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Bio:
My name is Byron Lescroart and I am a 26-year old living in New York City. Sparing you too many specifics, I was born and raised a Mets fan in Princeton, New Jersey as the oldest of five children. My four younger siblings are all girls. Yes, I have four sisters. I attended Georgetown University where I graduated as an English major in 2006, and have pretty much been in the NY area ever since. I think I should win the inaugural BP Idol competition because I represent an excellent combination of statistical acumen and literary voice. I believe what separates BP from some of its (dare I say lesser?) rival sites such as THT or even FanGraphs is the quality of its writers. There are numerous sites and publications today with brilliant statistical minds making interesting inroads into the “science of baseball,” but as far as I know only BP has been able to combine forward-thinking, sabermetric genius with talented writers who not only make content accessible, but also completely enjoyable to read. Suffice to say, it is no coincidence that we are seeing mainstream sites like ESPN.com pick up BP’s work as opposed to other leading statistical sources due to the fact that only BP’s writers can stand up to the rigors of mainstream journalistic appeal. I believe I possess the skills necessary to not only understand and explore the incredible amounts of data now available for review in baseball, extricating pertinent information, but also – and perhaps more importantly – impart that knowledge to others in an entertaining and intelligent way.


Entry:
To Pronk, or not to Pronk? That is the Fantasy Question

It’s hard to put an exact percentage on it, but somewhere between 99.9% and 99.99% of the early season fantasy articles on most good sports websites involve answering the eternal question of April: “is [fill in the blank player off to super hot/cold start] for real?” I don’t particularly mind this because I enjoy taking the time to hear out different perspectives on why a given analyst happens to believe that the player in question can or cannot continue to display his current level of play which appears incongruent with past results. It’s interesting that I have noticed an alarming number of these articles seem to suggest that the player is actually showing improvement/decline off of all preseason projections considering the one thing as baseball fans we have learned over the years above all else is the statistical more “regression to the mean.” The reason for this, one must assume, is that it doesn’t make good copy to read about how Emilio Benifacio, for example, literally has zero chance of continuing to be the most valuable player in fantasy baseball, and in fact has a better chance of being DFA by the All-Star break than he does of actually being on either team. Sorry Emilio. Rather, people always want to be on the cutting edge of “the next big thing.” They want to hear about “new and awesome,” and to hear about it first. It’s not so cool to win a league with Manny Ramirez, Jermaine Dye and Carlos Lee, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t sweet to dominate a league with Matt LaPorta, Justin Upton and Adam Jones. So just to run against the stream a little bit here, just to write an “is this guy for real” article about a guy who’s yesterday’s (or more appropriately, 2006’s) news, I’m going to take a look at one of the sabermetric world’s fallen heroes. Let’s take a look at Travis Hafner‘s seemingly impressive start and ask: “is this guy for real?”

From 2004-2006 Travis Hafner was one of the very best hitters in all of baseball. This impressive run culminated with a 1.098 OPS season where Hafner posted an EqA of .354, a number none other than Alex Rodriguez has yet to match in his career. More recently, as a result of injuries and perhaps the much maligned disappearance of so-called “old-man’s skills,” Hafner has been on a highway to irrelevance. Pronk, as he was affectionately known to his teammates and fantasy owners back in the good old days, had undergone one of the most rapid and ugly declines of the online fantasy era. Using some Pitch-f/x data generated by Josh Kalk’s cool tool found here as well as some swing data from the guys over at FanGraphs, let’s take a quick look at what might have happened, and more importantly, what might be happening now.

Hafner has always been a prototype of the “plate discipline” approach to hitting, swinging at a significantly lower percentage of pitches out of the strike zone, 18.2% for his career according to FanGraphs where the average ran around 22% for the same period, while generally maintaining an around league average swing rate on pitches inside the strike zone. Basically, Hafner excelled at swinging at pitches he could hit, and laying off those he couldn’t – a solid concept that Rudy Jaramillo may finally have locked into the young head of Jeff Francoeur. In looking at his peak years of 2004-2006 against his decline phase of the past two seasons, I was surprised to find that Hafner hadn’t really changed his approach on balls outside of the strike zone. On the contrary, he posted O-Swing% within 0.1% of his career average during each of those seasons. What, then, had changed? Was it just the injuries affecting his bat speed such that even with Hafner’s magnificent pitch selection he simply no longer had the physical tools to keep up? Certainly that would seem to have been a factor, but there was also something more. Take a look at this table of data from FanGraphs showing Hafner’s plate discipline data for his career:


Year Team   O-Swing% Z-Swing% Swing% O-Contact% Z-Contact% Contact% Zone% F-Strike%
2002 Rangers   16.7%  74.3%   46.3%   54.2%      77.9%       73.7%  51.4%  58.6%
2003 Indians   22.6%  70.1%   47.2%   42.0%      79.7%       71.0%  51.8%  57.1%
2004 Indians   15.5%  74.0%   46.3%   37.7%      78.9%       72.4%  52.6%  55.6%
2005 Indians   16.9%  71.6%   44.0%   34.7%      83.1%       73.7%  49.5%  52.9%
2006 Indians   19.2%  63.8%   39.7%   44.3%      83.0%       72.9%  46.0%  51.1%
2007 Indians   18.3%  60.6%   38.4%   50.0%      86.3%       77.3%  47.6%  54.0%
2008 Indians   18.1%  65.1%   42.1%   50.6%      83.2%       76.4%  51.1%  54.8%
2009 Indians   23.7%  59.5%   38.9%   59.3%      86.0%       76.6%  42.4%  51.0%
Total          18.2%  67.6%   42.5%   43.7%      82.3%       73.9%  49.3%  54.0%

While it is true Hafner was seeing fewer pitches inside the strike zone than he did in 2004-2005, likely as pitchers realized he was crushing most of the strikes they offered, his Z-Swing% declined at a much faster rate than did his Zone%. In short, Hafner was seeing fewer strikes than ever before, as well as swinging at a smaller percentage of the strikes he was seeing. Here is a hitter recognizing pitchers are being more careful with him, but having it subsequently affect his ability to be aggressive in the zone.

Hafner was able to excel with this additional level of patience in 2006 in full health, but in 2007-2008 coming off his first shoulder injury, it became obvious that he had lost major pop in his swing, affecting his ability to drive the ball in the strike zone. He posted the two highest GB/FB ratios of his career in those two seasons, watched his Line Drive% drop to its lowest career rate in 2007, and also experienced a drastic decline in his formerly prodigious HR/FB% down to career-low levels as well.

The pitchers response to these facts this year while facing Hafner has been to throw hard and out of the zone, looking for Hafner to roll over fastballs too far outside that he can no longer catch up with. Almost 82% of the pitches Hafner has faced this season, according to PitchF/X, have been of the hard variety: namely Fastballs and Sliders. Take a look at the pitches Hafner has seen this year to see what I mean – the box in the graph represents an average strike zone, and the view is from the catcher’s perspective looking out to the mound:

graph

Everything is trending away, away, away. And how has Hafner responded? See for yourself, courtesy one again of FanGraphs:

graph

I’ve colored in the different “stages” of his career for ease of reading, but the data says he’s hanging in there. He’s hitting fewer ground balls, more fly balls, holding line drive rate, and striking out more. The strikeout rate is likely thanks in large part to the fact that he’s swinging at too many sliders down and sometimes out of the zone completely, check out this swing and miss graphic:

graph

I also dug a little deeper to see, specifically, how Hafner was handling the real cheese. Based on data gleaned from Josh’s tool again, the former slugger has seen 61 pitches this season of 95 MPH or higher. Of those pitches Hafner swung and missed only 3 times, 2 of which came on borderline pitches, illustrated below:

graph

He also has this little feather in his cap.

In conclusion, it looks like at the very least we are looking at a healthy Travis Hafner for the first time in 2-3 years. He’s still only 32, so it isn’t crazy to believe that there is still some life in that bat yet. Keep an eye on that GB/FB ratio and O-Swing%. If he can cut down on some of his chasing – something his career track record says he can do – and continue to get the ball in the air, he may yet rival fellow “old-man skills” DH David Ortiz‘s numbers this season.

Thank you for reading

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leez34
5/18
Very well done. Sorry about Francoeur, but I hope everyone will understand that your comment about him didn't sound so ridiculous when the entry was due!
dethwurm
5/18
Or writing "he may yet rival fellow “old-man skills” DH David Ortiz’s numbers this season." like it's a good thing ;) I've been really enjoying the little anachronisms.

Excellent article, tho!
krissbeth
5/18
Sadly, since your writing, Hafner went on the DL with right shoulder soreness. Doesn't disprove what you were writing about, but you maybe should have put more emphasis on the words "Small Sample Size" in your conclusion.
darts1
5/18
I agree with many of the above comments, I think there was some good writing in this piece, but it seems like you took the approach of the websites you were criticizing by over-relying on a few weeks of April baseball to make your point. It is unfortunate that Haffner went down with an injury within a month after writing this piece, but the fact that you also pointed out Francoeur's patience at the plate to make your point shows that Sample Size was completely ignored in this piece.
Oleoay
5/18
I lovee the methodology used but agree with other comments about the sample size argument. I look forward to this kind of analysis on future players having career years or down years as the season develops.
caprio84
5/18
I like this entry a lot. I wish there was a much greater focus on Fantasy Baseball (as I suspect that 90%+ of BP's subscribers are avid fantasy owners).
omarwhite
5/18
Very interesting. Would love to see the 95+ graph for other hitters where bat speed questions are being posed (i.e. Ortiz). Is the p F/x info available in spreadsheet format somewhere?
wcarroll
5/18
I'm adding my judging comment to each article:

Lescroart, Byron -- 8. This reads as one of the better, more understandable PFX pieces I've seen, It focuses on a hitter rather than a pitcher, which I don't remember seeing much anywhere else. The writing is clean, the data is presented well, and though it's a bit dense at the start, there's a confident flow to his writing.
Oleoay
5/19
I asked if batter f/x data was possible in response to Eric Seidlman's posts once one of his pitch f/x data showed swing/miss information. I also followed his link to Brooks Baseball's pitch f/x tool, but wasn't quite able to figure out how to directly grab all information at once instead of piecemeal by pitcher/batter etc.
tide182
5/18
Hi all - wanted to first say thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read the article, hopefully it was able to hold your attention throughout the piece if nothing else. Also, Will, love the actual judging comment addition.

To respond to the "sample size" posts as briefly as possible, you are, of course, correct. It's a largely hopeless endeavor to attempt to declare a resurgence/decline based on 70ish early season AB's. I certainly should have been more clear in my conclusion about this. That said, what I'm looking to do is not so much to definitively announce the return of the "Great Pronk," rather, to point out some interesting early season trends to keep an eye on with regard to his performance. Idea being, if Hafner really can hold his GB/FB ratio and cut down on swinging at sliders low/out of the zone, I don't think it would be crazy to suggest he can post a solid set of stats this season. The question that we can't answer now, obviously, is can he?

These are the kind of choices fantasy and real baseball decision makers have to make, however, oftentimes on incomplete data sets. Frankly, this is where scouting can really come into play as a terrific aid in evaluation. Kiley McDaniel - who interestingly enough now writes here for BP - used to run a great site merging the two worlds that in the context of this discussion is worth looking back at over at saberscouting.com. I know I was sad to see that the site had basically died off, but certainly was also pumped that Kiley had found bigger and better opportunities in the field.

Getting back to the article, in retrospect we can see that Hafner may indeed have gotten his bat speed back up to near peak status, but that perhaps in his post-surgical state simply did not have the stamina/strength to sustain that speed for more than a month, much less an entire season. Will could probably comment more intelligently on that, but from a simply personal perspective, I've had both of my shoulders operated on and can tell you while short bursts of previous peak performance remain possible, I simply can't do as much as I used to as consistently as I used to. Maybe the answer is to try to work a few days off/week into Hafner's schedule to try to keep him fresh? Maybe even some sort of straight platoon with LaPorta? It's an interesting problem the Indians have on their hands...
Lawnchairfan
5/19
Byron, you got shoulder problems? This year, try swimming for your physical therapy. Swim until you think you're gonna die, then swim that same amount again. Once a week with this type of regimen. If you live by a lake, it's better than a pool. Best damn rehabilitating exercise you'll find. If you can't swim, learn how.
Oleoay
5/19
I think fewer people would've noticed the sample size issue if the people you choosed to cite (Francouer and Hafner) weren't such extreme examples... but the sample size issue would've still been there. Just keep using words like "suggests" or "possibly" instead of stronger words/phrases like "finally" and "at the very least".
tide182
5/18
Sorry, one other thing, yes, I do cringe every time I see the Jeff Francoeur comment up there...

Check out this little piece on two formerly similar and now divergent careers for more on that:

http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index.php/kemp-taking-quality-abs
hotstatrat
5/18
Byron is a very talented writer - breezy, yet strong. However, I do have a couple of qualms. There is something in his tone that is too cocky for my tastes, but, perhaps, I'm an old fogy. There other problem is that this was a statistically in-depth analysis that went nowhere. The conclusion was simply the non-statistical one that was obvious in the first place.
llewdor
5/19
Look at it like a scientist testing a hypothesis. In this case, the data were consistent with the hypothesis, so we're left with the hypothesis still standing.
tkniker
5/19
I agree with Will on one key point. I think it is really interesting to use the PFX data for hitters, and not necessarily just for pitchers.
daiheide
5/19
I don't understand the sample size criticisms. The small sample size fallacy, I take it, is this: it is to suppose that a level of production over a small number of plate appearances reflects a true talent level such that the same level of performance can be expected over a large number of plate appearances. What did the author say that committed him to such a claim?

Pronk is injured, not playing poorly. Since injuries are largely unrelated to sample size issues, the author hasn't committed any such fallacy.

Small sample size caveats are presumably well-taken. But pointing out the Pronk is injured is not evidence that the author isn't aware of sample size considerations.
Oleoay
5/20
Pronk has been through some major injuries, so it is hard to tell if his previous poor play is based on recovery from injury, or from a diminished talent level. Since anyone in theory can have a hot month, it can be hard to tell whether Pronk is back to his old form, or just getting lucky.
ecarrero
5/19
There's certainly insight in this article. So much, that I want to see the very same thing for David Ortiz and Adam Jones.

I agree with daiheide -previous post- on the sample size issue. It's May people we don't have much else to work with.

My only advice is that there's a little of self-promotion in the piece. I don't care much for that other than it makes the article run a little longer than it should.
Oleoay
5/20
I'd love to see Fukudome and Theriot to see if there is some identifiable difference between what they did last year and this year.
studes
5/19
A couple of critical comments:

1. That first paragraph was incredibly mind-numbing. Talk about not grabbing your reader at the beginning.

2. What the heck is the definition of all those stats in the table? Z-Swing? I think you assume too much on the reader, particularly since those aren't BPro's stats.

We try to avoid things like that at lesser sites like THT.
jtrichey
5/20
I agree that BP could use another fantasy oriented writer, if that is what direction you would go. Good article.
maguirem
5/26
Love it! Nothing more to say. Excellent article.