Nolan Arenado led baseball with 130 runs batted in and he tied Bryce Harper for first in the NL with 42 homers in 2015. Where did the power come from for the Rockies third baseman? Will it continue? Can he hit on the road? Can he improve his batting average? Is he firmly established as a fantasy star for 2016? Let’s explore all of those questions.


WHERE DID THE POWER COME FROM & WILL IT CONTINUE?

Great question.

Arenado hit 28 homers over his first 918 big league at-bats, a pace of one every 32.8 at-bats.

Arenado hit 42 homers in 616 at-bats in 2015, a pace of one every 14.7 at-bats.

Guys just don’t cut their HR/AB number by more than 50 percent. They don’t.

Let’s look at his minor league work. In 1,695 minor league at-bats Arenado hit 49 homers, a pace of one every 34.6 at-bats. Yeah, that’s the same as his 2013-14 big league pace.

Further doubts about Nolan’s 2015 effort include the fact that no scout or front office type ever thought that Arenado would hit 40-homers in the big leagues. He didn’t have the swing for it, first and foremost, and his minor league high was a mere 20 home runs when he led all minor leaguers with 122 RBI in 2011. Thirty homers? Maybe, but never 40.

Let’s take a look at his fly-ball rate.

Here are his fly ball ratios for his professional career.

2011 (High-A): 37.1 percent

2012 (Double-A): 33.1 percent

Minor League career: 35.2 percent

2013 (majors): 33.7 percent

2014 (majors): 41.8 percent

2015 (majors): 43.9 percent

Clearly Arenado is changing as a hitter. With each passing season in the majors he’s lifting the ball more, and that’s something we often see with young players who grow into their swings (Arenado will be 25 on April 16). At the same time, even a stabilization at his current fly-ball rate, let’s say 43 percent (his two year average), doesn’t come close to guaranteeing that he will be a 40 homer man again in 2016. Here’s why.

Let’s look at his HR/FB ratio shall we?

Over the course of his minor league career his HR/FB ratio was 9.7 percent. That’s exactly what one would expect given that the yearly major league average is almost always in the 9-10 percent range. As a rookie in 2013, the mark was 7.1 percent. In his second season the mark was 11.4 percent. Over those 981 plate appearances, his first two seasons, his HR/FB ratio was 9.4 percent. That mark is nearly a direct match for (A) Arenado’s career minor league number and (B) the major league average. Are you positive that he will hold on to his 18.5 percent mark from 2015 which was nearly double his career professional rate to that point? I, for one, am not comfortable with a doubling of his home run rate and a career-best fly-ball rate being a certainty for replication in 2016.

What about his overall power stroke? In 2013 he had an Isolated Power mark of .138 (ISO measures the extra base power a hitter has defined by: SLG - AVG). His 2014 mark was .213. Add that up and the mark for his first two big-league seasons was .173. His career minor league mark is exactly the same at .173, by the way. So four years at one level or one year at .287, his 2015 level, which one do you think is most likely to speak to his outlook for 2016? Fair question to ask, is it not?

CAN HE HIT ON THE ROAD?

Nearly every player who has ever lived and called Coors Field home has hit better at home than on the road. Therefore, if we find that to be the case with Arenado, we shouldn’t be at all surprised. Is that what we find -- a massive dip in his road performance?

The first thing that jumps out is the power. In four fewer road at-bats last season Arenado hit two more home runs. That’s right, he had more homers on the road (22) than at home (20) in 2015. Wow is right. That would seem to suggest that the power stroke he flashed last season might have some legs, would it not?

As for the rest of his game, not so much. While he matched his strikeout (55) and walk totals (17) exactly at home and on the road, Arenado’s slash line caved on the road when compared to his work at home.

2015 Home: .316/.350/.610
2015 Away: .258/.296/.539

The numbers are particularly ugly on the road over the course of his career. In 200 games away from Coors he hit .254 with a .291 OBP and .442 SLG. He’s not a league-average hitter on the road. Can you trust a guy with such drastic splits to be in your lineup every day in weekly change leagues? Certainly not. It’s a situation where you likely take the good with the great, but keep in mind that if you play in a head-to-head league, Arenado could be a rough start some weeks when the Rockies are on the road.

Despite last year’s power explosion on the road he’s still well off the home run pace on the road as well. For his career Arenado’s hit a homer every 19.1 at-bats at home versus one every 25.9 on the road. That’s a significant difference that cannot be easily dismissed, at least not in my mind.

It’s difficult to trust him at this point when he’s on the road. Period.

CAN HE IMPROVE HIS BATTING AVERAGE?

Arenado is a .281 career hitter despite playing half his games in Coors Field. More data.

He’s hit .291 against lefties and .278 against righties in his career.  

While he hammers the hard stuff that is straight, he really struggles against off-speed pitches. Here are the results by pitch:

.339 sinker

.293 four-seam fastball

.278 slider

.244 cutter
___________

.240 curveball

.232 changeup

Is it not a concern that the only pitches he has hit .290 off of are straight? And yes, I know sinkers can dart in or out, but I’m considering that pitch to be relatively straight, certainly compared to the other offerings at least.

So he doesn’t produce batting average on the road or against slow stuff. What other issues does he face? How about an unwillingness to take a walk? Over 1,646 plate appearances Arenado has walked 82 times with a season-high of 34 walks. There were 12 batters in baseball who walked more than 82 times last season alone and none of them reached 700 plate appearances. Moreover, Joey Votto walked 38 times last season… in August. The lack of walks always concerns me when talking about consistency and batting average.

There was also a significant growth in the strikeout rate for Arenado last season, though no one really cared about that because of the massive jump in homers. Ultimately 110 strikeouts over 157 games, for a guy hitting 42 homers, isn’t one bit of a concern. That’s the macro picture. The micro picture though shows a player who saw his K-rate go from 13 percent the previous two seasons to 16.5 percent in 2015. Again, the overall number is just fine, but with his lack of walks the result is a far below league average BB/K ratio of 0.31. Question for you. How many players hit .287 last season with a K-rate of 0.31 or lower besides Arenado? The answer is six.

Dee Gordon, Odubel Herrera, Matt Duffy, Yoenis Cespedes, Gerardo Parra & Jose Abreu

How many of those men hit .300? One -- Dee Gordon, who did so largely on the back of his Flash-like wheels, a trait that Arenado certainly doesn’t possess. Recent history is strongly suggestive that a player with a BB/K as low as Arenado’s last season, with a career mark similar to his 0.34, is going to have a hard time consistently hitting .300.

Let’s take a look at his BABIP prowess. Truth is, Arenado doesn’t have any. The league average is in the .290-300 range year after year. His career mark is .291 and over the course of three seasons the mark has been between .284 and .296. He’s just a guy here.

Arenado does own a strong 22.0 percent line drive rate for his career but note that over the last two seasons the mark has been 21.2 percent.

Could he hit .300 in 2016? Sure he could. Is it likely to happen for the .281 career batter? You just read the data, didn’t you?

IS ARENADO A FANTASY STAR?

The answer to this question is answered by asking yourself two other questions.

  1. Do you think a player can be a fantasy star if he never steals bases?
  2. Do you think the Arenado we saw in 2015 is the one we will see in 2016?

Arenado has stolen two bases in each of his three big league seasons. He was 2-for-7 last year at base thievery. That’s atrocious. He’s not going to offer anything there, though most corner infielders don’t either.

The second question is the bigger concern.

My default position for a player who suddenly goes nuts, even if he has the pedigree to suggest such an effort was likely, is cautious optimism. When that player blows past everyone’s expected level of performance (hello Dee Gordon), I’m still very slow to accept something that appears to contradict the majority of what we know. I feel confident in suggesting that Arenado will not match his home run or RBI marks of 2015. In fact, if he gets to 85 percent of both numbers I would be surprised.

As you can tell reading this review, I’m not completely sold on Arenado being the guy we saw last season. He has some holes in his game, performed at a level no one ever expected and played so far above his previously established levels that prudent folks have to call into question the efficacy of a repeat performance.