The first third of the 2017 fantasy baseball season sure has been a wild one. There’s always players that start hot out of nowhere or stars that begin sluggishly. This year, though, it seems like there’s a lot more of those than usual. The key is to not overreact without doing some research first. For the trio of fantasy hitters below, I dug around their advanced stats to see if their starts to the 2017 season are believable or not.
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Out of all the first-round picks this season, Manny Machado has been by far the biggest disappointment. You could make a case for Josh Donaldson too, but he’s been injured and has played fairly well in his limited at-bats. Machado, on the other hand, has just been straight up bad. The power is still there, and he’s even stolen three bases after none in 2016, but the average is barely hovering above the Mendoza line. This is not the Machado that fantasy owners have come to know and love.
His early-season struggles are peculiar but explainable. Since his rookie season, he hasn’t hit under .278 until this year. A big reason for the low average is his extremely low .220 BABIP, which is well under his career rate of .303. Once his BABIP starts going up we should see his average rise as well. At this point in the season, it will be difficult for Machado to get his average back up to what we’re accustomed to seeing from him. If the power remains and he continues to chip in a stolen base here and there, fantasy owners should be able to stomach an average in the .250-.260 range this season.
Even with his low average, Machado’s power has actually gotten better this season. His .217 isolated power, while below his 2016 mark of .239, is still higher than his career rate of .193. He’s making better contact this season as well. Machado’s 37 long balls in 2016 were a career high and advanced stats show that he’s been even better in that department this year. He’s making hard contact 40.7% of the time, which is 5.3% above last year, and 8.3% better than his career percentage. His soft contact has gone down nearly 4% from last year also.
Verdict: Don’t get too worried about Machado’s cold start. The power is still there, and like I mentioned above, it’s actually getting better. Once his BABIP and ISO stabilize, his average should start to climb. This is too good of a hitter to stay cold for too long. Sit back and enjoy the ride for the last four months of the season. If there’s a chance to get him at any sort of discount, now is the time to pounce.
It’s been a long time since Ryan Zimmerman had a full productive season. The last time he played more than 120 games was in 2013 when he slashed .275/.344/.465/.809 with 26 HR, 79 RBIs, 84 runs, and six steals in 568 at-bats. Over the last three years, he could only stay on the field for an average of 90.3 games per season. It’s pretty difficult to be a productive fantasy performer playing barely half the season.
2017 is shaping up to be Zimmerman’s best season yet. In 195 at-bats he is hitting .374 (leads majors) to go along with 16 HR, 48 RBIs, and a 1.133 OPS. While he’s always been a fairly productive player, he’s never been quite this good. If this pace continues, he will set career highs in batting average, home runs, doubles, RBIs, and OPS. This isn’t a mid-20’s player entering his prime years. Zimmerman is going to turn 33 before the season ends. This type of season will lead many to question, should you trust his hot start?
His current BABIP of .404 is nearly 100 points higher than his career mark of .312. That rate is simply unsustainable. Once that begins to trend towards his career norm, the batting average is sure to follow. This power surge is also sure to slow down as the season progresses. His isolated power (ISO) and HR/FB ratio are significantly higher this year than they have been for the rest of his career. That should lead many to believe that the power is going to decline some, but not too much.
An encouraging sign is his soft and hard contact percentages. Zimmerman is making more hard contact and less soft contact this year than in year’s past. Over his career, his soft and hard contact percentages have been 14.6% and 35.2% respectively. This year, they’re 12.6% and 39.7%.
Verdict: Trust Zimmerman’s hot start to an extent. He won’t be this good all season long, but this should still end up being the best year of his career. All of the advanced hitting metrics I mentioned should stabilize to some degree, but at this point in the season, it’s safe to say they’re still going to be above his career marks when the season concludes.
After a productive minor league career where he hit .294 with an .853 OPS, it took a while for Jackie Bradley Jr. to find his stride in the majors. His stellar defense alone was enough to give him semi-regular at-bats with Boston, but in the fantasy world, he was an afterthought. That is, until the 2016 season.
His offense finally awoke from its three-year slumber and Bradley became a strong fantasy contributor. Over 558 at-bats, he hit .267 to go along with 26 home runs, 87 RBIs, and 94 runs scored. All of those were easily career highs for the young defensive wizard.
Most of the fantasy world expected some regression out of Bradley this season, but not to this extent. At the surface, his numbers across the board have fallen considerably down to .233 with seven homers and 24 RBIs. However, when you look deeper, there are some promising signs.
For starters, Bradley has cut down his strikeouts for the fourth straight season. He’s also walking at a higher clip than he ever has. All of his other peripheral numbers, with the exception of his BABIP, are not that far off last season’s numbers. His ISO, soft contact, and hard contact rates are all barely worse. Bradley’s .250 BABIP is over 60 points lower than last season. He’s never going to win any batting titles, but all indications are that his average should begin to climb back into the mid-.200s.
Verdict: It’s likely that 2016 will be the best year of Bradley Jr.’s career. That being said, he’s not as bad as his early 2017 stats indicate. Guys that hit .260 with 20+ HR and a handful of steals have plenty of value in fantasy. Also, don’t forget that he plays in one of the best offenses in all of baseball. This is a player you can probably acquire for dirt cheap that will provide value over the remainder of the season.
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Eric Cross is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Eric, check out his archive and follow him @EricCross04.
