Fantasy Baseball busts: Three first-half disappointments
The All-Star Game is one of MLB’s greatest nights — a chance to celebrate all the talent baseball has to offer. Fantasy owners can take the time off to reassess their roster and see where they can stand to make improvements.
After celebrating three breakout fantasy studs of the first half, this edition of Three Up, Three Down examines three big-name players whose performances have fallen short of expectations. All three players are power hitters who rank outside the top 200 through the first half, and we’ll analyze which has shown the most promise that a resurgence is on the horizon.
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THREE DOWN
1B Jose Abreu, Chicago White Sox
2016 stats: .272/.326/.430, 11 HR, 52 RBI, 33 R, 77 K, 22 BB
Percent owned: 97 percent
Fantasy owners who took Abreu in the top 20 — his average draft position — have spent the first three months mostly disappointed. When Abreu was featured here in late May, he was hitting .248/.311/.391, with an isolated power rating of .143, a far cry from his rookie year in which he posted a .264 ISO.
Since then, Abreu has looked more like the feared hitter he was during his rookie season. In his last 35 games, he’s slashed .307/.348/.486 with 15 extra-base hits, this after mustering just 16 XBH in his first 51 games.
Jose Abreu 2016 Batting Splits by Month | PointAfter
Abreu has always struggled the most against curveballs, and he’s been thrown more of them this season than in the past two seasons. His improved performance at the plate suggests that he’s starting to close up some of the holes pitchers have been exploiting in the first two months.
Owners have been understandably frustrated with Abreu in the first half, but as he rounds into form, rival fantasy owners should try to pounce on the opportunity and see if they can snag Abreu in a buy-low trade. His overall numbers still don’t appear too impressive — he currently ranks outside the top 200 — and he could be a steal down the stretch if he continues to improve.
3B/OF Miguel Sano, Minnesota Twins
2016 stats: .243/.350/.472, 14 HR, 36 RBI, 34 R, 85 K, 36 BB
Percent owned: 87 percent
Sano spent years as one of the most hyped prospects in the game, peaking at No. 6 by Baseball American before the 2014 season. In 80 games at the big league level last year, he showed off his big-time power potential with an ISO of .261 and 17 home runs in 80 games.
Sano still hits the ball out of the yard frequently, but his slash line has fallen from .269/.386/.530 in 2015 to .243/.350/.472 this year. He’s improved his plate discipline only slightly from last year, chasing fewer pitches outside the zone, but still is among the league leaders in strikeout rate.
Sano’s batting average last year was boosted by his unsustainably high .396 BABIP. That number has dropped to .322 this year, though he’s making hard contact nearly just as often as he did in 2015. Sano ranks 15th in the league in average exit velocity after ranking second in that category last year, with only a 1.2 mile-per-hour decrease.
While Sano missed a month of the season to a hamstring injury, all of this suggests that this year’s version is a more accurate representation of his true talent than last year’s numbers would indicate. He’s still a valuable player, both in fantasy and real-life purposes, but his extreme three true outcomes approach will always hinder his batting average and on-base percentage.
Combine that with his subpar supporting cast, and there are few run-scoring and RBI chances for Sano to cash in on. Owners shouldn’t expect a big second-half breakout that’s much better than what he’s done so far.
SS Troy Tulowitzki, Toronto Blue Jays
2016 stats: .239/.315/.453, 15 HR, 43 RBI, 28 R, 63 K, 26 BB
Percent owned: 95 percent
In his prime years, Tulowitzki was a rare reliable source of home run production from a shortstop position that’s largely lacking in power. These days, he’s still able to make pitchers pay for their mistakes — his current ISO of .215 is right in line with his career mark of .212 — but his slash line of .239/.315/.453 has him ranked outside the top 300 fantasy players.
Tulowitzki’s strikeout rate is the highest it’s been since 2006, and his .256 BABIP is largely a result of his career-worst line-drive rate, though his hard-hit rate is right in line with his career average. He missed nearly a month from late May to mid-June with a quad strain but returned on June 18, looking more like the Tulo of old.
Troy Tulowitzki 2016 Batting Splits by Month | PointAfter
In his 20 games since coming off the DL, Tulowitzki has hit .313/.371/.600 with seven home runs in 89 plate appearances. The Blue Jays have caught fire heading into the break, and Tulowitzki’s resurgence is a big reason why. Fantasy owners who showed patience with the five-time All-Star are finally being rewarded for sticking to their guns.
Nick Selbe is a writer for PointAfter, a sports data aggregation and visualization website that's part of the Graphiq network. PointAfter is a platform for hitting charts, scatter plots and other data visualizations about MLB players, NBA teams and dozens of other topics.
