This article is part of our Collette Calls series.
Each season, there are hitters who have breakout seasons and we look back at what led to the surprise production. Often, it comes down to things like new pitches, new swing approaches or better conditioning. It also is often fueled by flukey splits where a hitter who has historically struggled against same-handed pitching turns suddenly feasts on those same types of pitchers. We get fooled into thinking this is a permanent change, only to watch said player sink back to career norms the following season. Let's look back at some of the 2018 players who led us into this trap, so we can then properly adjust to what has happened in 2019 as we begin our offseason plans.
For the surprise performance in a split for a batter to make a difference, the more plate appearances the better, so the 2018 names below had at least 80 plate appearances in the split.
Mallex Smith - Smith has seen his average against lefties drop 73 points from 2018 to 2019. Smith hit .337 with a .817 OPS in 115 plate appearances against lefties as a member of the Rays in 2018, but has hit .264 with a .690 OPS against southpaws in 2019. Smith saw limited playing time in the majors against lefties in 2016 and 2017 and hit .150 over his 100 plate appearances in that time. 2018 gave some hope that Smith just needed more playing time to get the issue against lefties fixed, but the .260 average he
Each season, there are hitters who have breakout seasons and we look back at what led to the surprise production. Often, it comes down to things like new pitches, new swing approaches or better conditioning. It also is often fueled by flukey splits where a hitter who has historically struggled against same-handed pitching turns suddenly feasts on those same types of pitchers. We get fooled into thinking this is a permanent change, only to watch said player sink back to career norms the following season. Let's look back at some of the 2018 players who led us into this trap, so we can then properly adjust to what has happened in 2019 as we begin our offseason plans.
For the surprise performance in a split for a batter to make a difference, the more plate appearances the better, so the 2018 names below had at least 80 plate appearances in the split.
Mallex Smith - Smith has seen his average against lefties drop 73 points from 2018 to 2019. Smith hit .337 with a .817 OPS in 115 plate appearances against lefties as a member of the Rays in 2018, but has hit .264 with a .690 OPS against southpaws in 2019. Smith saw limited playing time in the majors against lefties in 2016 and 2017 and hit .150 over his 100 plate appearances in that time. 2018 gave some hope that Smith just needed more playing time to get the issue against lefties fixed, but the .260 average he now owns against lefties over 371 plate appearances looks more real than the .337 average he put up in 2018.
Robinson Cano - Cano has seen his average against lefties drop 125 points in 2019 from 2018. He hit .333 in 124 plate appearances against southpaws in 2018 after hitting .208 against lefties in 193 plate appearances in Seattle during the 2017 season. In 2019 - he's back to that same .208 average against lefties in 110 plate appearances. This year, he has a career-worst 21 percent strikeout rate against the lefties, which is a dramatic decline from the 12 percent strikeout rate which helped fuel his 2018 success against those pitchers.
Manny Machado - Machado has seen his batting average drop 57 points and his slugging percentage drop 136 points against righties this season. In 2017, he hit .255/.309/.458 against righties, but jumped that to .298/.358/.539 while splitting time with the Orioles and Dodgers in 2018. This year, the move to San Diego has been noticeable as his line against righties has dropped to .241/.315/.403. His offensive production against righties has been five percent better than the league average over the past three seasons, but most of that is propped up by the big year in his walk year. 2017 and 2019 has each been 10 percent below the league average.
Maikel Franco - Franco has seen his batting average against righties fall 48 points and his slugging percentage fall 92 points against righties this season. In 2018, Franco was 17 percent better than the league average with his offensive production with a .286/.325/.502 triple-slash line in 345 plate appearances on the heels of a .237/.284/.417 line over 461 plate appearances in 2017. This year, the struggle has been real as he has hit .238/.295/.410 against righties while he has been on the major league roster. Franco has been below average offensively against righties in three of the past four seasons.
There are also some players who rebound from unusual years of splits to previous levels.
Gary Sanchez - Sanchez has seen his slugging percentage rebound 180 points against righties. Sanchez slugged .689 as a rookie against righties in 2016, and .530 as a sophomore in 2017. Last season, his struggles were well-advertised and he slugged .367 (and hit .171) against righties in 275 plate appearances. This season, his batting average against righties still isn't as lofty as it was in 2016-2017, but it's nearly 70 points higher than last year while he is currently slugging .549 against righties.
Christian Vazquez - Vazquez has seen his batting average against righties jump 74 points this year and his slugging percentage jump 167 points against righties this season. Vazquez was nearly league-average offensively in 2017 with a .293/.336/.396 slash line in 289 plate appearances, but was miserable in 2018 at a .199/.244/.274 clip in 198 plate appearances this season. He, like many others, is enjoying a big power year as his 2019 numbers against righties have rebounded back to the 2017 levels of production, and he now has 21 homers and 65 RBIs to go along with a strong rebound in the batting average category this season.
Avisail Garcia - Garcia has seen his batting average jump 63 points against righties this season. Garcia had a healthy .298/.355/.482 triple-slash line against righties in 2017, but that dropped down to a .222/.264/.426 line in his fina year with the White Sox in 2018. Garcia has raised that line to .285/.331/.460 this season with Tampa Bay giving him two of the past three seasons with above-average offensive production against righties. We know he can hit lefties (.295 career average) so the righties are what historically makes or breaks his season.
We also have the fun split of how batters hit with runners in scoring position. There is a near zero year-to-year correlation in this split, but here were some of the fun ones in 2018 and how that has panned out in 2019:
Trey Mancini - Mancini hit .150 with runners in scoring position in 2018. He still drove in 30 runs in those opportunities despite just two home runs. This season, he is hitting .246 in those situations with 5 homers and has driven in 46 runners in scoring position.
Josh Reddick - Reddick hit .346 with 70 RBIs with runners in scoring position in 2017. Last season, he hit .192 and drove in 31 runners hitting in the same loaded Astros lineup. This season, in arguably the best lineup of the three years, he is hitting .264 with runners in scoring position but has driven in just 35 runners.
C.J. Cron - Cron hit .262 and drove in 39 runners hitting part time for the Angels in 2017. The Rays gave him a full-time job in 2018, but he struggled in that same split hitting .196 with 38 RBIs in 162 plate appearances. Minnesota acquired him and has watched him resume his RISP success of 2017 hitting .295 with 55 RBIs in just 119 plate appearances with runners in scoring position. That is more amazing when you consider Cron is hitting .253 on the season with 76 RBIs in all.
Yuli Gurriel - Gurriel hit an amazing .403 with runners in scoring position in 2018 driving in 78 runners in 155 plate appearances. This season, Gurriel's average in that situation has dropped 97 points, yet he has 71 RBIs in the same split. You can't predict baseball.
Now, let's look for some players who are severely overperforming or underperforming their splits this year so we remember this as we begin our offseason planning this winter given the season is two weeks from ending:
Fernando Tatis Jr. and Hanser Alberto - We do not have enough data on either guy to make any prediction, but both guys are hitting over .400 against lefties this year, and Alberto has done it in 212 plate appearances. It may be sustainable within a season, but that's coming down in 2020.
Tom Murphy - Murphy has raked for Seattle against lefties with a .348 average and 11 homers in 121 plate appearances. Murphy, in his four seasons of playing time with the Rockies against lefties, hit .165 with one home run against lefties in 86 plate appearances. Maybe consistent playing time is what he needed, but if you're wondering where Murphy's numbers have come from this season, look no further.
Carlos Santana - From 2014-2018, Santana hit .263 against lefties with a .790 OPS in 1069 plate appearances. The 2019 season has seen Santana hit .327 against lefties with a 1.004 OPS in 206 plate appearances while setting a career highs in runs, runs driven in, and batting average. Which sample size are you going to bet on in 2020 — the 80 percent or the 20 percent?
Khris Davis - Davis hit at least 30 homers and hit at least .241 against righties in each of the previous three seasons. 2019 has been awful with a .201 average and one-third of his typical home run total against righties in 361 plate appearances. Davis is going to be a favorite rebound candidate for many people, and rightly so as it is tough to ignore that kind of overall history.
Gio Urshela - Urshela from 2015-2018 at the major league level, Urshela hit .214 with a .250 BABIP against righties over 356 plate appearances. Urshela has hit .337/.380/.552 against righties in 303 appearances in 2019. We are nearly a 50/50 split for sample size, but stare long and hard at that .374 BABIP against righties this year when making your offseason projections for this surprise third baseman.
DJ LeMahieu - LeMahieu he has hit .390 with runners in scoring position this year, driving in 73 runners in 136 plate appearances. That average is 99 points higher than his career batting average with runners in scoring position, which was heavily Coors influenced and comes on the heels of a 2018 season where he hit .278 with runners in scoring position in 123 plate appearances.
Joey Gallo - Gallo batting average has never really been his thing, but he did hit .233 with runners in scoring position and a 35 percent strikeout rate from 2017-2018 in 282 plate appearances. Gallo has hit a career-high .253 this season overall, but has been terrible with runners in scoring position with a .174 average and a horrendous 47 percent strikeout rate. He has dealt with two major injuries this season, and his numbers dropped precipitously after June, but we know what a healthy Gallo is capable of and a new stadium is coming for him in 2020.
The 80/20 rule tells us to give more credence to the larger sample size, but often we have a tough time overlooking recency bias in the numbers. The offseason provides us with four uninterrupted months of preparation for the March draft season giving you ample time to consider factors such as this when making your plans, or understanding why our staff is higher or lower on certain players than you are. My next article will look at some similar pitching anomalies.
