Top 100 Hitters, Week 4: Jose Ramirez Watch

I’m starting a new feature for this column — Jose Ramirez Watch! The mood is tense! No one is losing more value than Ramirez right now. In a lot of leagues he was a top-10 pick and right now he isn’t even justifying a top-100 pick. It’s still early for him — but his owners have to be disappointed.

Last Week: 14 | This Week: 25

Last 7 days: 5/22, 6 runs, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 2 SB, 227 AVG

Another disappointing week for J-Ram, however, it is better than the previous week when he went 2 for 25. Baby steps? Here’s what I said to a commenter in last week’s top 100 column:

“JRam wasn’t hitting over .250 until April 24th last year.He’s got a higher hard contact rate so far this season (yay!) but also a higher soft contact rate (boo!) His BABIP is only .167 after last year’s 252. I’d obviously hold and wait until May 1. I think he’ll be fine — not 2018 foooiinnneee — but 2019 fine.”

Let’s see where his average sits later this week…

Rising

Cody Bellinger: Bellinger’s breakout is looking for real, real — not just for play, play. His numbers will humanize a bit — a hitter hasn’t hit over .400 since FDR was in office. Quick aside, according to Fangraphs, Ted Williams (who hit .406 that year) had a .378 BABIP that year. If you told him about his BABIP in 1941 though you’d probably end up with a shiner and someone would through your bowler in the mud and call you a rascal, see? They’d really give ya the business — the old 1, 2 — a knuckle sandwich, see? Where was I? BELLINGER! Right — he’s right in the middle of a fierce battle for NL MVP front-runnership with Christian Yelich. This is all for real too — he was a former top prospect and he’s just taken his game to a whole ‘nother level. A 40+/10+ season is in the making!

Tim Anderson: I don’t remember what I said exactly — but I definitely said some very unkind things about Anderson before this season. I’ll give my haters a moment to go find exactly what I said………are y’all back? Well good — because according to Anderson’s Baseball Reference headshot it looks like he read what I wrote too. Another .400+ batting average that won’t last. However, there’s no reason another 20+/20+ season won’t happen. Anderson’s .479 BABIP is sitting atop the leaderboard right now — expect that to come down and expect his average to double down with it. If you drafted Anderson late and have a suitable back-up SS, this might be a good chance to sell high.

Austin Meadows: If Meadows can maintain this production he’ll move up another 32 spots next week. Meadows was always a solid power/speed threat in the minors ranking as high as 6th on Baseball America’s prospect rankings. All he needed was a shot and he found that after his trade to Tampa Bay. The Rays are baseball’s funnest team and it’s seeming like everyone in their lineup is hitting their peak at the same time. A full season of Meadows could look like a 20+ HR/20+ SB season with close to a .300 average.

Falling

Kris Bryant: Last week I talked about Anthony Rizzo falling and now it’s his cross-court teammate Bryant. After a 2017 riddled with nagging injuries — I expected a full comeback from Bryant in 2019. You don’t win MVP on accident — Rookie of the Year? Maybe. Remember Angel Berroa? No one does! Bryan’s K and BB ratios are on or close to schedule, his medium and hard contact rates are better than last year, but he’s hitting 10% more of his balls on the ground this season and his BABIP is 36 points lower than last year. I’m thinking there’s still comeback potential in Bryant’s bat if you want to buy low.

Robinson Cano: I was optimistic about Cano’s season after watching him launch an Opening Day HR. Well he’s hit 1 HR since then and is barely hitting over .200 in the process. There’s two things I know are a young man’s game: baseball and stairs. Maybe after 2096 games, baseball is finally leaving Cano in the dust. If he doesn’t ramp it up soon he’ll play his last.

Jesus Aguilar: On April 1st Aguilar was ranked as high as 56 now he’s hanging on to this list for dear life. 0 HRs, .153 AVG — he might be losing playing time before he knows it, but more importantly he’ll be off my cool list just like Arnold and Gerald.

Top 100 Hitters