Comping Kris Bryant’s Rookie Season
Just as we all anticipated, Kris Bryant put together an extremely impressive rookie campaign. After he spent the season’s first two weeks in the minors, the Cubs set free their 23-year-old top prospect, and he proceeded to rake. Bryant put up a .275/.369/.488 batting line on the strength of 26 long balls and a 12% walk rate, which yielded a 136 wRC+. Throw in that he graded out as a plus defender at third base, and the end result was a remarkable 6.5 WAR — easily tops among rookies, and was the 10th-highest figure of any hitter period. The Cubs seem to have a very special player on their hands.
We all knew Bryant had star potential long before he was called up. That’s why he got so much love on pre-season prospect lists, and also why KATOH liked him more than almost any other prospect. But now that he’s a year further along on that trajectory, we can be a bit more certain of what his career might look like. So, using this new data, let’s see what Bryant’s rookie campaign might tell us about what lies ahead. As I did yesterday in my piece on Carlos Correa, I performed a some weighted Mahalanobis distance calculations to generate a list of players whose seasons were most similar to Bryant’s. For more details on my methodology, see yesterday’s Correa post.
So, without further adieu, here are Bryant’s top comps according to my fancy computer math.
| Rank | Season | Name | wRC+ | WAR | Mah Dist |
| 0 | 2015 | Kris Bryant | 136 | 6.3 | 0.00 |
| 1 | 1970 | Billy Grabarkewitz | 135 | 6.1 | 2.30 |
| 2 | 2002 | Austin Kearns | 139 | 5.0 | 2.69 |
| 3 | 1972 | Bobby Grich | 135 | 5.4 | 2.84 |
| 4 | 2007 | Mark Reynolds | 109 | 1.8 | 2.90 |
| 5 | 1983 | Mel Hall | 125 | 2.9 | 2.92 |
| 6 | 1997 | Mike Cameron | 110 | 4.3 | 3.08 |
| 7 | 1984 | Mike Young | 122 | 2.2 | 3.28 |
| 8 | 1986 | Danny Tartabull | 123 | 1.0 | 3.66 |
| 9 | 2007 | Troy Tulowitzki | 109 | 5.2 | 3.80 |
| 10 | 1989 | Greg Briley | 116 | 2.1 | 3.83 |
And here’s how the rest of their careers went.
| Name | wRC+ | WAR |
| Bobby Grich | 129 | 69.2 |
| Mike Cameron | 107 | 50.7 |
| Troy Tulowitzki* | 123 | 35.5 |
| Danny Tartabull | 133 | 22.6 |
| Austin Kearns | 104 | 17.1 |
| Mark Reynolds* | 105 | 9.9 |
| Mel Hall | 103 | 7.0 |
| Mike Young | 108 | 6.1 |
| Billy Grabarkewitz | 104 | 5.7 |
| Greg Briley | 89 | 1.0 |
Frankly, this isn’t quite what I expected. While several of these hitters had solid rookie campaigns, most of their careers weren’t all that memorable. Calling someone “a young Austin Kearns” isn’t exactly the highest of praises. All in all, this list is pretty disappointing, especially when held against Correa’s comps, which featured four Hall of Famers.
To be fair, though, some of these hitters turned out to be quite good. Bobby Grich, Mike Cameron and Troy Tulowitzki were/are bona fide stars. Danny Tartabull, too, was a prolific hitter for a long stretch — he just gave a ton of that value back on defense. But age wasn’t very kind to most of the other players in this group.
Billy Grabarkewitz’s career was derailed by injuries. Most notably, he injured his shoulder the following spring and was never quite the same. Mark Reynolds and Mike Young simply struck out too often to take full advantage of their power, and as a result, were toast after just a few years in the league. Austin Kearns was a way better player than I had remembered, but was still a disappointment overall. He had a strong rookie season, but his career trajectory was essentially a downward spiral until he was more or less replacement-level at age 28. Mel Hall and Greg Briley followed the Austin Kearns career path, only without plus outfield defense.
Here’s a look at these hitters’ career trajectories by cumulative WAR.
And by marginal WAR…
Since that last one was a little hard to follow, the graph below plots the group average and median, along with the group’s 25th and 75th percentiles for each year. Here’s how the group progressed through age 30.
That’s not a pretty picture. Does this mean Bryant will deteriorate into a platoon hitter by his 27th birthday? Certainly not. Keep in mind that this is just a narrow selection of players who happened to perform similarly to Bryant at s similar age. This is a small sample size, and as we all know, strange things can happen in small sample sizes. Furthermore, while these hitters were similar to Bryant, most of him weren’t quite as good as him. Bryant’s 2015 wRC+ was higher than nine of his 10 comps, and was much higher than a few of the hitters listed. So one could certainly argue that this analysis shortchanges him a bit. Even so, the downward sloping lines in the chart above are a little disconcerting.
Regardless of what the comps say, we know that Bryant is an excellent player today. We also know that he’s still just 23. Those two data points might tell you most of what you need to know. Good players have a tendency to stay good, especially when they’re not old, and Bryant’s already one of the best. It would be foolish to completely disregard this fact simply because Austin Kearns and Billy Grabarkewitz fell off of a cliff in their mid-20s. However, cases like those serve as sobering reminders that excellent rookies don’t always have excellent careers. And for what it’s worth, many of the rookies who were excellent in the ways Kris Bryant is excellent peaked at very young ages.
Chris works in economic development by day, but spends most of his nights thinking about baseball. He writes for Pinstripe Pundits, FanGraphs and The Hardball Times. He's also on the twitter machine: @_chris_mitchell None of the views expressed in his articles reflect those of his daytime employer.
He’s going to need to start making more contact or fully realizing his raw power in games. Because I’m guessing his baserunning and defensive value will probably start to go fairly quickly. He’s a lot faster than I was expecting, but I still don’t really expect any repeats of the huge value he’s provided on the base-paths this year.
40+ home runs and a 15%+ walk rate within three years
Certainly possible. In which case he can run his 30+% k rate and still be a 6 WAR guy.
Whoa… I love Kris Bryant. He’s had an absolutely amazing year. Even if his contact rate doesn’t improve he’ll likely be an above average player for a long time. But if he wants to keep throwing up 6+ WAR seasons the K’s are likely going to need to come down or he’s going to need to start hitting 40 bombs.
Either of which are possible. There’s nothing wrong with pointing out what players need to do to improve.
The dude was tied for the league lead in Infield Hit %… There’s just a ton that doesn’t look sustainable. Nobody’s saying it wasn’t a fantastic year, just that he’s probably maximized his potential in a bunch of non-batting related areas. Even Trout’s BABIP and Baserunning value has fallen off 4 years straight.
Have you seen the video of Bryant’s 495 foot blast? He sprinted out of the box. His swing ends with natural movement towards first base and he never fails to book it out of the box. He is a lot more athletic than people give him credit for. I think for at least a few seasons he will have a very high infield single rate and babip. His professional babip is around 400.
I’m sure he will add some muscle over the years but the strength is already there. I won’t be surprised if 2015 is his career low SLG%. He didn’t even hit a homer for his first 20 games so he basically hit 26 in 130 games.
His contact rate is right in line with Stanton. I doubt it improves much and will probably be sub 70 annually. But the bombs will increase.
You don’t seem to understand how these comps work.
You sir, are the worst. Please go find another baseball site to comment on.
Sincerely, Management.
And there it is. The typical “Excuse me sir, I disagree with you….so I am obviously on a higher level than you intellectually” comment
Fuck of dude
Huh? Who are you talking to? I feel like it might be me, even though I did no such thing.
What comps might pop up if you added another year on either side and said “all 22-24 year old rookies”? Maybe it’s not the age but the talent level we should try to focus on. I have not watched Bryant much but my sense from stats and scouting reports is that he is more talented than everyone on this list.
Hype and talent are two different things.
True Dat! I have no real idea how to do a comp, but I sorted rookies from 1916-2015 between 22 and 24 years old and guys similar WAR are Tony Oliva, Al Rosen, Nomar, Stan Musial and Frank Robinson, among others. (BTW, Musial struck out 4.4% of his PA as a rookie. I know it was a different game then but wow…)
True, but when a player is young enough, scouting evaluation of talent level still holds some weight in projection of the player. Some of these guys were drafted high, but Mark Reynolds was 16th round and Grabarkewitz was 12th round, so nobody ever expected them to be that great. You could do another comp that’s: top 10 draft picks who put up >4 WAR in their rookie season <age 25, to choose some arbitrary points.
The following are likely true:
-Bryant will have less success on balls in play going forward. Even if his “true” BABIP is high (good contact, decent baserunning) you’re shaving off .040 from his BA/OBP just to put his in-play success around Trout levels. That makes him a much less formidable offensive force: doing so (hamfistedly) with this past year’s stats gives him a slash line similar to Russell Martin’s.
-He’ll continue to K at a high rate, and if he doesn’t start hitting for more power that, when combined with BABIP regression, will knock his wRC+ down a few ticks. Close 2015 comps to Bryant in terms of K%/BB% with solid wRC+ figures either hit HRs at a rate nearly twice Bryant’s (Stanton, Chris Davis, JD Martinez) or had similarly favorable outcomes on balls in play (Belt, Colabello). Lucas Duda stands out, but his ISO is .030 above Bryant’s, and his K rate is the lowest of those mentioned.
-Bryant will become less impressive on the basepaths. Bryant is a *very* odd man out on the BsR leaderboards: even good performances by big-bat corner types aren’t in the Revere/Pollock range. Maddon seems to have taught his big-bat guys how to run (Rizzo with a big uptick this year, too) but very good performances from this type of player are more 4.0 (Donaldson this year) than 7.1.
All to say, it’s not exactly surprising his comps aren’t more glowing. Even if we assume his skill level as such will go up (which may not be a perfect assumption, but the “prime at 27” theory still floats around) there are a lot of reasons to think his baseball card stats will go down at least as much, if not more.
As both a Cubs fan and a fan of young players establishing themselves as great players, I hope he has a lengthy career of 6-WAR outcomes. But it’s easy to imagine a world in which most of Bryant’s narrative is that he’s a 6-WAR rookie with nowhere to go but up. (May not take much imagining, depending on your sports new sources.) That narrative is probably setting folks up for disappointment.
To note: Martin’s wRC+ this year was 114. And as a Cubs coincidence, right below Martin on wRC+ leaderboards is Chris Coghlan. He logged 3.3 WAR over 503 PA between that offensive number and good-not-great BsR and defense.
He will always have a high K rate you probably are correct on that, but i would assume it will improve over time. He has a good eye and already has an excellent walk rate. No reason to think he won’t improve both of those marks as he gets older.
I think a lot of what you say makes sense, too high BABIP, speed regression, etc. But I do think you are underselling his ability to get better. He will almost certainly be a high strikeout guy his entire career but I don’t think it’s impossible for him to improve his K rate. He also seems to be very good at making adjustments as he did with the lower strike calls this season and he actually got stronger as the season went along. One thing I certainly expect him to improve is his power output. He already had an ISO over 200 which is good but I’d be surprised with his swing and raw power is that doesn’t jump to offset some of the other skills.
All of this is to say I don’t think he’s a lock to be an 8 WAR player or anything, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he could consistently produce 6 or so for the next 5 or 6 years.
Worth noting that expectations of a great K% improvement are not likely to be met: looking at <age 28 K% leaderboards going back to 2011, none of the highest K youngsters really left the top of that board. Even if some are improving better than per Zimmerman's old curve (Alvarez jumped from 30% to 25% two years back, and has stayed there so far), they're still King at a rate near the top of the league. That requires one (or both) of high ISO and BABIP to see a lot of success.
Bryant could well improve that ISO, and my second point wasn't implying he was unlikely to do so. (Though it is worth remembering that he was always a high-floor guy more than he was high-ceiling.) But he's likely going to have to improve his batting numbers to maintain a WAR at 2015 levels, and he's already punching above his weight on that front.
That is the kind of improvement I was thinking of from 30% to 25% which isn’t drastic but that mixed with more power can make up for the lower BABIP and loss of speed.
I understand the desire to bump down Bryant for BABIP. It’s abnormally high and as a cubs fan and a metric guy I long thought that would be an issue. But I recently read an article that changed my mind a bit. It was an article about exit velocity. Basically it suggested Bryant had a very high exit velocity which given his power grades from scouts isn’t all that surprising. What I didn’t put together until reading that article though was the fact that BABIP dramatically increases with exit velocity which again isn’t that surprising given line drives will have higher exit velocity.
And honestly if you look at his minor league numbers his BABIP was also similarly ridiculously high. I’d also suggest that him having a basically flat k rate from AAA -> MLB is a good sign. You’d typically expect a 5-10% increase for a rookie. So, while he may not ever be average 20%ish k rate expecting him to be in the 25%ish range wouldn’t be that surprising.
Generally, harder hit fly balls and grounders are more likely to fall for hits. The exception is for speedy players who improve from bad to mediocre, power-wise; they lose infield hits and don’t hit hard enough for lots of HR and XBH. But for everyone else, harder hit grounders and fly balls means it’s more likely to get past the defense. Of course your point about line drives is also true.
Unless something has changed, 27 home runs is not world class for Wrigley Field, right? And 200 strikeouts doesn’t advance base runners. So what am I missing?
By the way didn’t Tulowitzki play at Coors Field, just a few feet from heaven, up in the ionosphere somewhere, where a little leaguer could hit a homerun basically? What happened to being objective and considering where players played before standing in all other performance? I mean if Bryant played at PNC Park, his 27 home runs with likely only be what… more like 20. That would make him a above average power hitter, but nothing special.
He wouldn’t have 27 home runs at PNC Park. And to be honest, if he were drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates, he would still be in Triple A, to ensure a long-term success.
What you’re missing is that wRC+ is already adjusted for park effects.
Doesn’t wRC+ adjust overall hitting (i.e. wOBA) and not by hit type? This could introduce some error (e.g. Fenway doubles).
Hold up … are you really saying that the secret to be overhyped and over-valued is to play baseball in Pittsburgh?
Wow.
And I will make the argument one more time for Jung ho Kang. He played in Korea where the style of baseball is much different. The baseball is even a different size. His performance early in the season was poor while he adjusted to MLB play, hurting his rookie statistics.
Yet, his statistics are not that far off from those of Kris Bryant. Keeping in mind that he played fewer games, you do have to extrapolate those statistics like home runs that are not based on a per game average. But when allowing for all of this, it is fairly clear that Kang is just as talent as a player. So why does he not get any real attention compared to the “Great Kris Bryant”. If someone had crashed into Kris Bryant, breaking his leg and ending his season, heads would have rolled.
Could FanGraphs maybe do a side-by-side comparison of the two players, with a full season projection of Kang? I am extremely curious to see how the two would stack up. Most readers would be surprised. Most Rookie of the Year voters would be surprised!
You could do your own comparison… it isn’t hard.
Kang: .287/.355/.461 wOBA: .356 RC+: 130 5 SB, 26 HR BABIP: .378 (151 games)
Bryant: .275/.369/.488 wOBA: .371 RC+: 136 13 SB, 15 HR BABIP: .344 (126 games)
Bryant only played 25 more games than Kang. This doesn’t factor in defense, but looks like Bryant rates out as a better defensive player as well.
Bryant has better patience, better power, better speed, and arguably better defense. And oh yea – Kang is 5 years older than Bryant.
Kang is good. But pretty easy to say that I would take Bryant over Kang, without question.
I agree with you Dave but it looks like you swapped their HR totals and BABIPs just as a heads up
Apparently it is hard. Check you stat lines, looks like there may be an error.
Oops… you two are right.
Kang: .287/.355/.461 wOBA: .356 RC+: 130 5 SB, 15 HR BABIP: .344 (151 games)
Bryant: .275/.369/.488 wOBA: .371 RC+: 136 13 SB, 26 HR BABIP: .378 (126 games)
Fixed.
But point still remains. Bryant is better than Kang.
Try, try again, look at the games played.
“Bryant only played 25 more games than Kang.”
and then:
Kang (151 games)
Bryant (126 games)
**Try, try again,**
I suck.
But Kris Bryant doesn’t.
You have to look at AB’s. Kang did not play 126 FULL games. That’s why I asked for someone at fangraphs.com to do it. It’s more complex than you think. If its done correctly, I believe that you will not see much difference. Watching both players play, it’s fairly obvious to a trained observer that both players are about equally talented. At least towards the end of the year. A month by month graph would surely bear that out.
Also keep in mind that we are paying MUCH less for Kang. Frees up money to pay for other players. That counts for something. At least send Pittsburgh it does. Baseball is a business. Unless you’re like the Yankees and want to buy championships. Not much fun in that. Otherwise just go out and buy every Greinkie, Melancon (2016,10 million arbitration elig.) & Arrieta (2016,’10 mill. Arb. Elig) that comes on the free agent market.
I know the Cubs will keep Jake, I’m just funnin with their fans. Although to pay that much based on a short run of success may be a bad move. I think he’s a Tommy John surgery waiting to happen. Even if he’s had one previously. Throwing a slider that hard with that much rotational speed… That UCL can’t take it for long at his age… 28.
**Also keep in mind that we are paying MUCH less for Kang.**
You are? Last I checked, KB was making $471,448 this year. Kang is making $2.5M. Yea, KB had a $6M signing bonus, but you have to factor that over 6 years.
**Kang did not play 126 FULL games. That’s why I asked for someone at fangraphs.com to do it.**
What do you want to look at? AB/HR?
Bryant: 21.5
Kang: 28.1
What else should I look at?
How many right fielders throw out two players at first base within 2 weeks? On balls that should be singles? That’s his new trick. And they weren’t jogging to first. CANNON for an arm. And by the way, Polanco broke up Arieatta’s perfect game.
For the record, you brought up Polanco not me. I wasn’t comparing the two. Starling Marte is the next Andrew McCutchen.
This is like when the monsters meet in a godzilla movie
If you look at Starling Marte statistics, they rival Andrew McCutchen’s this year. They are near MVP levels but he’s not getting any attention.
Plot twist: WillyG is a Cubs fan trolling these boards to mock Pirates fans, and BigDaddyCool is a Pirates fan trolling these boards to mock Cubs fans. To be honest I can hardly tell the meta-trolls from the real trolls these days anyway…
**If you look at Starling Marte statistics, they rival Andrew McCutchen’s this year. They are near MVP levels but he’s not getting any attention.**
No, no, no. Not even close.
Marte: .287/.337/.444 wOBA: .337, RC+: 117
McCutchen: .292/.401/.488 wOBA: .380, RC+: 146
McCutchen has an OPS of more than 100 points over Marte.
How are those numbers even close to each other?
alternative plot twist. Willy G & BigDaddyCool is actually just one schizophrenic cardinal fan
Even better; that Cardinals fan is ACTUALLY a cardinal himself!
Oh, shit, they’re on to me. Tweet tweet.
They’re called LUCKNALS.
That’s interesting to suggest that I’m a Cubs fan masquerading as a Pirates fan… because I worked at the University of Pittsburgh Sports Medicine Center on Baum Boulevard treating both Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers. If anything I would say I’m probably more of a Pirates fan. But the arguments I make are based on observations. I primarily correct other people’s arguments which seem to be based on fan bias. Such as Kris Bryant being markedly better than Gregory Polanco. One could make this mistake if one doesn’t watch Polanco play on a regular basis.
Gregory Polanco had 55 walks last year. Bryant had 77. We should all agree with the premise that Power hitters such as Bryant tend to get pitched around more often. And Polanco was a lead off hitter with speed… And we all can agree pitchers don’t want to walk that kind of player. So to argue that Bryant is somehow better at selecting hittable pitches over Gregory Polanco seems flawed reasoning at best. I would argue that their ability to work a pitcher for a walk is about equal, all other factors being equal. If we can’t agree on this, I don’t know that we can have any rational discussion.
I have nothing against Kris Bryant. The Pirates drafted people like Pedro Alvarez with their number one overall pick who took forever to make it to the majors and I have no work ethic.
The parents more recent first round picks look pretty good, as I have watched them in Single A. They are definitely drafting people that are good at defense. Makes me wonder if they’re going to put in artificial turf to speed up the infield to take advantage of ground balls and shifting. Any thoughts?
“and I have no work ethic”
Well, the first step to fixing the issue is admitting you have one.
Bet the comment count hits 1,000 by game time.
That if it does hit 1000 comments 975 aren’t from WillyG and BigDaddyCool.
Highlight and google EVERY TEAM’S FAN BASE IS LOUD AND AWFUL
That’s because I know a lot about the Pirates. Did you know they’re putting artificial turf in their minor league stadiums? Morgantown West Virginia-Their short season team has it. They’re putting it in Charleston, the full season A team. The only minor league parks with artificial turf.
Why? I think it’s going into PNC Park soon. Has something to do with shifting and pirates drafting really good defenders lately. Fast outfielders. Really fast infielders. Keon Broxton. Polonco. Cole Tucker. Kevin Newman. All these guys are bunting for hits in A ball, at a high rate like I’ve never seen. Pirates are changing their philosophy. They will put in artificial turf soon… Within 5 years. And they will dominate when they do because of their personnel. Neil Huntington is a genius. You heard it here first
So maybe I’m not a troll. Maybe I’m worth listening to. Maybe I’m not the best stats guy. Maybe I know some inside information from knowing the minor league system. Just maybe stats guys could listen to me and put that together with the stats to make more sense of them and trends in upcoming players.
Shhh
I’m not trying to be snide, I’m really not. I just want to point out that the “I might be worth listening to” line is hard to accept when you make factually incorrect statements and then fail to respond when that is pointed out. For example: Marte’s numbers are not similar to McCutchen’s, at all. Both in the sense that they have very different stat lines/derive their value in very different ways, and that McCutchen is a MUCH more valuable player (2.2 WAR). A number of your other assertions are similarly wrong, though perhaps less obviously so. Then you say you “correct” other comments that are based on “fan bias,” but if anything you aren’t correcting, and perhaps the reason you aren’t is because you are biased yourself. Again, I don’t intend this to be rude, but you assert things that the stats don’t bear out. On a site like this, it’s no surprise that doesn’t go over well.
Here is a reality based comp for you. Who was the last first year player to lead in home runs rbi’s doubles and on base percentage? A guy named Ted Williams.
Those who watched every game Bryant played this season know what a truly amazing player he already is. Only going to get better.
Its true… if Kris Bryan could face only AA/AAA pitchers, he’d put up 10-12 WAR.
Oh, and Ted Williams struck out 709 times. In his entire career. Kris Bryant will do that in 3.5 seasons.
Ask yourself over the course of a typical season, how many pitchers Williams faced were throwing 94mph or more? It was a game played differently 75 years ago.
“we’re talking abut a 10-12 WAR player”
I will wager any amount you’re comfortable with that Bryant will never have a single 10+ WAR season.
Does that mean he’s terrible? Of course not. 10 WAR seasons are ridiculously rare and hard to pull off.
I’ll wager one million. I don’t nearly have it yet, but I *might* by the time we settle up.
Oh, and don’t worry about how I’m some random from the internet. I’m good for it. And by I’m good for it I mean I might be good for it.
Kris Bryant wears pinstripes.
Mike Schmidt wore pinstripes.
Finkle is Einhorn.
Umm… I’m a Cubs fan. But if you don’t think that the Pirates have talented and exciting players, you should probably go hang out at a Cubs site and not a stats-based site.
**And Cole is boosted by pitch-framing and shifting, like the rest of the team.**
You do know that Ross and Montero are both in the top 12 for pitch framers too, right?
And Cole had a high 90’s fastball that he can place, & a slider that is largely unhittable in the low 90’s. At least that’s what the Cub players say in interviews.
And the Pirates could just as easily start JA Happ in this game. His pitching performance has been incredibly good over the past 2 months. Near perfect his last several starts.
And that is not hype. Check the splits. His ERA since coming to Pittsburgh has been good. FIP great. Etc.
Francisco Cervelli is hitting near 300. People don’t like to talk about batting averages but he also walks quite a bit. So I know his on base percentage is high. And he is the Pirates number eight hitter. That should convince you that their lineup has capable hitters. Even Gerrit Cole is a capable hitter. Don’t believe me, look it up for yourself. I have an autistic child here with cystic fibrosis that I need to care for. Don’t have time to look up that which I already know from watching approximately 100 games this year. That’s our time in the evenings. The other nights, we’re watching the single a pirate’s team, which by the way, is incredible. And that’s based on pure observation. Just an opinion.
I would be interested to see the Maha distance between Bryant this year and Mark Reynolds in 2008 (his second year in the league, but still just his 24 YO season). The raw numbers are remarkably similar, with BABIP accounting for the difference in AVG:
Reynolds: 28 HR, 87 R, 97 RBI, 11 SB, 10.4 BB%, 33.3 K%, 219 ISO, 323 BABIP, 239/320/458 triple slash
Bryant: 26 HR, 87 R, 99 RBI, 13 SB, 11.8 BB%, 30.6 K%, 213 ISO, 378 BABIP, 275/369/488 triple slash
I just love MC pee pants comments.
Great post. I am not sure why Adam Dunn is not the most likely scenario? That is a great outcome but no where close to the hype…
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=319&position=1B/OF#advanced
Thanks for posting the link to the WMDB package. I’d never heard of this type of analysis before. I was playing around with it this morning and I really like how it can be used for comparison.
Weapons of Mass Destruction to Baseballs?
“young Austin Kearns” would actually be great for Bryant. Before Kearns got injured, he was a fantastic hitter.
I didn’t think anyone even noticed the Pirates.
They’ve made the playoffs three years in a row, finished with the 2nd most wins in the NL … and all anyone talks about is the Cubs and Cardinals.
The Pirates are one of the great stories in baseball, both on field and in the GM office. I have no idea why there aren’t more Pirate stories. They seem to be a model of sustaining good success on a budget.
I’m a moron guys.
For what it’s worth, his plate discipline = Chris Davis:
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=5&season=2015&month=0&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=15429,9272
“All in all, this list is pretty disappointing, especially when held against Correa’s comps, which featured four Hall of Famers.”
I don’t think this is really a fair statement to make. I mean, the distance value itself would be an important piece here wouldn’t it? Correa’s #10 comp had a Mah Dist of 8.05. Whereas Bryant’s #10 comp is at 3.83.
Heck, Correa only had 2 guys within 3.83 in his entire comp set.
To make the comparison you did, wouldn’t you need to run Bryant’s comps out to a distance of 8.05, and then see how many HOFers are within that distance? Maybe KB has 10 HOFers within comparison set if you push his distance up to 8.
Unless i’m misunderstanding something, just using the arbitrary cutoff of 10 (while fine for showing us stuff) isn’t really a fair way to do any sort of comparison between players. It would seem that would be best suited by using the actual distance value.