Josh Shepardson digs into the early season numbers accumulated by Alex Rodriguez.
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Baseball’s greatest villain — at least in the eyes of many it would seem — is back after a year-long suspension. No one could possibly know how a 39-year-old Alex Rodriguez would perform after a year off from baseball. Clouding things further was his checkered history that included admitted performance enhancing drug usage. The uncertainty resulted in A-Rod ranking outside the top-30 third basemen and him being selected in the later rounds of drafts as little more than a flier. Data from a little under 20 games is far from a big sample, but a small sample size is better than no sample of data to analyze.
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Through Rodriguez’s first 70 plate appearances, he’s been strikeout prone with a 27.1% strikeout rate. He owns a swinging strike rate of 14%, which is well above the league average of 9.3% this year, according to FanGraphs. Strikeout rate tends to stabilize quickly, so this isn’t an ideal mark and will pose problems for him maintaining a helpful batting average if he doesn’t cut down on the punch outs. That said, Rodriguez is coming off a lengthy layoff and should probably get a little bit more slack when it comes to drawing definitive conclusions about his ability to make contact.
I chose to lead with the bad because there is far more positive data supporting the case for rostering or trading for A-Rod. His plate discipline has been exquisite. He’s walked in 20% of his plate appearances and is offering at only 23.2% of offerings thrown out of the strike zone (29.9% is the league average). His unwillingness to chase bodes well for him taking a bite out of his unsavory strikeout rate. Gamers in leagues that use OBP in addition to or in place of batting average should bump Rodriguez up their rest-of-season rankings.
Two of the three true outcomes (walk, strikeout and homers are the three true outcomes) have been addressed and accounted for the conclusion of a whopping 47.1% of A-Rod’s first 70 plate appearances, what about the third outcome, homers? He wasted little time adding to his sizable count of career homers smacking his first of the season on April 9. He’s since added three more taters, including a pair on Saturday, April 17. Fans of Jack Cust might just have a new player to hold up as the TTO king. Toss in his four homers and an absurd 52.8% of his plate appearances have concluded with one of the three true outcomes in baseball.
The power is a welcome sight for gamers who own A-Rod, and there are reasons to think he’ll continue to mash. The obvious reason for a positive outlook regarding him continuing to reach the seats at a high rate is his home ballpark. Yankee Stadium owns a right-handed batter park factor for homers of 129 using a three-year rolling average, per StatCorner. For those unfamiliar with park factors, 100 represents a neutral park. Every point above or below 100 represents a percentage point. In other words, Yankee Stadium enhances homers to right-handed batters by 29%.
Digging a little deeper, there’s more to like than just his home digs. Rodriguez is hitting the ball a long way. Analyzing average homer distance is a mistake because it lops off all other outfield flyballs from the data being dissected. Baseball Heat Maps understands that and offers a sweet leaderboard for average home run and flyball distance. With an average distance of 307.93 feet, Rodriguez checks in with the 18th highest average distance out of 172 hitters listed. He’s not hitting wall scrapers, folks. These are moonshots Rodriguez is belting. With him hitting the ball so far, his current flyball rate of 48.6% provides encouragement for plenty more fireworks.
His early season success has resulted in his ascension to the number-three spot in the lineup. That’s a boon for his run production potential. After putting Rodriguez under the microscope, we see a player who should help teams a great deal this year. As an older player, there might be increased risk for fatigue or injury, but from a strictly statistical perspective, he looks really good. Rodriguez is a buy-high candidate who should be viewed as a top-20 third baseman for the remainder of the year. He has starting third baseman upside in standard leagues, but his advanced age should provide pause before penciling him in for such a lofty projection. Acquiring him at a cost slightly below that would leave open the possibility of pocketing a profit on him. Owners may feel the need to peddle him due to his hot start, so kick the tires on acquiring him if you don’t own him. If you were one of the ambitious drafters who took a leap of faith on him, don’t cash out for pennies on the dollar just yet.
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Josh is a writer for Daily Fantasy Cafe. You can follow him on Twitter @BChad50.
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