Oak's Corner: A Hard Look at J Ram

The Week That Was

First of all, my apologies for being a little bit late with the article this week. I'll be back on the normal schedule next week.

As we get deeper into the season, most of the hitters from the first three rounds, assuming health, have produced at some decent level or look to be turning it on, but there are two exceptions at whom I want to take a closer look: Jose Ramirez and Kris Bryant. Ramirez has been particularly frustrating in my household, as I took him as my first pick in my live NFBC Main Event in Las Vegas at the seventh pick. I usually don't focus a ton on the first round in my draft prep until I know my draft slot, so I took a long look at the seventh pick the night before the draft, and I landed on Ramirez as my pick, if still available, as he presented a huge upside and also possessed a strong floor.

I, of course, knew about the second-half struggles and had seen the famous Clay Link tweet about his issues with breaking balls in 2018. I wasn't projecting another 39 homers, but with 29 in 2017, I was looking at a guy with 30 homers and 30-plus steals with a nice three-year base of batting average who clearly had massive fantasy upside and was among the absolute upper elite for the first four months of 2018. Further, he had exhibited more patience at the plate in 2018 and still possessed one of the top 10 strikeout rates in the game. Well, here we are, a month into the season and Ramirez is hitting .172, and suddenly those 2018 late-season struggles now look like a .204 average in his last 313 at-bats, a not so small sample. Great players have slumps, but rarely do they have this deep a slump over the course of more than half a season of baseball.

Looking at his 2019 so far, his hard hit rate sits at 38.8 percent, which would actually be the highest rate of his career, and he has maintained his 2018 fly ball jump, currently at 44.3 percent. In addition, his exit velocity is actually up to 90.6 mph from 88.9 mph in 2018. The homers should be on the way, as his 5.7 percent HR/FB rate is significantly down from the last two seasons. He is striking out more than usual at 13 percent, which is also supported by a career high 6.9 percent swinging strike rate and a career low 83.3 percent contact rate. Those numbers represent a concern compared to his career norms, but they are still solid numbers compared to the rest of the league, and I surmise that he has been pressing over the first month as he was the only clear stud bat in the struggling Indians lineup with Francisco Lindor out for the first chunk of the season.

For a guy with J Ram's speed and current rate of hard contact, his .179 BABIP sticks out as a number that just has to bump up significantly, especially when you look at his career .288 number. On the bright side, Ramirez has provided a fantastic start in the stolen base category even though he has been on base way less than usual with eight stolen bases already. No one is more frustrated than me with the start of a guy who was a first rounder in every single league, but please don't trade him for any sort of significant discount, as a deeper look did make me a bit more optimistic than I thought I'd be. There are some concerns, and this is quite a long time for an elite player to struggle, but Ramirez is going to get hot and will be worth more the final five months than anyone is going to offer you in a trade right now.

Bryant's 2018 was a huge disappointment, as the former MVP only managed 13 homers in 102 games, as he struggled with a shoulder injury for a big part of the season. As a result, Bryant, an early second round pick in 2018, fell down in drafts this year but only about a round, as he settled in with an ADP of 35 in the NFBC Main Event drafts in March. When he was still 27, the thought was that Bryant just needed his shoulder to be healthy for him to resume his slugging ways. A month into the season, that thought is now a concern, as we are looking at a .235 batting average with only two homers through his first 103 plate appearances.

When I looked at Bryant in the offseason (I assumed I would love him as "last year's bum type" when I started research), my main issue was that in this era of hard contact rising for many players, Bryant had just not hit the ball very hard for two straight seasons. I probably would have given him a pass in 2018 due to the shoulder for his 31.2 percent hard hit rate, but in 2017, he was only at 32.8 percent. In his 2016 MVP campaign, he was among the top guys in the stat at 40.3 percent. So far in 2019, he sits at 32.8 percent, and while this is just one stat, and there is a lot more to any profile, for a third rounder I'm counting on for power, it is a serious worry to me that he is so far below (and this would be three years running) most other sluggers in hard contact. A look at Statcast data finds Bryant with only five barrels on the year, and a barrel per plate appearance rate of 4.9 percent that puts him way, way down the leaderboard. I want to watch Bryant over the next month as the weather warms up in Chicago to see if the hard contact improves or he starts finding more barrels, but for right now, I'm not actively looking to buy low on him right now.

I have heard some people in 12-team leagues start to wonder whether they should move on from Miguel Cabrera to pick up another corner infielder. While it can be frustrating to have a first baseman with no homers (well, he hit his first homer as I was writing this, of course, and had four hits tonight) and a crazy low .089 ISO, there is just no way you can drop a healthy Cabrera this early in the season. Miggy is still smoking the ball with a top 10 hard hit rate of 53.8 percent and he has actually improved his oddly low 20 percent fly ball rate in 2018 to just over 30 percent so far this season.

While Cabrera's batted ball profile still looks great, the one current concern in his profile is the elevated strikeout rate. He had a 17.2 percent strikeout rate last year and has never been over 21 percent in any season of his storied career. But he currently stands at a 25 percent rate after Friday's game. A closer look does reveal that his swinging strike rate is still in the same range as the last couple seasons at 10.1 percent, so my hope is that the early strikeout rate is a bit of a small sample aberration. My real concern about Miggy is the same as it has been for the last couple of years, which is that with all the lower body injuries, he has lost some of his ability to drive the ball with his legs to hit a lot of homers. But with his insane talent and hitting acumen, as long as he's out there, I think you're going to get a good average, albeit with a capped homer upside. He's definitely someone who should be rostered in every league as we get to the summer of 2019.

Jesse Winker was a target for me heading into drafts, and while he does have seven homers, his .221 average with only 12 RBI has been a definite letdown. After a 2018 season in which he hit .299 with a lot of hard contact, I liked his batting average floor and was looking for a bit of a power spike in his age 25 season. Winker's strikeouts are up for 2018, but they are still under 19 percent, but his walks have dropped pretty dramatically to 7.5 percent. Even with the increased strikeouts so far, his swinging strike rate is still only 6.8 percent, so I'm not especially worried about the strikeouts going forward.

However, a look at his batted ball profile really gets me excited about Winker going forward. Winker is currently sporting a crazy high 50 percent hard hit rate but still has managed only a .173 BABIP a number that is just going to have to rise if he continues to generate that much hard contact. He has also slightly increased his average exit velocity from 2018. It currently sits at 90.9 mph. He doesn't hit a ton of fly balls, so his power likely doesn't have a ton of upside, but all the hard line drives and groundballs are also going to boost that average. To help matters even more, Winker plays in a great home park and one that will even get better as the weather warms up. Of course, Winker also homered Friday night, but he is about a big a trade target as I currently have, and I plan on shooting out a couple offers for him right now.

FAAB Feelings

Carter Kieboom. First of all, when you make your moves this week, make sure you bid on the right Kieboom, as there are in fact two of them in the Nationals system. This Kieboom got the callup to the majors on Friday, and it understandably received a little less fanfare than another callup, but it's still an interesting promotion. The 21-year-old was a first-round pick of the Nats in 2016 and has a real shot at everyday playing time for the next month at shortstop until Trea Turner returns. Wilmer Difo is hitting .236 and slugging only .362, and is probably best served as a utility player for them.

At only 20 years old across Single and Double-A in 2018, Kieboom hit 16 homers and stole nine bases while hitting .280. He only had 18 games this year in Triple-A prior to his callup, but he's been crushing it with a .379 average to go with three homers and 18 RBI and a sweet 29.3 percent line drive rate. He's only 21, so there are likely to be some bumps in the road, but my real reservation when deciding on a bid for him this weekend is whether he sticks with an everyday role once Turner is back.

The answer to that query probably comes down to how committed you think the Nationals are to Brian Dozier at second base. Dozier has had a brutal start to the year, hitting .183 and striking out way more than his career norms. They are paying him $9 million, but they are planning to compete this year and have no long term commitment to him, as he is only signed for one year. If Dozier hasn't flipped a switch by the time Turner comes back, it's a real possibility that he would move to a bench role if Kieboom is as good as advertised. If you think that happens, his bid for this week goes up, and there will likely be someone in your league willing to take that shot this early in the season as everyone has a lot of FAAB money to spend. My current thought is to use an aggressive bid on Kieboom in 15-teamers where he has a chance to be a difference maker, but to be pretty tame bid in 12-teamers where his lack of a huge ceiling at 21 and long-term playing time risk work against him because the pickings on the waiver wire are so much better.

Michael Chavis. Chavis was a popular add in 15-teamrs last week off his callup to the Red Sox, but he's only owned in 31 percent of NFBC 12-teamers. With the injuries to Dustin Pedroia (shocker) and Eduardo Nunez (shocker times two), Chavis has been given a chance to play second base for the Red Sox and has had a pretty solid first week. He's only hitting .222 through his first 23 plate appearances, but he has shown some pop with two homers and has also swiped a base. After a monster breakout season in 2017 in which Chavis hit 31 homers and drove in 94 runs across 126 games in Single and Double-A, Chavis his a massive speed bump in 2018 with an 80-game PED suspension, which he did claimed he did unknowingly.

The intriguing aspect with Chavis, Boston's top ranked hitting prospect, is that he has a clear path to everyday at-bats if he can produce. Pedroia is supposed to be back soon, but I have zero faith (and I am big Pedroia fan) in that left knee holding up, and Nunez had an OBP under .300 in 2018 and was terrible to start 2019 before his injury. Not only is there a path to playing time, but that path involves a spot in one of the top offenses in baseball in a park that fits his right-handed pull happy ways well. I regret not being a bit more aggressive with Chavis last week, but when he didn't start the first two games after his callup, I had some real playing time fears. His playing time this week has eased some of that, but it's too late in 15-teamers and shows you can't blink on anyone interesting in deeper leagues, but I definitely think he's worth a solid bid in your 12-teamers this week.

A Closer Look

The Angels signed Cody Allen in the offseason to be their closer, but he lost his job after a truly horrible start to the season and has now been placed on the Injured List with a lumbar spine strain. While he has converted all four of his save opportunities, his control has been an absolute mess with 10 walks in only nine innings. While no one have been officially named as the new closer, the two names mentioned most often are Ty Buttrey and Hansel Robles.

Buttrey saw some save opportunities for the Angels in 2018 in his short time with the team, earning four saves while posting a 3.31 ERA in 16 innings. He has had a fantastic start to the 2019 season with a 0.75 ERA in 12 innings while striking out 16 batters against only three walks. He was used in a weird fashion in his last appearance for 2.2 innings, which simultaneously made me happy that Brad Ausmus trusts him a lot, but also a bit worried as a fantasy owner who would want saves from Buttrey.

On the other side, we have Robles and his awesome entrance music courtesy of the WWE's Undertaker, which everyone has now seen many times on Twitter. He has also been good to start the year, and, fascinatingly enough, he actually possesses the exact same K/BB rate as Buttrey in the exact same number of innings. Before Allen was removed from the closer role, Robles was actually used as an opener in a game, which made it seem like maybe he wouldn't be the first choice for saves after Allen. My concern when looking at Robles as a possible ninth-inning guy is his issue with walks. In 56 MLB innings in 2018, Robles had a 4.02 BB/9,which was after a 2017 in which he posted a 4.61 BB/9 walk rate.

Buttrey had issues with walks in the minors but seemed to get a solid handle on it in 2018, and the better control makes me prefer Buttrey as the guy to bid on this weekend. The obvious intrigue in this situation is that it does present a possible long-term value, as we don't yet know how long Allen is out, he was really bad in 2018, and the Angels only signed him to a one-year deal, so they don't have to think about a commitment. In leagues where I need saves, I will be watching the Angels games closely this weekend to see if we get any clarity on back-end usage, but we may not, and that's where the fun comes in with this crazy game we love, and I'll likely be aggressive on Buttrey either way in my bids this weekend.