What Do You Think of These Ten Surprising Hitters?

by
June 18, 2018

Been a long time since I ran a polling post. So, this is going to be one of those, where I ask you, the smart audience, to tell me what you think about certain questions. Typically, these polling posts focus on teams. This time around, the focus is on ten specific hitters. These are ten hitters whose performances to this point don’t look very much like their preseason Steamer and ZiPS projections. I’ve selected five significant overachievers, and five significant underachievers. Their names!

We spend a lot of time writing about players who are in some way defying expectations. Players who might have reached or sunk to a new level. For example, I’ve written about Muncy a couple times lately, and Jay Jaffe recently wrote about Davis. It’s interesting when players don’t do what we think they’re going to do. Rarely, though, do we open things up to audience opinion. You all watch a lot of baseball, and you all are familiar with contemporary analysis. That’s why you’re here. But most of the time, all you get is a comment section. Consider this something like a midseason fan-projection project. How much do you believe in the success of the players above? Are you expecting positive or negative regression, or do you believe some of them have new true talents?

Everything that follows is simple. I’m not going to offer any analysis, beyond each player’s current wRC+, and projected rest-of-season wRC+. All I’m asking for each guy is what you think his wRC+ will be over the remainder of the season. When the results are in, we can see what the community thinks of each of the players. Doesn’t mean anything is conclusive or correct! It’s just nice to get other data points for a change. Thank you in advance for your participation. You don’t have to vote in every poll if you don’t want to. You don’t have to do anything here if you don’t want to. You wouldn’t believe how completely voluntary this is!

Max Muncy

  • Current wRC+: 165
  • Projected rest-of-season wRC+: 98

Brandon Nimmo

  • Current wRC+: 167
  • Projected rest-of-season wRC+: 101

Mookie Betts

  • Current wRC+: 196
  • Projected rest-of-season wRC+: 136

Matt Davidson

  • Current wRC+: 131
  • Projected rest-of-season wRC+: 85

Eddie Rosario

  • Current wRC+: 152
  • Projected rest-of-season wRC+: 108

Bryce Harper

  • Current wRC+: 120
  • Projected rest-of-season wRC+: 139

Jackie Bradley Jr.

  • Current wRC+: 59
  • Projected rest-of-season wRC+: 91

Giancarlo Stanton

  • Current wRC+: 115
  • Projected rest-of-season wRC+: 147

Dexter Fowler

  • Current wRC+: 60
  • Projected rest-of-season wRC+: 100

Chris Davis

  • Current wRC+: 23
  • Projected rest-of-season wRC+: 89





 

Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.

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Roger McDowell Hot Foot
6 years ago

Ought to be interesting to try to tease out the portion of voting that represents belief in an underlying change and the portion that represents the Gambler’s Fallacy. I won’t bias the sample by naming names or getting into specific arguments but there were at least two cases here where I suspected a vote was driven by the fallacy rather than belief in an underlying change (whether due to age or injury on the downside or “this guy is for real” talent-driven breakout on the upside).

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Magician_531
6 years ago
Reply to  Roger McDowell Hot Foot

While I agree with you to a certain extent, keep in mind that Gambler’s Fallacy does not completely apply here. The results are not completely random and the outcomes are not completely independent from one another. What happens in a previous at bat can, to a certain extent, actually effect what happens in a later at bat.

For example, having a particularly bad stretch could cause a player to put in lots of work with their hitting coach and make adjustments.

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