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    Josh Shepardson | Sun, Feb 20th 2022, 6:46am EST

Advanced Stats Leaderboard: Hitters Line Drive Percentage (2022 Fantasy Baseball)

The fantasy baseball ranking season is in full swing. For me, that typically starts with searching advanced stats leaderboards. Advanced statistics are often more predictive than traditional box score statistics. Thus, they’re an excellent jumping-off point. This series will dive into a variety of my favorite advanced metrics. However, I must caution that no statistic in isolation is the secret sauce for unearthing a hidden gem or burgeoning stud. Instead, they are a piece of the puzzle and best viewed through that lens, using other statistics in conjunction with them to formulate a well-rounded opinion of the fantasy value of players.

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Line Drive Percentage (LD%)

Line Drive percentage (LD%) is a batted-ball measure. Specifically, it is the calculation of line drives divided by all balls put in play. Unfortunately, it’s a statistic that gamers need to be careful when analyzing. Piper Slowinski discussed batted ball statistics for FanGraphs. Slowinski mentioned in the linked piece that ground ball and fly ball data only takes roughly a month or two to provide meaningful information. However, Slowinski cautioned that line drives take around a year-and-a-half to “stabilize.” Thus, even a full year of Line Drive percentage doesn’t paint an entirely accurate picture for future expectations.

Regardless, it’s better than having no line drive statistics. Moreover, it’s a starting point for working backward to see which leaders have a track record of crushing liners. Further, we can look at the high, median and low marks for line drive rate across qualified hitters in 2021. According to FanGraphs, there were 132 qualified hitters in 2021. Last year, a 29.4 LD% was the highest, 20.75% was the median and 14.6% was the lowest.

2021 Qualified Hitters Line Drive Percentage

As I stated above, it takes more than a season to normalize a Line Drive rate. Thus, the above table is more like a blueprint for who to check in on instead of an ironclad map for who will continue to tear the cover off the ball. With that in mind, there are players whose Line Drive rate looks reasonably sustainable and others that look like they're in store for a rude awakening this year, facing significant regression.

According to FanGraphs, from 2018 through 2020, a few hitters had elite Line Drive rates, such as Freddie Freeman (1B - FA) (30.1 LD%), Whit Merrifield (2B - KC) (28.6%), Joey Votto (1B - CIN) (27.4%), Nick Castellanos (OF - FA) (25.8%) and Austin Riley (3B - ATL) (24.4% since debuting in 2019). Others like Robbie Grossman (OF - DET) (24.3%), Michael Brantley (OF - HOU) (24.0%), Dylan Carlson (OF - STL) (23.7% since debuting in 2020), Bryan Reynolds (OF - PIT) (23.4%), Josh Harrison (UTL - FA) (23.3%) and Adam Frazier (UTL - SEA) (23.2%) also had better than a 23.0 LD%.

Unfortunately, other hitters above might have been lucky, based on their Line Drive rates from the prior three years. For example, Jeimer Candelario (1B/3B - DET) (20.8%), Carlos Correa (SS - FA) (20.7%), Ryan McMahon (INF - COL) (20.6%), Teoscar Hernandez (OF - TOR) (20.2%) and Elvis Andrus (SS - OAK) (19.9%) had Line Drive rates south of 21.0% from 2018 through 2020. So, they're the hitters that gamers should exercise the most caution with projecting as Line Drive rate leaders in 2022. Still, it's possible they made swing changes that will help sustain their newfound line-drive prowess. Therefore, a month or two of maintaining something similar to their 2021 Line Drive rate would be grounds for speculating on it being legitimate from now on.

Noteworthy Non-Qualified Hitters in 2021

Given my warning already mentioned regarding qualified hitters, the Line Drive rate for the hitters that only needed to clear 250 plate appearances needs to be taken with a grain of salt.  Nonetheless, Luis Arraez (UTL - MIN) appears to be an actual line-drive machine. He had 487 plate appearances from his rookie season (2019) through 2020, recording a 29.4 LD%.

Additionally, Dominic Smith (1B/OF - NYM) is a bounce-back candidate. He had a 24.8 LD% in 545 plate appearances from 2018 through 2020 and maintained a stellar Line Drive rate in last year's disappointing campaign.

Finally, Luis Robert (CF - CWS) is chock full of tools. There is a lot to like about his fantasy baseball outlook. However, Robert had only a 19.8 LD% in 227 plate appearances as a rookie before exploding for a 26.4 LD% in just 296 plate appearances during an injury-interrupted sophomore season. Robert has a ton of upside. Still, he isn't bulletproof. Therefore, his range of outcomes is likely too broad for risk-averse gamers to draft at his present Average Draft Position (ADP) of 21.3.

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Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.

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