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We're off and running on our Statcast Hitter Analysis! Each week, I will select a different metric to evaluate unexpected names at the top and bottom of the Statcast Leaderboards.
Even if you aren't well-versed in Statcast, you know exit velocity. Even the crustiest of old-school baseball announcers has incorporated this term in his vernacular if nothing else related to sabermetrics. To kick things off take another look at this important stat by examining the last month's worth of data to find risers and fallers for possible buy, sell, add, or drop possibilities.
Many fantasy baseball owners are starting to see the value of MLB's Statcast advanced stats in order to help identify potential risers and sleepers. Just as we do for pitchers, this weekly series will examine a handful of hitters who are performing surprisingly well or poorly according to sabermetrics. This week, we look at exit velocity averages from the first few games of 2020 to see if we can find some early bats to watch. Hot takes ahoy!
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Surprising Chart Toppers
All stats current as of the morning of July 27th, 2020
Jaylin Davis - OF, San Francisco Giants
Avg. 2020 Exit Velocity: 100.1 MPH
Davis has an opportunity in the early goings for the Giants, who many figure to be non-contenders in 2020. Davis has just two hits in his nine official at-bats so far, but he has four hard-hit (95+ MPH) balls out of five batted ball events. While his luck hasn't been great so far, he's tattooing the ball when making contact.
Let's be clear, I'm not betting the house that Davis is suddenly a fantasy stud. However, with starters dropping like flies across the leagues due to COVID-19 and injury, this kind of outstanding contact early is worth monitoring.
Kyle Tucker - OF, Houston Astros
Avg. 2020 Exit Velocity: 97.2 MPH
With Yordan Alvarez on the shelf, Kyle Tucker should see a healthy amount of at-bats over the first few weeks of the season. He has just five plate appearances so far, but that includes four batted ball events--three of which qualified as hard hits. Tucker has always been a touted prospect in the Astros organization, but he's had trouble finding at-bats at the big league level up until this point.
After smashing 34 homers at the AAA level in 2019, the elevated exit velocity is not surprising. However, his ownership percentage indicates that he may have been slept on in drafts--he's worth a speculative add right now.
Leury Garcia - OF/2B, Chicago White Sox
Avg. 2020 Exit Velocity: 94.2 MPH
Garcia has the second base job all to himself in the south side of Chicago, and so far he's running with it. The typically light-hitting Garcia has already smacked two homers and has four total hard-hit balls out of eight batted ball events so far. The 29-year-old is coming off his first season as a full-time starter, and he's continued to put up numbers in 2020.
Despite hitting at the bottom of a much-improved White Sox lineup, if Garcia can continue these kinds of contact levels for an extended period he could be worthy of a MI spot in your lineup--especially with 15-steal potential. A .275+ batting average along with 7-8 steals would be an excellent return over 60 games.
Alarming Bottom Dwellers
All stats current as of the morning of July 27th, 2020
Joey Gallo - OF, Texas Rangers
Avg. 2020 Exit Velocity: 89.4 MPH
Coming off a 2019 season that saw him improve his batting average by over 50 points year-over-year, Gallo was drafted as a power source who WOULDN'T murder your batting average as well. He set a career-high in average exit velocity last season (94.7 MPH) and that yielded a ludicrous .368 BABIP over the 70 games he played.
If that exit velocity comes back down, we could see that BABIP drop again, which could turn Gallo into the 40-homers-and-nothing-else hitter we saw through the first 2+ years of his career. It will be worth monitoring his exit velo in the coming weeks to see if he's squaring the ball up as much as he did last year.
Eugenio Suarez - 3B, Cincinnati Reds
Avg. 2020 Exit Velocity: 89.0 MPH
I was all-in on Suarez after his career 2019 season, and I stand by the belief that he's got a top-five ceiling at the position. With that said, he's off to a rough start in 2020. He doesn't have a hit yet in 2020, and while his average exit velocity isn't much lower than his 2019 average (89.4 MPH), he hasn't barreled a ball up yet in seven BBE.
With a shortened season, no player can afford a slow start. Give Suarez another week to figure it out, and see if he can start putting better wood on the ball immediately. If the exit velocity stays down, the power may not appear as quickly as you need it to in a 60-game season.
Trea Turner - SS, Washington Nationals
Avg. 2020 Exit Velocity: 88.0 MPH
It's certainly early, but we're here for the hot takes. Turner has only one barrel in nine batted ball events in his first 11 at-bats, and that was a 105.4 MPH homer. Outside of that homer, he has been making weak contact across the board. Something to consider with that weak contact is that Turner's average launch angle in 2020 is far above what his career numbers have been. Could Turner be looking for more homers in lieu of better contact? I'm not ready to declare that just yet.
You're obviously giving a superstar like Turner the benefit of the doubt, but my eyebrows are raised after a weak first series.
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