Alright folks, it’s time for another round of Burning Questions. I’ll take “hard hit rate leaders” for $200, Alex!
P.S. I’m sure this column will solve all of life’s mysteries for you, but if you somehow have questions that aren’t addressed here, ask me on Twitter and I’ll try to answer them.
View your league’s top available players with My Playbook 
How good is Justin Bour?
Bour impressively surpassed last year’s 15 HRs in nearly 100 fewer at-bats. His 33.3 percent HR/FB rate is second in the majors to Aaron Judge, so his current HR pace is sure to slow down some. But he’s also seventh in the Big Leagues in hard-hit rate, so the power he’s showing isn’t just some fluke.
His BABIP is a bit higher than years’ past, but that will happen when you’re squaring the ball up as well as he’s been doing. The improvement he showed last year in strikeout rate has evaporated, but his 22.9 percent K rate is hardly obscene for a power hitter. As long as the ankle injury he’s currently dealing with doesn’t prove to be serious, Bour should approach 30 round-trippers and finish somewhere around the midpoint of the .264 batting average he put up last year and the .295 clip he’s hitting at so far this season.
Is Ian Desmond going to get it going soon?
Desmond generated plenty of preseason buzz this year, and rightfully so, as a hitter who had gone 20-20 in four of the last five seasons and now gets to call Coors Field home. But then Desmond broke a bone in his left hand and ended up missing the first month of the season. Since he returned, his numbers have been uninspiring: a .266 batting average with just three HRs and two SBs in 128 at-bats.
Desmond has always had a high batting average on balls in play, and Coors Field should only make it go higher, so his current .344 BABIP could easily be sustainable, in which case his batting average should rise. He’s currently sporting a career-high 33 percent hard hit rate, but he’s hitting far fewer fly balls than ever before, so it isn’t translating into home runs.
His minuscule 2.9 percent walk rate also isn’t doing him or the Rockies any favors. That said, while Desmond’s current stat line isn’t particularly useful, the sample size is still relatively small and he’s just a short hot streak away from returning to the .280/20/20 pace his fantasy owners were hoping for in the first place. It’s worth exercising some patience here and seeing what happens as the weather begins to heat up in Denver.
Should we be worried about Justin Verlander?
Verlander’s owners likely breathed a sigh of relief on May 30, when he twirled seven innings of one-run ball against the Royals. But five days later, in another favorable matchup against the White Sox, Verlander returned to his disastrous ways, yielding six hits and three walks in just two innings before departing with a groin injury.
That outing took his ERA up to 4.63 and his WHIP up to 1.46. The Tigers are saying that Verlander’s groin is ok, but that doesn’t mean his fantasy outlook is. Verlander is walking over four batters per nine innings, which is nearly double the walk rate he’s had over the last couple seasons, and he’s giving up far more hard contact that he ever has before.
He’s also getting far fewer swings-and-misses on all four of his pitches and failing to get hitters to chase pitches outside the strike zone, as Fangraphs’ Paul Sporer recently pointed out. While last season may have given Verlander owners hope that the fantasy ace of 2011-12 had returned, the early returns this season should be striking fear that a four-plus ERA could become the new normal.
Is Devon Travis a top-12 fantasy second baseman?
After a horrid April that saw him slash .130/.193/.195, Travis turned it around big time in May with a .364/.373/.646 line. So which is the real Travis? Based on everything else he’s showed in the minors and majors, there’s plenty of reason for optimism.
Travis simply does not walk a lot, which hurts his value a bit in OBP and points-based leagues, but his current .259 batting average is being weighed down by a .299 BABIP that has to be considered unlucky based on his track record. Travis is making more hard contact and hitting more line drives than he did in 2015 when he hit .304 in 217 at-bats, or 2016, when he hit an even .300 in 410 at-bats.
He’s not a huge contributor in either power or speed but looks a lot like a 15-10 guy over a full season with a plus batting average. He finished third among second basemen in per game fantasy value in 2015 and 13th in 2016, according to Baseball Monster, so the continued growth he’s displaying gives him a good shot of finishing as a top-12 fantasy second baseman this year if he can stay reasonably healthy.
What’s the matter with Jonathan Lucroy?
When it comes to catcher-eligible players in Yahoo leagues, Kyle Schwarber ‘s struggles have been receiving a lot of attention. But Lucroy is a catcher who was just as sought after as Schwarber in fantasy drafts — and he’s produced even less fantasy value so far. A look under the hood reveals some downright strange peripherals.
Lucroy has cut his strikeout rate from 18.4 percent in his breakout 2016 campaign to just 7.6 percent this year, which makes him the single-best contact hitter in baseball among those with at least 150 plate appearances. And yet, his batting average has tumbled more than 30 points, due in large part to a low .264 BABIP that is being fueled by a weak hard contact rate and a significant drop in line drives. Even so, Lucroy should hit for a higher batting average going forward than most fantasy backstops.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for his power. Lucroy is now eight years into his Major League career, and the 24 home runs he hit last season is looking like a huge outlier. His other counting stats should benefit from the Rangers’ potent lineup, but even a 15 HR pace from here on out may be optimistic.
Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | SoundCloud | Google Play | TuneIn | RSS
Andrew Seifter is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Andrew, check out his archive and follow him @andrew_seifter.
