Ian Desmond has been a significant disappointment for fantasy owners
The All-Star Game is over, so now is a great time to utilize the rest of the break to analyze your fantasy baseball team and the first half of the season. In evaluating the biggest bust from the first half of the 2015 season, I attempted to eliminate any candidates who had some injury issues, as I didn’t feel it would be fair to properly judge in this fashion. While there are certainly some other deserving names to make this article, I narrowed it down to Ian Desmond.
Desmond had excellent seasons for the Nationals in 2012 (.292 AVG, 25 home runs, 21 stolen bases) and 2013 (.280 AVG and 20 home runs, 21 stolen bases) while maintaining the power and stolen bases in 2014 (24 home runs, 24 stolen bases) with a drop in batting average (.255). Owners had high hopes for the power/stolen base upside to remain and the average to rebound as the 2015 season approached, as he was the third shortstop taken in most instances, with an average overall draft position of 27.5 (using FantasyPros ADP tool).
What has transpired over 84 games has been rather shocking. Desmond currently sports a .211 AVG to go with seven home runs and 5 stolen bases, which leaves him as the 34th ranked shortstop and 207th overall hitter. Not exactly a great return on investment.
So what gives? Taking a quick look at his numbers, Desmond has seen a jump in strikeout rate over the last two seasons (28.4% in 2015 and 28.2% in 2014 vs. a career 22.9%). Walks are also affecting his on-base percentage (.255) as he’s seen a drop to 4.9% from 7.1% last season. His overall weighted on base percentage has dropped to a career low .260, which helps to explain the drop in stolen bases (you can’t steal if you’re not on base). As for the drop off in power, his line drive rate is down a few ticks to 15.6% and his ground ball rate is up to 52.4% with his fly ball rate remaining the same at 32%. A few percentage points in those first two categories cannot explain such a drastic drop off, so we need to take this a step further.
Looking at his batted ball profile a bit deeper, the contact rates all mesh with where they have been in recent seasons, but one thing stands out and that is his HR/FB rate. Two things that can alter a hitter’s overall numbers are HR/FB and BABIP (which also is at a career-low .279). Starting in 2012, Desmond had an 18.2% HR/FB rate, which led to 25 home runs. In 2013, his HR/FB rate regressed to 12.9%, but he still had 20 home runs. Last season, the HR/FB rate jumped back to 18.2% while he posted 24 home runs. This season, his HR/FB rate is 9.7% which explains the drop in overall home runs. While some of this is luck related, as power hitters tend to have a higher HR/FB rate than normal (about 10 %), he is not aiding his cause by swinging at pitches outside the strike zone at a 38.3% clip, which is four points higher than his career average. Couple a lowered HR/FB rate with more ground balls and a drop in hard contact (26.2% in 2012) from the last three seasons (32.5%), and you can start to see why the power has been missing.
Desmond is still young at 29, so while I wouldn’t completely write him off it is very understandable to be frustrated with your investment at this point. The old saying to “buy low and sell high” is used widely in the fantasy world. While this certainly could be worth the gamble if you are in the market to buy, sometimes as the holder of the investment, you have to cut bait and move on to bigger and better things.
Adam Sutton is a correspondent at FantasyPros. To read more from Adam, follow him @DraftStars_Adam. You can find more of Adam’s work at DraftStars.net.
