A TALE OF TWO INFIELDERS

Earlier this year, two promising young infielders were signed to multi-year contracts that will take them through their arbitration years and put them at free agency, when these deals expire.  This is a strategy used by some teams to provide financial security for their best young players, avoid arbitration (which can be contentious), and provide some payroll cost control. 

Rougned Odor, 23, second baseman for the Texas Rangers, (6yr-49.5M) from 2017-2022 and Jose Ramirez, 25, 2B-3B for the Cleveland Indians (5yr-26M) for 2017-2021 were coming off very good seasons in 2016, that prompted their teams to lock them up.

The 2017 season saw, Jose Ramirez, become an All Star and perhaps the best player on the Central Division champs, Cleveland Indians, while Rougned Odor, had a nightmarish season putting up bad offensive numbers and providing below-average glove work.

2017	avg/obp/slg	HR	wRC+	WAR
R Odor	.204/.296/.397	30	61	-1
J Ramirez	.308/.374/.583	29	148	6.6

wRC+ is a measure of offense adjusted for park and league.  100 is average.  Odor was 39% below average while Ramirez came in at 48% above average.  He had a negative WAR, while Ramirez accumulated 6.6 which was the 8th best total in MLB.  WAR is the total contribution of a player to his team.  The Rangers 2B hit 30 HR's but became a one-dimensional player hitting .168 avg on the road and .145 against left-handed pitching.  The last 2 years combined, Rougned had a total of 52 walks and 297 K's in 1283 plate appearances, while Ramirez compiled 96 walks and 131 K's in 1263 PA. Ninety percent of his HR's (27 of 30) were to RF.  

All Star Jose Ramirez  (zimbio.com

Rougned Odor, took a couple steps back this year.  He needs to clear his head, make adjustments, change his approach at the plate and he can still be a good player.  Jose Ramirez, clearly the much better player now, provides his team high-caliber play at 2B, 3B and even SS, while Odor is strictly a second baseman.  The Indians have an excellent player with a team-friendly contract while the Rangers have a lot of question marks about their overpaid infielder.

THE JUICE GOES ON

The amount of HR's hit this year in MLB totaled 6105, eclipsing the old high of 5693, hit during the height of the "steroids era" in 2000.  The HR rate per team per game increased by 7.7%.

MLB also set a record for strikeouts this year with 40,104 K's.  Compared to the year 2000 total of 31,356, that represents an increase of 8748 K's.  The K-rate jumped from 16.5% in 2000 to 21.6% in 2017, for a skyrocketing increase of 31%.

The superb Joey Votto  (zimbio.com)

With the new concept of "launch angle", brought on by the Statcast era, hitters are trying to hit more fly balls, instead of ground balls which are gobbled up by infield shifts.  More fly balls and juiced-up baseballs have created an environment that is conducive to long and frequent home runs, surpassing the "steroids era" with the negative side effect of record-setting strikeouts.  A lot of good things happen when contact is made.  The concept of situational hitting seems almost lost with this generation.  Power hitters with a low strikeout rate should be at a premium in today's baseball.  It seems as if the "juice" is not gone, it just moved from the players to the baseballs.

Year	HR rate	% increase	K rate	% increase
2017	1.26	7.7	21.6	31
2000	1.17		16.5

BOOMSTICK TIME

A few years ago, Nelson Cruz, popularized the "boomstick" bat.  It was a tribute to his frequent and long home runs.  Cruz has been a bona fide slugger with an explosive bat.  This season, MLB is seeing a real uptick in the HR rate, to the extent a new record will be set breaking the previous high accomplished during the "steroids era".  It looks like "boomstick" time all around baseball with batters hitting more frequent and longer home runs.  

In 2000 MLB hitters slugged a total of 5693 home runs which is the actual record for totals and also for HR rate of 1.17 HR/team/game.
The current rate of 1.26 HR/game, projects to a total over 6000, which is the first time this milestone would be achieved.  There seems to be more than one "rabbit" in the current baseball.  

So what gives?  We think "the juice" is on the downswing.  Some say the baseball is more "tightly-wound" making it travel farther on contact. MLB has been tinkering with the game for a while now, so is this a random occurrence or by design? Seems like "everybody and their dog" are hitting home runs nowadays.