Nearly every question asked by fantasy baseball owners revolves around a hot or cold start. Is Eric Thames for real? Is Jose Bautista done?
Understanding concepts such as regression to the mean, buying low, selling high and the fact this game is a marathon, not a sprint, is a major part of winning a fantasy championship, but being able to predict when hot and cold streaks will begin and end is the key. Well, that and staying healthy. But for the sake of today, we’ll throw on our swami hats and stick to predicting the future.
The caveat that it is impossible to predict the future with 100 percent accuracy probably isn’t necessary to mention, but we will just in case. Using the numbers and the trends as fantasy analysts do is not an exact science, and considering baseball’s best hitters have just a 30 percent success rate (70 percent failure rate for you glass-half-empty folks) we have a pretty good idea of what we are up against with regard to legitimate prognostication. Call it a better-than-educated guess.
One of the many statistics you hear analysts discussing is Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP). It measures how often non-home run batted balls fall for hits. It reads just like batting average, and the league average BABIP hovers somewhere around the .290 to .300 range.
If a player is fortunate, his BABIP is above average, and if he is unfortunate, it is obviously below. How lucky can be measured by just how far above or below average the player’s BABIP reads. For example, Thames currently has a BABIP of .385 while Bautista’s sits at just .182.
The concept of regression to the mean tells you that a player’s BABIP, no matter how high or how low, eventually will find its way to that player’s career average. Keep that in mind as most people misuse the word regression and consider it strictly a negative thing. That is not the case. If Bautista’s BABIP regresses to the mean, you’re looking at it increasing over time until it reaches his .265 career average. That definitely is a good thing, considering the way the guy has played thus far.
With all of that, we now know we can use BABIP as an indicator of an impending hot or cold streak. If a player’s BABIP is low and it normally sits right around the league average, we know that, eventually, those batted balls will start falling for hits. Conversely, a player whose BABIP is unusually high, you can expect quite a number of 0-for-4s in his future as things level off. Again, it’s not an exact science, but it’s good enough for us to look at three players who should see a hot streak coming soon and three who are about to cause their overjoyed owners a bit of grief.
Three Up
Eric Hosmer, 1B, Royals — If you invested in this guy as your primary first baseman, you likely are banging your head against the wall right now. But before you give yourself a concussion, take a look at that .192 BABIP that is driving his batting average into the toilet. He has a career .308 BABIP, so you know his current mark will regress to the mean, and if you look even further into it, you’ll see that his near 60 percent ground-ball rate is contributing to the problem as well. Once he stops worm-killing, you can expect the BABIP to climb, and increase the overall production.
Rougned Odor, 2B, Rangers — Odor’s current .197 BABIP sits about 100 points lower than his career norm, and already it is on the rise — according to his numbers over the past 14 and seven days. The jump isn’t massive by any means, but an increase makes it worth the look. He isn’t likely to breach that 30-homer barrier again, but he also isn’t this bad of a hitter, especially when you see his sub-15-percent strikeout rate maintained.
Dexter Fowler, OF, Cardinals — His .169 average and .208 BABIP are significantly below his career norms, and his 27.8 percent strikeout rate is much worse than it ever has been. But if you look at the past couple of weeks, you’ll notice, though the K-rate is still a little on the ugly side, his BABIP went from .200 over a 14-day span to a .273 over this past week. Once he stops pressing at the plate and limits the strikeouts again, the balls will start bouncing his way, for sure.
Three Down
Chase Headley, 3B, Yankees — Yes, the collective “no duh” from every Yankees fan was heard loud and clear. We all know Headley is not the player we are watching. His .339 average with three home runs, seven RBIs, 14 runs scored and three stolen bases is mostly being driven by a .391 BABIP. Knowing his BABIP hasn’t been higher than .317 over the past three years should tell you the cool-down is imminent. His BABIP over the past 14 days is .367; over the past seven, it is down to .214. Your window to sell high is closing rapidly.
Zack Cozart, SS, Reds — If a .442 BABIP doesn’t automatically tell you there is a decline coming, you can look at it next to Cozart’s .278 career mark. The BABIP over the past two weeks was a still-unsustainable .385, and over the past week it is down to .286. There has been nothing in Cozart’s batted ball data to indicate this was “his year,” so you have to expect him to finish with numbers closer to his career averages.
Avisail Garcia, OF, White Sox — This should be another easy one for you to understand, even if you own Garcia and are riding high on his current level of production. He is rocking a .465 BABIP through 17 games, compared to a career .326 mark. Which means what? Yep. It’s coming down. And if you take a look at his production over the past seven days, you’ll notice a .125 BABIP and a 35.3 percent strikeout rate.
Howard Bender is the VP of operations and head of content at FantasyAlarm.com. Follow him on Twitter @rotobuzzguy and catch him on the “Fantasy Alarm Radio Show” on the SiriusXM fantasy sports channel weekdays from 4-6 p.m.