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Fantasy: Miami outfield better than expected
- Updated: May 18, 2016
From a fantasy standpoint, the Marlins’ outfield has been surprisingly good.
Well, it’s not that surprising. It’s the only outfield with a Giancarlo Stanton, which would be enough to elevate any outfield out of the cellars. It has a Christian Yelich, too, who hits the ball hard but had been somewhat of a fantasy disappointment, having failed thus far to live up to any kind of power potential he once had.
Still, the Marlins are the game’s second-best offensive outfield, per wRC+ (weighted runs created plus). That’s kind of surprising. I mean, we knew the Pittsburgh Pirates’ outfield, which currently ranks first, would be good. And we probably thought the Chicago Cubs’ outfield, with all its talent and depth, would generate solid offensive numbers, but it’s only 10th.
While it’s a feel-good story riding on the high of an impressive 2016 Marcell Ozuna, it doesn’t look entirely sustainable. But it doesn’t mean we can’t dream, and there are some reasons to be optimistic about the already-established Stanton and Yelich as well as the still-young Ozuna.
It’s incredible how consistent Ozuna has been in terms of plate discipline and batted-ball profile between this year and last:
Look at that. His strikeout rate (K%), walk rate (BB%), hard-hit rate (Hard%), pull rate (Pull%), infield fly-ball rate (IFFB%) — they’re all almost identical. It’s pretty remarkable. With that said, it makes one wonder how much Ozuna could improve by being the exact same guy who was 11 percent worse than league average on offense last year.
Fortunately, Ozuna is hitting more fly balls — a nice development for a guy whose calling card is power. Hard-hit rates north of 30 percent pretty much consistently boast home run per fly ball ratios (HR/FB) better than 10 percent. The higher the hard-hit rate creeps, so, too, does the HR/FB, and Ozuna’s current 15.8 percent HR/FB rate is right where it should be. It’s not scientific — there are equations for that — but ballparking it based on historical results indicates that this isn’t an unreasonable …
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