2020 Overlooked Hitters
With the 2020 regular season coming to an end, now is a good time to evaluate which qualified players were overshadowed this season. In this article, we will be looking at three hitters who had a low O-Swing percentage (chase rate) and a high hard-hit ball percentage.
The reason looking at chase rate and hard-hit percentage is so important is because it shows that not only does a player barrel balls in the zone more often, but pitchers have to throw it in the zone to get them out because they don’t chase. However, these metrics are less viable when a hitter has a higher ground ball/fly ball percentage. One of the hitters that I will mention in this article has a high GB/FB percentage and that is why they are not as successful a hitter as they can be.
Here is a scatterplot I created in the R programming language that looks at chase rate on the x-axis and hard-hit percentage on the y-axis. Red is Brandon Lowe, Blue is Kyle Seager, Pink is Orlando Arcia. I also included similar players: Green is Mookie Betts, Orange is Matt Olson, and Brown is Vlad Guerrero Jr.
The first hitter I want to analyze is the Rays Brandon Lowe. The Rays are known as a great pitching team (3rd in team ERA) so hitters like Brandon Lowe get swept under the rug. Lowe had a 26.8% chase rate and 43.1% of his batted balls were hard hit. Lowe was the third best hitter in the league in WPA at 2.48 (win probability added) this was ahead of big name players like Mookie Betts at 2.46 and Jose Abreu at 2.01. This metric looks at the total impact a batter’s plate appearances has on a team’s win expectancy. Simply put, Lowe’s plate appearances add a 2.48% higher chance that the Rays win. Brandon Lowe was also a top 15 player in the clutch metric at .84. Lowe quietly had one of the best hitting seasons in the league and his name should be passed around as one of the best 2nd basemen in the league.
The next hitter I would like to look at is Kyle Seager. Seager is a name that isn’t uncommon, but he is often overshadowed by his brother Corey and the fact he plays on a below average team in the Mariners. Seager had a 23.9% chase rate which was top 20 in MLB, also 39.2% of his batted balls were hard hit which is tops on his team for qualified batters. Seager has a great knowledge of the zone which is indicated not only by his chase rate, but he averages almost one walk per strikeout. Like Lowe, Seager also led his team in WPA at 1.23. Another metric that Seager excelled at was the RE24 statistic. This looks at the total impact a batter’s plate appearances have on the team’s run expectancy relative to league average. Kyle Seager had an RE24 at 13.64, meaning he is expected to give the Mariners over 13 more runs than the average hitter. I think a reason Seager gets overlooked is because for many traditionalists his .241 batting average turns them away. In the new age, it is important to not only look at standard stats but also advanced stats to realize a player’s full value.
The final hitter that I am looking to analyze is Orlando Arcia. Arcia had a chase rate of 28.6% and hit 36.6% of his balls hard. Arcia was top 10 in MLB shortstops in hard hit percentage and chase rate. Those stats may lead you to believe that he is a top 10 MLB shortstop but these metrics don’t tell the whole story. In 59 games played this year, he grounded into 10 double plays which was tied for tops in the league. Here is a video of Arcia grounding into a double play and here is another video of a ground ball he hits. As you can see in the videos, he seems to collapse the back leg early and drop his hands causing him to hit the ground ball. The easiest fix for Arcia is improving his launch angle. Arcia’s average launch angle was less than 10 degrees which explains his high ground ball rate and double plays. If he can increase his angle to about 25 degrees, Arcia will be getting many more line drives and fly balls. Arcia has the tools to be a great player if he makes minor tweaks to his launch angle; I believe Arcia will become a top 10 shortstop in MLB.
In the next article we will be looking at three pitchers who had overlooked 2020 seasons and metrics that made them successful.