Finding Breakout Hitters for Fantasy Baseball: Chase Rate Early-Season Metrics

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In an earlier article on Blast Rate, I mentioned that this was the time of year that some hitting metrics start to stabilize. While many of us want to focus on exit velocity and hard-hit rate because they lead to more exciting outcomes, I think focusing on plate discipline metrics can be just as important. It also happens that both swing rate and strikeout rate have begun to stabilize for hitters.

If we look at a hitter's swing rate, we can see how aggressive he is being this year, both in and out of the strike zone -- and when you pair that with strikeout rate, you can see if that aggression is beneficial. I like using FanGraphs to look at O-Swing%, Swing%, and Contact%, but Statcast also has a cool feature that allows you to track year-to-year changes. I wanted to see who was doing better or worse in these metrics than they did last year, so I took the 2021 and 2022 stats for O-Swing and Miss to see which hitters had the most noticeable changes in swinging and missing on pitches out of the zone.

The thought behind this article is that we can begin to identify hitters who have improved their plate discipline and also those who may have no feel for the strike zone right now. Now, everybody on the leaderboard for positive change is making a good change, but it may not really make them a fantasy asset. So you can do some extra digging, but it's important to note that everybody on the BAD leaderboard is not necessarily in for a rough season. Some are simply hitters who were far too passive last year, so they're showing up as being overly aggressive this year. I hope this article will not only be informative for the simple leaderboard graphics below, but also for players that deserve a little extra attention. I hope you find the information actionable and useful as you think about roster moves for this season.

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Most Improved - Chase Rate

We'll start with the good, even though I think the list of players going in the wrong direction is more interesting.

Gavin Lux - 2B/SS, Los Angeles Dodgers

We'll start with why Lux is on this list: he's cut his O-Swing% from 26.3% in 381 plate appearances last year to 18.9%. His swinging-strike rate (SwStr%), which was already low, is down to 8%, and he's raised his contact rate overall to 79.6%. That's all nice; however, two other things stand out. For starters, his contact on pitches outside of the zone (O-Contact%) is 85.2%, which is astronomically high and suggests that he's only swinging at pitches barely outside of the zone. That would be a good thing except that Lux's swing rate overall is down to just 39.5% - that's the 27th-lowest in baseball among players with 60 plate appearances, so he's not really swinging much at all.

As a result, I think Lux is being too passive to start the year. His pull rate has dropped to 33.3%, which suggests he's not being aggressive and hunting pitches he can do damage on, and his fly-ball rate has dropped to 26.7% while his groundball rate has risen to 55.6%. So even though his barrel rate and hard-hit rate are at career highs, he's not using that quality of contact in ways that create meaningful results for fantasy baseball. This is the profile of a passive hitter who is too reactionary and focused mainly on just putting the ball in play. Lux is still young, at 24 years old, and it's early in the season, but I'd love to see him be a little more aggressive.

Austin Meadows - OF, Detroit Tigers

Meadows has dropped his O-Swing to 25.4%, has raised his contact rate to a career-high 89.9%, and has lowered his SwStr% to a minuscule 4%. He also has a career-low swing rate at 39.7%, so he's another hitter who is being more selective and passive with a career-low 27.6% pull rate. That's likely part of the reason you're seeing zero home runs from Meadows early in the season.

In fact, his average exit velocity is down to a career-low 86.4 mph, and he has just a 37.9% hard-hit rate and 6.9% barrel rate. So while he's lowered his strikeout rate to 13.6% and is hitting an impressive .319, he's also not hitting the ball with anything close to the same authority we're used to seeing. He's still hitting the ball in the air a fair amount (48.3 FB%), but it's hard to say that the lack of home runs is just a product of the new baseball when the pull rate is down 13%. That's not mush ball-related; that's a hitter not turning on the ball the way he used to.

However, a positive note is that Meadows, who had a massive platoon split last year, is swinging the bat much better against lefty pitchers, hitting .368 with a .899 OPS and 21.7% strikeout rate in 23 plate appearances after hitting .198 with a .563 OPS and 22.8% strikeout rate last year. It's obviously a small sample size, but considering Meadows did not have any platoon issues in 2018 and 2019, perhaps last year was a bit of an outlier. Still, the lack of power is a concern for me since it's coming with a more passive overall approach. The batting average is nice, but it's a bit empty right now.

Andrew Vaughn - 1B/OF, Chicago White Sox

OK, now we can get into the truly positive. Vaughn has cut his O-Swing% down over 5% to 26.9% and his SwStr% is down to 6.3% while his contact rate is up to 85.8%. However, unlike the two names above, his overall swing rate is almost identical and his zone swing rate is up, so he's not becoming more passive overall. He's also increased his pull rate by over 10% and his FB% by over 7%, which indicates that he's being more aggressive. His MLB numbers now look like the hitter he was in his minor league career, and it seems as though he has just gotten more comfortable at the level.

While his launch angle could still afford to be higher than its current 9.4-degree mark, he's hitting the ball exceptionally hard, which has led to both a mini power surge and also a batting average bump. I think you're seeing a top-hitting prospect come into his own a bit, and I don't think it's crazy if we see a .270 25+ HR season if he can remain healthy (and in the lineup).

Max Kepler - OF, Minnesota Twins

Despite having low strikeout rates, Kepler has been a low batting average hitter throughout much of his major league career. This year, we're seeing nearly identical plate discipline metrics with just a 1% increase in O-Swing%, 1.5% drop in SwStr%, 0.8% drop in overall Swing%, and 2.4% increase in overall contact rate. So what has prompted this jump in batting average (.247) and power (five HRs in 23 games)?

For starters, a 3% increase in pull rate isn't bad and neither is a 3% increase in barrel rate. However, he has also raised his GB% by 8.4% and lowered his FB% by 5.3% and his launch angle is the lowest it's been since 2016, which is not usually a good mix for power production. This may be helping the batting average since Kepler is hitting the ball low and hard, but the home runs seem to be a bit flukey, as evidenced by a 21.7% HR/FB rate that is way over his 13.8% career rate. He also had three of his five home runs in two games against poor Detroit pitching, so I'm not buying a major power increase here from Kepler if he keeps his current approach. Low and hard will help him keep his average above .240, but we might also just see the 20 HR he put up last season.

Amed Rosario - SS/OF, Cleveland Guardians

I think I'm out on Rosario. His O-Swing% is up almost 5%, but his SwStr% is down because his O-Contact, Z-Contact, and overall Contact rate are up. On the surface, that's not bad, but swinging and hitting pitches outside of the zone a lot isn't always good because those often aren't good pitches to hit. Rosario may be making more contact, but it isn't good contact. He has a career-low 31.1% hard-hit rate, his barrel rate sits at 3.3%, and his average exit velocity is a career-low 87.5 mph. He's increased his pull rate by 9%, but his FB% is down 5% and his GB% rate is up over 52%, which would suggest those pulled baseballs are just groundballs to the left side.

It's a guess which would seem to be supported by his 3% rise in topped contact, or contact when getting on top of the ball, which is the closest metric we have to measure rollover groundballs. This would also jive well with the idea that he is hitting more pitches out of the zone because it would seem to imply he's rolling over breaking pitches that aren't strikes instead of just letting them go. Yes, Rosario has speed, but he hits with no authority and potentially has too wide of a strike zone, which helps lead to a lot of weak contact. I'm gonna let somebody else take the chance that he figures it out.

Quick Thoughts: Just because a few of those were a real bummer, I just want to say that I do believe in Joey Wendle and Jeff McNeil, but I think they will likely be mainly useful as batting average buffers. McNeil should help in runs, and Wendle can help in steals, but I think their batting average gains are more real than flukey. The other guys on that list (Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Tim Anderson, Juan Soto, etc.) you know are good, but it's nice to see Tyler O'Neill show up on a plate discipline metric leaderboard even if the results aren't where we want them to be yet.

Biggest Fallers - Chase Rate

Brandon Belt - 1B, San Francisco Giants

I just quickly wanted to say that I'm not too worried about Belt. Yes, his SwStr% is up to 12.6%, but his profile is not that different than what we've seen in the past. His overall strikeout rate is nearly identical, his zone contact is up, and he doesn't appear to have changed his swing or added any loft. The two things that jump out are that he's seeing more first-pitch strikes than he did last year but swinging less in the zone and that his O-Contact rate has fallen to 47.8%.

Considering his career O-Contact% is 61%, and he hasn't been below 60% since 2018, I'm going to treat this as an early-season adjustment period. According to Statcast, Belt has a 52% whiff rate on breaking balls, which would be a career-high by over 20%. I'm going to assume that he didn't just forget how to hit breaking balls, but that he's simply slumping to start the season.

Bo Bichette - SS, Toronto Blue Jays

Listen, Bichette will be fine (as we're starting to see). He's too talented a player to not figure it out, but this early season slump is a result of real issues. His strikeout rate has risen to 27.6%, and his SwStr% has exploded to 16.1%. He's always been relatively aggressive out of the zone and has a 44.5% O-Swing% this year with just a 57% O-Contact.

Just like last year, Bichette is seeing a lot of pitches just out of the strike zone or what Statcast refers to as the shadow. Bichette has seen 40% of his overall pitches in the shadow and is swinging 66% of the time, which is 13% above league average. However, he has a -2 run differential and is performing really poorly on these pitches. He has also seen a 14% increase in whiff rate on the fastball and is being attacked more with fastballs on the upper edge of the zone.

Pitchers have started to challenge him above the zone with fastballs because they know he will chase, and he has not been able to do damage with them so far. The batted ball quality is still good, but with just a 2.9% walk rate, Bichette may have to dial back on the aggressiveness a bit and make pitchers come to him a bit more.

Franmil Reyes - OF, Cleveland Guardians

Let's address the elephant in the room: Franmil has a 46.3% strikeout rate to just a 3.7% walk rate. His SwStr% is up to 17% despite his O-Swing% actually only being up 1.4%. His overall swing rate is nearly the same as last year, but his contact rate has dropped to just 61.8%. The biggest issue for him is the edges of the zone, both inside the strike zone and just outside, particularly below the zone.

The biggest culprit appears to be breaking balls as Franmil has a crazy 65.3% whiff rate on breaking balls after registering a 43.6% rate last year. Considering Franmil has also seen his called strike rate climb to 19% and is swinging at just 70.8% of meatballs (pitches right down the middle) as opposed to a career 80.2% rate, it's possible that Franmil is being too passive early in the count and getting himself into spots where he can be beaten with breaking balls off the plate. His quality of contact metrics still show that he's hitting with thump, so maybe the issue is correctable by being more aggressive on fastballs early in the count, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous.

Chris Taylor - 2B/SS/OF, Los Angeles Dodgers

Chris Taylor is another guy I'm not super worried about. His strikeout rate is up and his SwStr% has ballooned to 18%, but his O-Swing% is actually down and his overall swing rate hasn't changed at all. He's also swinging at more pitches in the zone than last year. He's simply not making contact. The biggest culprit appears to be fastballs in the strike zone but up. Statcast shows that his issues are in the heart of the plate but he has a 37% whiff rate on fastballs after posting a 24.2% rate last year. His whiff rate plots also show issues swinging through fastballs up.

Since he's seen a higher first-pitch strike rate than last year, it would imply that pitchers are getting ahead with fastballs and then getting him to swing and miss on breaking balls when they're ahead on the count, since his whiff rate on breaking balls is up to 55% this year. However, I don't believe Taylor simply forgot how to hit fastballs. He hasn't had a whiff rate on fastballs over 24% in his career, so the 37% mark feels like a fluke. Once he starts making better contact on the fastball, I think he'll be in more advantageous hitting counts, and much of this will level out.

Avisail Garcia - OF, Miami Marlins

This one sucks since I was a big supporter of Garcia heading into the season. However, there is a very clear issue: Garcia's 50.6% O-Swing%, which is 10% above his career mark. He also has a 39.2% O-Contact%, which is well below his career 53.9% rate. His zone contact remains great, and he has a 12% barrel rate, 46% hard-hit rate, and career-high 91.3 mph average exit velocity, so when Garcia is hitting the ball, he is hitting it with authority. His FB%, Pull%, and GB% are all near career norms or heading in the right direction, so this seems like an aggressive player who is pressing and trying to impress his new organization and is simply trying to do too much.

I'd like to believe that a couple of good games will cause Garcia to settle down and stop trying to do too much, but that may also be because I'm overly invested at this point. I'd still recommend holding in deep leagues for another couple of weeks because the batted ball quality remains strong.

Bryan Reynolds - OF, Pittsburgh Pirates

Reynolds' profile is a mess. His O-Swing% is only up 3%, which isn't a major worry, but his O-Contact% is down 10% and his contact rate overall is down 7%. He's seeing a 70% first-pitch strike rate as pitchers are just coming after him, and it's working. Pitchers are challenging him with fastballs in the upper part of the strike zone, and he hasn't been able to catch up. His pitch value against fastballs was 26.2 last year, but it's just -0.9 this year. That's a major issue. Getting beat on fastballs is also likely why his pull rate is down almost 12%. His infield fly ball rate also being up to 15.4% from a career 8.4% rate tell me that he's unable to get on top of the pitches up in the zone, so he's popping them up rather than driving them.

The other issue is that, when he's not popping the ball up, he's hitting a lot of groundballs. His GB% has gone up over 11% to 50%. Considering he never had elite exit velocities, dropping a launch angle to 5.1-degrees is going to lead to no home runs. At this point, I'd be a little worried about Reynolds. I think he's a good enough hitter to adjust, but I'm not sure if we can count on 20+ home runs from him and he may settle in as just a .260-.270 hitter, which is not what you drafted.

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