2019 MLB Draft Guide Player Profile: Ozzie Albies

In his 21-year-old season, Ozzie Albies was exceptional for the Braves. In 158 games, he slashed .261/.305/.452 with 105 runs scored, 24 home runs, 72 RBI and 14 stolen bases. His season really was a tale of two halves, as he looked like an MVP candidate in the first half of the season, before absolutely tanking in the second half of the season. Given the caliber of his first half, it was a rather mediocre stat line to end the season, but if other owners in your league are worried about if his slow second half is a sign of things to come in 2019, jump all over Albies at his current ADP. Will he be a fantasy superstar in 2019? Maybe not quite at that level, but he has every opportunity to end the year as a top two player at his position.

Sure, there were less games played in the second half, but the power drop off is staggering. After the Midsummer Classic, he traded line drives and fly balls for grounders, and while his hard contact rate dropped significantly, so did his soft contact, leading to more “medium” contact. In the grand scheme of things, I guess this is a better outcome than the dissipation of hard contact going completely to weak contact. The speed remained relatively intact, and while he’ll never be a 30+ stolen base guy, a floor in the mid-teens is appropriate for Albies at this point in his career. As soon as 2019, he’ll push a total in the low 20s, but as a projected floor, give him about 15-18.

After the All-Star break, and shortly before it, the verdict came out on Albies and how to attack him. He punished fastballs, so the onslaught of breaking pitches came. Albies handled it a bit better near the very end of the season, but it took a while, resulting in the porous second half. While a good BABIP aided his batting average in certain months against breaking pitches, his xBA against these pitches tells a completely different story. His xBA of .253 against breaking pitches in the month of August was his best of the entire season, and his xBA was below .220 in all but two months of the season. Furthermore, it was below the Mendoza line twice.

As you can see from the chart above, courtesy of Baseball Savant, his barrel rate against breaking pitches was on a downward slope all season long. Additionally, from the first half of the season, his whiff rate against curveballs and sliders jumped over four and three percent respectively.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom for Albies, as his season actually ended on a positive note. His walk rate improved, by nature of not chasing out of the zone as frequently. In fact, despite posting a season low .198 batting average in September and October, his walk rate was the best of the season, his strikeout rate was the second-lowest of his season, and his line drive and fly ball rates were more comparable to his opening months of the season. The baseline statistics don’t paint that picture, but there were plenty of silver linings out of that month, despite the batting average below the Mendoza line.

His launch angle over the last month or two resembled that of late April and May, which were his torrid months. His barrel rate was inching its way back up to the average rate of his first half, and he has plenty of protection in the Atlanta lineup to ensure that he’ll continue to get his fair share of fastballs. If he can improve against breaking pitches, a full onslaught of an Albies breakout campaign could be amongst us.

Popular projection systems like THE BAT and Steamer are buying into a rebound from a bad second half for Albies, to the tune of upper-teen home run and stolen base totals and a batting average in the .270s. The fantasy community can admit that over the course of a full season, Albies isn’t the player he was in the first half, nor the player he was in the second half, but he is surely closer to the first half player.

Don’t let Albies’ second half numbers from 2018 cast a shadow over his 2019 fantasy value.

Statistical Credits
Fangraphs.com
BrooksBaseball.net
thebaseballcube.com
baseballsavant.mlb.com