D’backs’ speed among April trends that should sustain
As much as those of us who write about baseball like to think we know, it’s pretty scary how often we’re wrong.
With the first month of the regular season in the books, it’s worth looking back at some of April’s biggest surprises to see if they just might be temporary blips on the radar or possibly part of a seasonlong trend.
The Arizona Diamondbacks led the majors in stolen bases: Last season, the D’backs were one of baseball’s biggest disappointments, but the team went through a major overhaul this offseason, bringing in a sabermetrics-friendly general manager in Mike Hazen and a new manager in Torey Lovullo.
Knowing the limited value sabermetrics places on the stolen base in a high-run environment such as Chase Field, fantasy owners had reason to be concerned about the Diamondbacks putting up the Sedona red light after ranking third in the majors in steals and first in stolen-base percentage last season.
That hasn’t been the case. Arizona averaged an MLB-leading 1.14 steals per game in April — compared with 0.85 per game last season — with a healthy A.J. Pollock leading the way with 10, Paul Goldschmidt being 7-for-7 and Chris Owings also swiping seven.
They might not continue running at this rate all season, but stolen bases appear safe in Arizona with Pollock, Owings and Goldschmidt good bets for 30plus.
The Boston Red Sox were last in the majors in home runs: David Ortiz’s retirement figured to put a dent in a Red Sox offense that ranked first in scoring and slugging last season. But a full season for Andrew Benintendi, the return of Pablo Sandoval, plus continued development from MVP candidate Mookie Betts figured to keep Boston among the top offenses in the game.
Amazingly, the Red Sox were among the bottom quarter in runs in April, and their 15 homers ranked 30th out of 30 teams. The keystone combo of second baseman Dustin Pedroia and shortstop Xander Bogaerts had no homers between them.
Of course, home runs can come in bunches, especially when the weather warms up. Betts hit 31 homers last season. Hanley Ramirez hit 30. Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley and Mitch Moreland all had at least 20. The Red Sox will be fine.
(With home runs otherwise running rampant throughout the game, here are a few others who surprisingly didn’t have one in April: Adrian Gonzalez, C.J. Cron, Gregory Polanco and Alex Bregman.)
Aaron Judge and Joey Gallo crushed the ball: Their raw power has never been a question. But Judge struck out 42 times in 95 plate appearances last season (44.2%), and Gallo whiffed 19 times in his 30 MLB plate appearances (63.3%).
Both, though, have played regu- larly to start this season and have done a much better job of putting the bat on the ball.
Judge has cut his strikeout rate to 26.7% (and improved his walk rate). The 6-7, 282-pound slugger tied a rookie record with 10 home runs in April — tying him with Oakland’s Khris Davis for tops in the AL.
He finished the month hitting .303, and his laser home run April 28 registered an exit velocity of 119.4 mph, the hardest-hit homer Statcast has recorded in its three years of existence.
Gallo, meanwhile, took advantage of Adrian Beltre’s calf injury to hit seven homers and slug .550 in April.
His 34% strikeout rate was a major improvement from what he did in 2015 and 2016.
Judge was second in the majors in average exit velocity on line drives and fly balls at 103.1 mph. Gallo was fourth at 101.7 mph. While both should continue to hit the ball a long way, their strikeout rates remain an issue that could lead to extended slumps at any time. Don’t get carried away by their early success.
Ryan Zimmerman has become a fly-ball hitter: Zimmerman had an elite exit velocity in 2016, but he hit too many ground balls to take advantage of it.
He’ was still hitting the ball hard (92.9 mph average exit velocity, 12th overall), and he was doing a better job of getting it airborne.
A year ago, Zimmerman hit fly balls 34.7% of the time, but in April he increased it to just under 40%. As a result, he tied for the major league lead with 11 homers and led the majors in batting average (.420) and RBI (29).
A 41% home run-to-fly ball rate won’t continue all season, but his hard-contact percentage (40.6%) is higher than it has ever been. His changes in approach at the plate seem to have paid off handsomely. Zimmerman’s only 30-homer season came in 2009, but he looks well on his way to another.
Eric Thames is the early leader for fantasy MVP: Despite three dominant seasons in South Korea, fantasy owners weren’t completely convinced Thames was a different hitter than the one who fizzled in the majors with the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners.
But he learned to be more patient at the plate, which translated exceptionally well in his first month with the Milwaukee Brewers: 18 walks and 23 strikeouts.
He swung at only 19.1% of pitches out of the strike zone while going after 67.6% of pitches in the zone. That put him among the leaders in walks, on-base percentage (.466), runs (28) and slugging percentage (.810).
Thames’ amazing start and command of the strike zone have drawn comparisons to Barry Bonds (even down to accusations that his exploits are illegally enhanced). But the drug testing he faced in South Korea was even more stringent than the one Major League Baseball employs. And he passed all those tests, too.