RADIO
BALLER MOVE: Draft target ~pick 290
CURRENT ADP: ~306 overall
ANALYSIS: Finally signing with the San Francisco Giants, La Stella should play just about every day and hit atop the Giants Lineup. Tommy La Stella is what I categorize as a roster stabilizer. His production is not flashy, but you can write it in pen. Each of the last two seasons, La Stella:
- Has a batting average of .281 or better
- Posted a wRC+ of at least 120
- Improved his strikeout rate each year
The improved strikeout rate is not a fluke. In 2020, Among players who had at least 100 PA, La Stella was one of five players who ranked top-10 in all of these categories: O-Contact%, Z-Contact%, Contact% & SwStr%. In 2019, we saw the power production. This came with a change in the average launch angle. He increased it to 13.2 degrees in 2019 and then increased it even further to 17.1 degrees in 2020. This change has led to more power production with 16 home runs over 80 games in 2019. The juiced ball likely assisted this as we saw just five over a 55 game sample in 2020 and that essentially paced him out to hitting roughly 15 or so in a full complement of games. However, now that he calls San Fran home, that is not good for his home run projections. You should still get double-digit home runs but the ceiling took a bit of a hit. There is a high-floor here and that is why the term "roster stabilizer" comes to mind.
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