This article is part of our Collette Calls series.
Last season, Dexter Fowler and Alex Gordon were simply unrosterable in standard mixed leagues. Gordon at least hit 13 home runs and stole 12 bases, but was mostly a compiler of stats down in the bottom of the lineup. Fowler did neither, and hit a career-low .180 seemingly out of nowhere after years of consistent production.
This season, both are off to surprisingly hot starts at the plate, albeit in different manners. Have they changed something to get better results or is a hot streak just magnified this time of year because of the reset button that comes with the start of the season? We will begin with Fowler.
Entering play May 1, Fowler is hitting a surprising .313/.415/.425 on the heels of his .180/.278/.298 line from 2018. The lazy way to look at this would be to say that Fowler's success is from his .407 batting average on balls in play and just write it off as pending regression and move on. After all, his walk rate and strikeout rates are nearly identical to where he was last year. That said, maybe there is something else besides luck that has caused Fowler's BABIP to nearly double from the .210 number it was last year?
StatCast says that Fowler is overachieving out of the gate as his actual results are outpacing the quality of his contact. If we look at his hard-hit rate at StatCast, he had a 28 percent hard-hit rate last season, and that rate is at 31
Last season, Dexter Fowler and Alex Gordon were simply unrosterable in standard mixed leagues. Gordon at least hit 13 home runs and stole 12 bases, but was mostly a compiler of stats down in the bottom of the lineup. Fowler did neither, and hit a career-low .180 seemingly out of nowhere after years of consistent production.
This season, both are off to surprisingly hot starts at the plate, albeit in different manners. Have they changed something to get better results or is a hot streak just magnified this time of year because of the reset button that comes with the start of the season? We will begin with Fowler.
Entering play May 1, Fowler is hitting a surprising .313/.415/.425 on the heels of his .180/.278/.298 line from 2018. The lazy way to look at this would be to say that Fowler's success is from his .407 batting average on balls in play and just write it off as pending regression and move on. After all, his walk rate and strikeout rates are nearly identical to where he was last year. That said, maybe there is something else besides luck that has caused Fowler's BABIP to nearly double from the .210 number it was last year?
StatCast says that Fowler is overachieving out of the gate as his actual results are outpacing the quality of his contact. If we look at his hard-hit rate at StatCast, he had a 28 percent hard-hit rate last season, and that rate is at 31 percent this year. The encouraging areas is his expected weighted on base average based on contact – wOBAcon. That figure for Fowler has crept back up to his previous levels:
The hard contact is up, but it is not due to any change in the exit velocity or launch angle because both are slightly lower than they were last year. In fact, while the contact is up, it is not up high enough to produce barrels or solid contact grades on StatCast. Fowler has made his living on flares and burners this year, hitting them six times as often as he has hit barrels or solid contact:
That is how a hitter posts an inflated batting average on balls in play as Fowler has done so far. Hitters do not go up to the plate with the intention of hitting flares or burners, but those are the outcomes that Fowler has experienced more often than not. They're aiming to get as much contact as they can in that red zone, yet Fowler has just four of his 60 batted balls in that zone. Let's compare these same measures with Alex Gordon in Kansas City.
Gordon entered April red-hot with a .301/.395/.544 batting line with five home runs, 22 runs driven in and 18 runs scored. He has not slugged higher than .380 nor hit higher than .245 since 2015, so this hot start is both surprising and worth noting as he is in the walk year of his contract. His strikeout rate has been 20 percent for six consecutive seasons, but it is a career-low 11 percent this season and is firmly entrenched in the third spot of the lineup between Adalberto Mondesi and Hunter Dozier.
Gordon's overall offensive production is only slightly outpacing his expected, but the quality of his contact says his actual number are outpacing the quality of his contact. His hard-contact rate is right where it was last year, so the new results are not tied to any new-found hard contact. His expected weighted on base average on contact is also in line with last year, albeit not as high as it was back in 2016:
Gordon, unlike Fowler, is not getting any extreme batted ball fortune as his batting average on balls in play is identical to his 2018 outputs, but a noticeable jump in his line is his isolated power, which is nearly double what it was in 2018. Also unlike Fowler, Gordon has been stinging some baseballs and not just getting by on flares and burners:
Gordon's hot start appears to be more sustainable than Fowler's because it is one based both on quality of contact as well as a change in approach at the plate. Gordon has shown an increased disciple at the plate chasing fewer pitches out of the zone, lowering his o-swing percentage by seven percentage points over last year. His swinging strike rate of 7.6 percent is a career low, and his 90 percent contact rate on pitches in the strike zone is also a career low. Gordon might be playing for one more contract, or might be trying to go out on a high note.
Either way, this early performance looks like something that will be a very nice return on investment for a late-round pick while Fowler's fortunes appear more based on batted ball fortune that is going to be very tough to maintain into the summer months.
