MY AVERAGE WILL GO DOWN

Xander Bogaerts is batting .352. Folks rarely hit that high. Just be honest. They also don’t post BABIP marks of .396. They also rarely hit .417 against lefties over an entire season. Xander hit .320 last season, and has slightly increased his walk rate, but the odds are just against a .350 effort.

Starling Marte is one of my favorites and he was a target of mine in every league imaginable this season. He’s crushing it hitting .337 with a .886 OPS and 20 thefts. Bonkers good. Marte has an impossible to hold .421 BABIP but he is one of the rare batters who always produces an elite BABIP with a .361 career mark. Marte could easily hit .300 for the first time, but not .337.

Whit Merrifield is batting .333. His BABIP is .400. His line drive rate is 26.6 percent. Laughably high. Also, how about some simple logic. Whit hit .274 over 683 minor league games.

I wrote about Jonathan Villar and his likely dip in batting average in his Player Profile.

MY AVERAGE WILL GO UP

Jose Iglesias hit .303 in 2013. He missed 2014 with injury. He hit .300 last season. He’s hitting .244 right now. His BB/K ratio is slightly up at 0.64, a career best, and his 24.5 percent line drive rate is also his best. Yet that .244 average? The BABIP is .044 points down from his career rate, that should improve. Also, it’s started. He’s ripping it up batting .328 with 12 runs scored in 17 games in June.

I’d like to say the injured Steve Souza would see his average go up. After all, he has a .255 batting average and .364 BABIP. Alas, his BABIP will fall and his 35.3 percent strikeout rate is flat out ghastly.

Justin Upton is batting .234. His strikeout rate is awful at 33 percent, but come on. The mark has been under 27 percent each of the last seven seasons. He’s batting .279 in June and that should continue.

Joey Votto is batting .247. He’s never hit under .297 in a season with 100 games played. His BABIP is just .306, light years from his .355 career mark. He’s batting .338 with 14 runs scored his last 18 games.

Jordan Zimmermann needs more strikeouts to continue success. Do not panic on David Price. Julio Teheran is pitching excellent so do not believe his record. CHECK OUT THE VIDEO.

MY POWER NUMBERS WILL DECLINE

Carlos Beltran has been remarkable with 18 homers and 48 RBI in just 66 games. Crazy good, and out of nowhere. Sorry, the power ain’t continuing. Beltran has a 22.8 percent HR/FB ratio. That would be a career best. The last three seasons the mark is 12 percent. The last two years it’s 11.4 percent. The mark is coming way down.

Jake Lamb has a HR/FB ratio of over 24 percent. That is a big boy number. Lamb is not a big boy hitter. In three professional seasons he’s never hit more than 18 homers in a season. With his inability to hit lefties there should also be concern that he could maintain his pace. Also, note that his fly ball ratio is just 33 percent meaning he is completely dependent on his HR/FB ratio (the league average is 34-35 percent). His HR/FB ratio the first two big league seasons, if added together, would be 21.5 percent.

Wilson Ramos has a 26.8 percent HR/FB ratio, the second best in baseball. The last two years the mark has been under his 17.4 percent career rate. It will likely pull back this year as well. Note that Ramos is completely dependent on the HR/FB ratio since he has a sickly 23.4 percent fly ball rate. We could see a prolonged homer draught.

Michael Saunders cannot stay healthy. Period. Just look at his track record. Obvious to see. Still, where is any of this level of production coming from? Not going to waste my time with a long exposition, but just understand this. Guys who have played in the bigs for seven years don’t double their HR/FB ratio in their 8th season. Saunders is at 22.1 percent this season. The first seven seasons of his career the mark was 10.9 percent. Don’t believe the hype.

Matt Wieters hits the ball at home against righties. Michael Taylor can be a cheap source of runs. Troy Tulowitzki is back and looks to have a strong rest of the season. CHECK OUT THE VIDEO.

MY POWER NUMBERS WILL IMPROVE

Jose Abreu had a HR/FB ratio of 26.9 percent his first season. Predictably the number regressed in his second season to a still impressive 19.7 percent. The further regression to 13.0 percent this season… that number just doesn’t make sense. Abreu has actually increased his fly ball rate to a three year best at 35.6 percent which is a good thing, but the balls just not ending up in the seats. They should with more frequency moving forward. He has three homers his last seven games, so they are already starting to come.

Prince Fielder has a 6.9 percent HR/FB ratio. The mark is 17.7 percent for his career and has been at least 12.2 percent in all but one of his big league seasons (he began playing back in 2005).

Avisail Garcia merely needs to elevate the ball more. He’s got a robust 15.6 percent HR/FB ratio, and his batted ball velocity is 115.8 mph is 12th in baseball (minimum 80 batted ball events). He’s been at about 27 percent in the HR/FB category the last two years, so it’s a bit of fool’s gold.

Nick Markakis… just kidding.

Hanley Ramirez has a 13.8 percent HR/FB ratio. The mark is currently at 8.3 percent. The last three years the rate has been more than double that level at 16.4 percent. He’s pretty much been healthy so the homers are likely a coming.

 

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 7 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).