Newly patient Cespedes adds value to free-agent case

Even the best baseball players are still human beings, and human beings have weaknesses. But players who make improvements on their weaknesses can elevate their projected value, which can come in handy during free agency. This year, one free agent who has answered questions about a long-standing perceived weakness and stands to benefit financially also happens to be the best free agent available: Yoenis Cespedes.

In 2015, Cespedes underwent a power surge. He’d always been a 20-homer guy, but, for the first time, he crossed the 30-homer threshold. He also set a career high in isolated power (ISO) with a .251 mark that ranked 12th among 141 qualified hitters. The great news for Cespedes is that he was able to sustain his heightened level of power this year by putting up a .251 ISO for the second consecutive season.

The better news for Cespedes, though, is that, in addition to strengthening an area in which he’d always shown some ability, he demonstrated impressive improvement in an area of perceived weakness: walks and on-base percentage (OBP). From 2013-14, Cespedes’ OBP hovered around .300; last year it increased to .328 thanks in large part to the influx of home runs (and their effect on his batting average). This year, however, Cespedes brought his OBP up to .354, a level he hasn’t reached since he posted a .356 OBP in his rookie season. The obvious cause of this impressive boost has been a dramatic reversal in his walk-rate trend.

In 2015, Cespedes’ walk rate bottomed out at 4.9 percent; this past year, it soared to a new career high of 9.4 percent. One of the key questions facing teams interested in signing Cespedes this winter, then, is whether the boost is real. It goes without saying that a player with good power and decent OBP will be worth more to a team than a player with good power and poor OBP. Which type of player should teams expect from Cespedes going forward?

In trying …

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