Schedule Factors - Hitters on the Decline

Eric Samulski finds hitters who could struggle and are falling in fantasy baseball value in a shortened 2020 MLB season based on the 60-game schedule and divisional matchups.

Earlier this week, we took a look at which hitters have been helped the most by the recently announced 60-game schedule. Now it's time to take a look at the hitters who might be hurt the most by it.

Remember that in order to fully break down the way in which a schedule may impact a hitter, we need to keep three things in mind: player talent, strength of schedule, and directional park factors.

Read about hitters on the rise based on the revised schedule right here.

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Schedule Factors

Analyzing player talent means that we're not going to focus on players who are going to be fantasy studs regardless of their schedule. Hitters like Joey Gallo and J.D. Martinez have only slightly below average schedules for power production, but they are both players who don't need a friendly ballpark to hit home runs. You're not going to move them down your board because other players with less natural talent have a slightly better schedule for power.

The second thing we're going to consider is the overall strength of schedule. I know it's tough to be 100% positive on those numbers when no games have been played, but we still have a pretty good idea of each team's talent level. In particular, when it comes to predicting the success of hitters, we'll be looking at the opposing rotations they are set to face and raising cautious about some players who will likely have a considerable number of games against elite or above-average pitching.

Lastly, we'll be analyzing directional park factors. There are many strong park factors metrics, but in this article, I'll be using Max Freeze's Directional Park Factors (FreezeStats) article to suggest how each park played last year and how it might impact hitters with their 2020 schedules.

As always, this should be a piece of your larger evaluation. Just because a player is on here doesn't mean he's a "must-avoid" or you need to plummet him down your board. Use it in conjunction with other tools,  like Ariel Cohen's ATC projections or Statcast metric, and change the valuation based on your comfort level.

Pete Alonso (1B) - New York Mets

Pete Alonso was already becoming a riskier fantasy commodity in a short season given his tendency to strikeout and overall streakiness. The release of the schedule didn't exactly help him. Being stuck with so many games within the division means he's likely to face a higher concentration of elite pitchers. It also means that he'll play games in three of the nine worst stadiums in the league for power to LF. Marlins Park is below average for HR and overall slugging to both left and center and Atlanta's Trust Park is also well below average for power to both LF and CF. He'll also get three games in Yankee Stadium, which many people think of as a bandbox, but is actually 9th-worst in the league in terms of suppressing right-handed pull power. That means that over one-sixth of Alonso's games will be played in parks that suppress his most valuable asset; an asset you need given his issues with batting average.

Now, Alonso definitely has the power to put the ball out of any park, but his below-average schedule is compounded by his struggles at home last year.

While the power numbers are similar, the batting average discrepancy and increase in strikeouts despite fewer at-bats give me a little bit of pause. It could obviously be nothing since it's only one MLB season, but the schedule and park concerns, when paired with Alonso's streakiness, are enough to give me pause considering the draft capital that you need to use to draft him. I'd rather take a more consistent and reliable hitter in the first three rounds.

Garrett Cooper (1B/OF) / Jesus Aguilar (1B) - Miami Marlins

Cooper and Aguilar are two players whose stock seemed to be on the rise given that the presence of the universal DH that would give them each more consistent at-bats. However, the Marlins were saddled with the second-hardest schedule in the league, which could limit overall at-bats per game and the opportunities each man has to hit with runners in scoring position.

As mentioned above, the Marlins Park is the fourth-worst stadium in the league in terms of right-handed pull power, but the Marlins will also play seven games in Atlanta and three in Yankee Stadium, which means the Marlins will get two-thirds of their game in bottom-nine stadiums for right-handed pull power.

On top of that, both men are on one-year contracts entering arbitration years, so if the Marlins lose a bunch of games quickly and are no longer in contention for anything, it's possible that they could ship either player off for younger assets. That could take each man out of the lineup if they become bench bats on contending teams, all but eliminating their value. If you decide to use a late-round pick on either player, make sure you have a contingency plan for them in the second part of the season.

Cavan Biggio (2B) / Teoscar Hernandez (OF) - Toronto Blue Jays

Biggio and Hernandez are representative of the larger concern that the Blue Jays, despite being a young and talented team, will play 77% of their games against teams who were above .500 last year. While many people like to taut the offensive prowess of the "AL Beast," the division still has some talented pitchers, particularly on the Yankees and Rays, and the Blue Jays had a winning percentage of only .423 within their own division.

They will now also face some pretty phenomenal pitchers in the NL East too: Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin, Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, Jacob deGrom, Mike Soroka, and many others. That's not exactly a recipe for offensive success and is particularly troubling for some of the young hitters who have high K-rates. The two that jump out the most are Hernandez (31.8% career MLB K%) and Biggio, who had a 28.6% K-rate last year but had K% above 25% in 2017 in high-A and 2018 at AA. We know that he's a patient hitter, but if he's waiting for the right pitch against some of the aforementioned arms, he might be headed back to the dugout with the bat still on his shoulder.

Anthony Santander (OF) - Baltimore Orioles

Santander is mainly on here as a placeholder to tell you that the Baltimore Orioles have the third-hardest schedule in the league now. He might also be especially impacted based on the parks he's going to be playing in. Santander is a switch-hitter who hits for more power from the left-hand side and pulls the ball 46% of the time. That means Santander (and also Chris Davis, if you were still considering him) would see most of his home runs come to RF. That's not great news given his schedule.

Yes, the Orioles and Yankees parks both play up for left-handed pull power, but Baltimore is only 14th for power to RF, so it's really only a slightly above-average park for left-handed power to RF. On top of that, the Red Sox are the second-worst park in the league for power to RF (unless you hit it literally down the line to the Pesky Pole), the Nationals Park is 22nd overall for power to RF, Marlins Park is 17th (but a black hole to right-center), and Tropicana is 19th. That means Santander, and other Orioles lefties, will not only be facing tougher pitchers but also play a quarter of their games in parks that suppress power to RF.

Since that's part of what made Santander fantasy-relevant to begin with, it all but removes him from my radar this year. You likely weren't leaning on many Orioles hitters to begin with, but it's something that you should certainly keep in mind when thinking about filling out your bench roles.

Paul Goldschmidt (1B) - St. Louis Cardinals

I was already a little down on Goldschmidt as a fantasy player since he's all but stopped running. However, I'm even warier of him with his new short-season schedule. Without speed in his game, Goldschmidt needs to hit balls out of the yard and knock-in runs in order to be successful. That's going to be much harder with games against AL Central teams who play in relatively cavernous ballparks.

The overall quality of starting pitching in the AL Central isn't great (aside from the Indians and half of the Twins rotation), but the parks Goldschmidt will travel to are notoriously hard for right-handed power, especially considering Goldschmidt has a 38% Pull% but 37.6% Cent%. Hitting the ball so much to center and left-center is not good in his own home park, which is second-worst in the league in terms of power to LF but also not good for inter-division games against Pittsburgh since PNC is the worst park in the league for right-handed pull power. Then he'll also go to Kauffman, which is 29th in power to left-center and Comerica, which is below-average to left-center and the worst stadium in the league for power to CF.

So, basically, Goldschmidt has stopped running and now has to make his fantasy value by hitting home runs in some of the hardest places to hit home runs based on his spray chart. I'm not plummeting him down my ranks, but I do have him outside my top-10 first baseman now.

Tommy La Stella  (2B/3B) - Los Angeles Angels

La Stella is also here as a pseudo placeholder to let you know that the Angels have the hardest schedule in the league in terms of opponents winning percentage. That's not going to scare you off from Anthony Rendon, Shohei Ohtani, or Mike Trout (if he plays), but it's bad news for a player like La Stella, who was only on the fringe of fantasy-relevance before. Another knock against La Stella is the park factors working against him.

One of the only reasons La Stella was fantasy-relevant last year was the career-high 16 HR (more than triple his previous career-high). For anybody that thought he was primed to repeat that, the schedule is the final bucket of cold water. The left-handed hitter has a 40% Pull% and 34% Cent% and plays his home games in a stadium that is 26th in the league in pull power for left-handers  (although it does play up in right-center). He'll also play in Oakland (24th for pull power to RF), Los Angeles (20th), San Francisco (30th), Seattle (29th to right-center) and Petco (28th to right-center). If he's only going to hit four or five home runs, against tough opponents, while potentially leading off for a team that may be without its best player, are you really going to roster him?

Matt Olson (1B) - Oakland Athletics

We already mentioned that the Oakland Coliseum is friendlier to right-handed power than left with the park ranking 15th in power to left field (mainly due to tremendous left-center metrics) but only 25th in power to right field and even worse the closer you get to dead pull. That's part of the reason Olson had such drastic home/road splits last season:

Those are sizable differences in both HR and AVG, which are not going to be helped by this year's schedule. The A's only play two games at Coors, while getting three at Dodgers Stadium, three in San Francisco, and two at Chase Field. Many people think of Chase Field as a hitter's park, but it's only league-average in terms of power to right field. Dodgers Stadium is 20th, thanks to a welcoming right-center but brutal right field, and the Giants play in the worst park in the league for left-handed pull power.

In fact, most of the parks he plays in, except Houston and Texas, are, at best, league-average for lefty power, which concerns me a little considering Olson sports a 51.7% Pull% and only an 18.2% Oppo%, meaning pretty much everything is hit to right field. Without a welcoming schedule to balance out his clear home/road splits, I would be cautious of his fast-rising draft price.

Seattle Mariners Hitters

There are few Mariners hitters who are being drafted high this year, but they have a few younger players who have been discussed as intriguing sleepers, like Shed Long Jr., Jake Fraley, Kyle Lewis, or Evan White. Saddling those young players with a season with few breaks and the fourth-hardest schedule in the league is not a recipe for success in my book. The Mariners are also one of the few AL West teams who don't get to travel to Coors Field and play five road games in San Francisco at Petco, which could be brutal for offensive outputs.

Again, this likely isn't drastically changing anybody's draft approach, but if you are torn between the upside of Fraley and White or players similar in ADP (from June 7th to now) like Alec Bohm, Brendan Rodgers, or Kevin Cron, I would prefer not to have the Seattle hitters on my roster.

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