José Abreu Still Rakes Against Fastballs

When José Abreu signed with the Astros earlier this offseason, there was quite a bit to love. He suits their total group building, he’s a terrific hitter, and the contract appears extra affordable every single day within the context of the remainder of the free agent market. In a number of corners of the baseball web, although, there was one worrisome observe: Abreu’s efficiency towards fastballs, notably of the high-velocity selection, declined markedly in 2022.

I’m not crediting one individual specifically with this remark, solely as a result of I’ve seen it in so many alternative locations. It’s incontrovertibly true. Listed here are Abreu’s numbers towards each all four-seamers and all fastballs thrown 95 mph or tougher, per Baseball Savant:

Oh no! The traits appear fairly clear; Abreu didn’t hit fastballs very effectively in 2022, and he’d already began to say no towards them considerably the season earlier than. Is he simply cooked? Is that this fastball efficiency the proverbial canary within the coal mine, alerting us that unhealthy instances are coming?

I actually had no concept how to consider this, so I made a decision to dig into the information. The primary query I had was a easy one: What does year-one efficiency towards fastballs imply for year-two efficiency towards fastballs, as measured by Statcast’s run values?

I ran a really fundamental take a look at to look into this. I seemed for each participant who had seen 100 fastballs of the requisite kind in two consecutive years: both four-seamers or fastballs thrown 95 mph or increased. I did this for 4 12 months pairs: 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, and 2021-22. The primary query I requested was easy: How correlated is year-one run worth to year-two run worth? In different phrases, should you produce a ton of runs, as measured by Statcast, towards fastballs in a single 12 months, ought to we count on that success to hold over?

This looks like a slam dunk should you cease and give it some thought. The query isn’t whether or not somebody is comparatively higher towards fastballs or secondary pitches; it’s how a lot worth they rack up towards fastballs yearly. Simply to provide you an instance, Aaron Judge was a superb hitter towards four-seamers this 12 months, to the tune of three.2 runs above common per 100 pitches. Final 12 months, he was a superb hitter towards fastballs – two runs above common per 100 pitches. In 2020, you guessed it – 6.1 runs above common per 100 pitches. In 2019 – effectively, you get the thought.

Dangerous information, although: even with apparent wins like Choose, year-one manufacturing on four-seamers is hardly correlated to year-two manufacturing. Extra particularly, it has a correlation coefficient of 0.17 and thus an r-squared of 0.03. In layman’s phrases, you’ll be able to clarify 3% of the variation in subsequent 12 months’s manufacturing on four-seamers by this 12 months’s manufacturing on four-seamers. That’s not very a lot! Even should you restrict it to batters who noticed a minimum of 500 four-seamers in each years to strip out some potential noise, the r-squared solely rises to 0.067. In different phrases, should you’re trying to clarify how batters will carry out towards four-seam fastballs in 2023, how they carried out towards them in 2022 isn’t a enough estimator.

As you would possibly count on, the information isn’t any higher for fastballs thrown 95 mph or tougher. Whereas Abreu declined in each of those classes in 2022, that by itself isn’t sufficient to say a lot about what we must always count on from him subsequent 12 months. Efficiency over the past three years is a significantly better indicator, however Abreu fares higher there. Perhaps he’s declining, but when he’s, we’ll have to seek out another technique to present it.

To drill down on fastball efficiency, I made a decision to take a look at whiff price. The important thing drawback with run worth is that it’s noisy, result-driven moderately than process-driven. BABIP is rightly thought of an unreliable and closely mean-reverting indicator, and working a excessive BABIP while you put a given pitch into play will improve your run worth, and vice versa. The plain place to look should you’re targeted on course of moderately than outcomes is whiff price. How usually a hitter makes contact after they swing doesn’t rely upon a spherical ball impacting a spherical bat, or the place the protection is standing, or which method the wind is blowing. It’s simpler than that: hit it, or don’t.

I repeated the identical train from above, in search of batters who swung at 100 four-seamers in consecutive years. The outcomes are way more within the spirit of what we’re in search of. The correlation between one 12 months’s whiff price on four-seam fastballs and the subsequent 12 months’s price is sort of excessive; the r-squared checks in at a sturdy 0.52. If you happen to’re trying to clarify the variation on this 12 months’s price, final 12 months’s price will get you greater than midway there. That’s a superb mark in comparison with the near-pure noise of run worth. As you would possibly count on, the information appears related for high-velocity fastballs.

One other helpful metric is how onerous a batter hits fastballs after they put them into play. It’s truly much more correlated year-to-year than fastball whiff price. If you happen to’re in search of a statistic that may inform you how good a hitter is towards fastballs, it’s best to take a look at whiff price or hard-hit price, not precise manufacturing.

Abreu hasn’t gotten worse on the subject of making contact with four-seamers; he got here up empty on 24.7% of his swings towards them in 2022. That’s barely increased than his common over the previous 5 years (23.4%), and in addition barely increased than league common (21.8%). That’s been his recreation for the final 5 years, roughly: he misses a bit extra often than common, however makes up for it by hitting the ball onerous when he connects.

There’s little proof that the second a part of the equation is altering. He was within the 86th percentile for hard-hit price on four-seamers this 12 months, proper in step with his typical excellence. The identical is true for high-velocity fastballs; he swings and misses barely greater than league common, however makes up for it by hitting them onerous.

Will Abreu decline subsequent 12 months? I’ll give it a strong “perhaps.” I don’t know, to be sincere. He’s a baseball participant in his 30s, which implies he’s at all times liable to getting worse. Time wounds all heels, and all of that. However should you’re in search of a technique to inform that story, don’t use his fastball information to do it. Regardless of the downtick in his leads to 2022, I’m as impressed by Abreu’s capability to pummel the ball as ever.