santana	CLE	1302	47	143	159	15.80%	18.00%	0.88	0.191	0.25	0.371	0.441
Adam Lind	TOR	839	29	105	107	9.40%	18.00%	0.52	0.189	0.301	0.366	0.49
Albert Pujols	LAA	1138	45	138	169	7.70%	11.10%	0.7	0.188	0.267	0.326	0.455
Jayson Werth	WAS	1161	41	169	164	12.30%	18.40%	0.67	0.187	0.304	0.396	0.491
Bryce Harper	WAS	892	33	112	90	11.10%	22.20%	0.5	0.184	0.273	0.358	0.457
Mark Teixeira	NYY	571	25	61	74	11.60%	22.40%	0.52	0.183	0.209	0.308	0.391
Neil Walker	PIT	1122	39	136	129	8.50%	15.40%	0.55	0.182	0.262	0.341	0.443
Adrian Beltre	TEX	1304	49	167	169	8.20%	11.70%	0.7	0.181	0.319	0.379	0.501
Adam LaRoche	WAS	1176	46	143	154	13.10%	20.30%	0.64	0.181	0.248	0.347	0.429
Matt Holliday	STL	1269	42	186	184	11.30%	14.70%	0.77	0.179	0.285	0.379	0.464
Victor Martinez	DET	1309	46	155	186	9.50%	7.90%	1.19	0.178	0.317	0.381	0.495
Joey Votto	CIN	998	30	133	96	18.20%	18.70%	0.97	0.177	0.291	0.423	0.468
Freddie Freeman	ATL	1337	41	182	187	11.70%	19.90%	0.59	0.177	0.303	0.39	0.48
Kyle Seager	SEA	1349	47	150	165	8.90%	17.80%	0.5	0.176	0.264	0.336	0.44
Luis Valbuena	CHC	938	28	102	88	12.60%	18.80%	0.67	0.176	0.236	0.337	0.412
Brian Dozier	MIN	1330	41	184	137	10.50%	18.70%	0.56	0.172	0.243	0.33	0.415
Robinson Cano	– – –	1346	41	158	189	9.40%	11.40%	0.82	0.171	0.314	0.383	0.485

That’s a fairly large group of players to analyze. Thirty-one in all to be exact. Here are a few observations:

• All of the players who qualified for this list hit at least 25 HRs. Only seven players (or 22.6%) launched less than 39 HRs, none of whom logged at least 1000 plate appearances across the ’13-’14 seasons.

• Seven of the thirty-one qualifiers (22.6%) produced a sub-.260 batting average during this time period, while twelve players (38.7%) hit over .300.

• Twenty-four players (77.3%) managed an .800+ OPS. Just three qualifiers (Teixeira, Dozier, Valbuena) had an OPS of less than .776.

• By opening day of the 2015 season, seven of these players will be at least 35 years old (eight if you include Teixeira’s mid-April birthday): Ortiz, Werth, Beltre, Martinez, Holliday, LaRoche, Pujols, and Teix.

• On the other hand, fourteen of the thirty-one players will still be under 30 years of age when the first MLB regular season pitch is thrown in ’15: Donaldson, Santana, Duda, Walker, Valbuena, Goldschmidt, McCutchen, Seager, Dozier, Stanton, Freeman, Rizzo, Trout, and Harper.

• Five of these players contributed in the stolen base category (not included due to space considerations) as well by averaging 10+ SBs over the past two seasons: Trout (49 total – 24.5 avg), McCutchen (45 – 22.5), Dozier (35 – 17.5), Goldschmidt (24 – 12), and Ramirez (24 – 12).

Overall, the majority of the players who qualified for this list will be highly sought after in fantasy leagues this season. Some players are platoon-only options for daily and/or deep leagues (Lind, Valbuena), while others are currently injured (V-Mart, Werth, possibly Votto) or on their last legs (Teixeira). However, a few potential draft-day bargains appear, most notably Pearce, Duda, Walker, and LaRoche. It might be wise not to forget about these players in the mid-late rounds.

Outside of the fantasy elite (Trout, McCutchen, Cabrera, etc.), are you targeting any of these players this season? Any names here that you’re avoiding?