George Springer, in two full minor league seasons, averaged 33 homers and 41 steals. Yeah, that good. The Astros outfielder flashed that immense power stroke in 2015 but he also suffered multiple lower body issues that precluded him from using his wheels as expected. Fantasy players are undeterred as NFBC ADP numbers show that Springer is currently going off the board as the 15th outfielder and 43rd player overall (our Mock Draft Army data has George going off the board with the 46th selection). The talent suggests that level of investment is fine, but will Springer live up to that expectation this season?
THE MINORS
2011: Drafted 11th overall in the Entry Draft by the Astros. He appeared in eight games at Low-A batting .179 with a homer.
2012: Appeared in 149 games (including the Arizona Fall League). He hit .300 with a .386 OBP and .535 SLG. Socked 28 homers and stole 37 bases. Baseball America (59), Baseball Prospectus (49) and MLB.com (84) were all big fans.
2013: You can't be much better than Springer was unless you're playing a video game. His slash line was stupendous (.303/.411/.600) and he damn near went 40/40 with 37 bombs and 45 thefts. Oh yeah, he only appeared in 135 games with 108 RBIs and 106 runs scored to make it even more impressive. Baseball America (37), Baseball Prospectus (55) and MLB.com (58) ranked him highly.
2014: Appeared in 16 games at Single and Triple-A batting .345 with with a 1.107 OPS. Baseball America (18), Baseball Prospectus (21) and MLB.com (20) were impressed.
TOTALS: .301/.399/.564 with 69 homers, 221 RBIs, 258 runs and 92 steals in 308 games.
THE MAJORS
2014: Appeared in 78 games hitting 20 homers with 51 RBIs, 45 runs scored and five steals. He also hit .231 with an .804 OPS. Missed 71 days with a high strain. Also missed another week of action with soreness in his knee and hip.
THE SKILLS
In 2012 he had 28 homers and 37 steals (149 games).
In 2013 he had 37 homers and 45 steals (135 games).
In 2014 he had 23 homers and 11 steals (94 games).
Wow... and what happened in 2014? Let's explore.
The most obvious issue to address based on the numbers listed is the steals total. How did a guy who was averaging 40+ steals swipe only 11 bases in a season? First off he didn't even make it on to the field for 95 games. Second, as you can see above, he had multiple issues with his lower half even when he was out there. The fact is that he simply wasn't healthy enough to run much. Third, and this isn't often brought up... Springer had 68 hits last season, 39 walks and nine bit by pitch. That means he reached based 116 times. Twenty times he hit a homer and wasn't on base to steal a bag. Eight times he hit a triple and likely wasn't interested in stealing third much. Once he hit a triple. That means 29 of the 116 times he reached base he likely wasn't in a position to swipe a bag. That leaves him with 87 times in which he was standing on first base looking at second. Might have something to do with the lack of steals, but it was most likely completely health related. His high motor ways make it imperative that his body is healthy. All reports suggest he will be for the upcoming season. Even if that's the case do your self a favor. Don't expect 40 steals. Hope for half that.
Let's talk the bat. Two things stand out: the power and the whiffs.
You know my proclivity to focus on the negative, so let's just dive right into it.
Springer struck out 114 times in 78 games. That's abysmal. If he had kept that up over a full season of games he would have had a shot to break the all-time record held by Mark Reynolds (223 in 2009). That's not a record anyone wants to hold. But it's worse than that. How is that possible you ask? As August Fagerstrom pointed out in an article, there were 263 men who had at least 300 plate appearances last season in the bigs. Who was last in baseball in contact rate among those 263? Yep, Springer. Last in baseball. More data...
Springer had a 33 percent strikeout rate (strikeouts / plate appearances). The only players with a higher rate in 2014, and a minimum of 300 plate appearances, follow. This list should point out how scary the effort was from Springer last season.
37.0 Jonathan Singleton
36.3 Juan Francisco
36.0 Tyler Flowers
33.7 Junior Lake
33.5 Danny Espinosa
33.2 Mike Zunino
You throwing up your last meal yet or are you reaching for the bottle?
Springer had a 26.1 percent K-rate in the minors by the way, a horrible number given the dominance of his overall game. So with all those strikeouts it's patently obvious why he struggled in the batting average category.
So what gave Springer the biggest issue last season? As the following table shows (from Brooks Baseball) if you throw a split fingered fastball Springer will swing at it. He'll also miss it. Not that he makes great contact with any of the pitches actually...
| Pitch Type | Count | Ball | Strike | Swing | Foul | Whiffs | BIP | GB | LD | FB | PU | HR |
| Fourseam | 530 | 36.42% | 30.57% | 49.06% | 17.92% | 17.17% | 13.96% | 4.72% | 3.02% | 4.91% | 1.32% | 2.26% |
| Sinker | 214 | 40.19% | 32.24% | 40.65% | 15.89% | 14.49% | 10.28% | 6.54% | 2.34% | 0.93% | 0.47% | 0.00% |
| Change | 137 | 40.15% | 32.12% | 46.72% | 12.41% | 18.98% | 15.33% | 10.22% | 1.46% | 2.92% | 0.73% | 1.46% |
| Slider | 305 | 31.80% | 41.31% | 52.79% | 14.10% | 26.23% | 12.46% | 7.21% | 1.97% | 2.62% | 0.66% | 0.66% |
| Curve | 131 | 48.09% | 27.48% | 40.46% | 9.92% | 16.79% | 13.74% | 6.87% | 4.58% | 2.29% | 0.00% | 0.76% |
| Cutter | 71 | 32.39% | 35.21% | 56.34% | 14.08% | 23.94% | 18.31% | 7.04% | 1.41% | 8.45% | 1.41% | 2.82% |
| Split | 46 | 39.13% | 34.78% | 58.70% | 13.04% | 32.61% | 13.04% | 6.52% | 4.35% | 2.17% | 0.00% | 2.17% |
As the next chart from Brooks Baseball shows, you throw any non-fastball other than a curveball and dude has zero clue what to do. Other than make an out of course.
| Pitch Type | Count | AB | K | BB | HBP | 1B | 2B | 3B | HR | BAA | SLG | ISO | BABIP |
| Fourseam | 530 | 108 | 34 | 20 | 6 | 15 | 5 | 1 | 12 | 0.306 | 0.704 | 0.398 | 0.339 |
| Sinker | 214 | 30 | 9 | 9 | 2 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0.367 | 0.433 | 0.067 | 0.524 |
| Change | 137 | 34 | 13 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.177 | 0.353 | 0.177 | 0.211 |
| Slider | 305 | 72 | 35 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.125 | 0.208 | 0.083 | 0.200 |
| Curve | 131 | 29 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0.310 | 0.483 | 0.172 | 0.471 |
| Cutter | 71 | 22 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0.136 | 0.409 | 0.273 | 0.091 |
| Split | 46 | 14 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0.071 | 0.286 | 0.214 | 0.000 |
Here are the non-fastball at-bats from last season and the outcome. Make sure you are in a quiet place so you can take it all in.
In 2014 Springer had 295 at-bats with 108 of them ending on a fastball. His batting average in the other 187 at-bats was, oddly enough, .187.
Read that again - one eighty seven.
If you haven't thrown up your lunch yet you have an iron stomach.
His BABIP in the minors was insane, like better than Mike Trout or Ty Cobb kinda stuff, at .379. The mark was simply league average in 2014 at .294. Could it improve? Certainly. But with the obvious holes in his game you would be simply insane to expect that mark to go up by .080 points this season.
Does he crush the ball? For sure he does (see below). However, when he's not hitting the ball deep what happens? As a minor leaguer he had a muted 17.6 percent line drive rate (remember the big league average is usually about 20 percent). In year one as an Astro his mark was... 15.3 percent. This is yet another reason that expecting marked improvement in the batting average category is risky.
The fact is that nothing that occurred at the big league level last season suggests that Springer is going to appreciably improve upon that .231 batting average. He's got such a long way to go with his pitch recognition and contact rates. The upside might be a .250 batting average at this point.
The power though, that's legit city. Minimum 300 plate appearances in 2014...
Springer had a .237 Isolated Power mark, the 16th best in baseball (Isolated Power is slugging - average ... it measures power production).
Springer had a .386 Secondary Average mark, the 12th best in baseball (Secondary Average for more see the Sabermetric Primer).
Springer had a 26.2 percent HR/F ratio in the minors. The mark in year one of his big league career was 27.8 percent. I'm not going go say he can't maintain something along those lines, he's done it his entire professional career, but note that there wasn't one player in baseball who qualified for the batting title that had a mark of 27 percent (Jose Abreu at 26.9 percent was the only player above 25.5 percent). Point is that Springer could do it, but not many consistently are able to. Springer did have a slightly elevated fly ball rate at 39.2 percent when compared to the league average of 35 percent. He could stand to hit a few more balls in the air just in case his HR/F ratio does recede a bit.
Springer is 25 years old. Twenty five. He's no youngster. Bryce Harper is only 22 years old, and as I pointed out previously he's only one month younger than Jason Heyward. Seriously. Isn't his lack of refinement a bit troubling to you? Yeah, I'm looking at those of you who are considering taking Springer at the top of a draft. At his age he should be a bit further ahead of the curve, should he not?
PLAYING TIME CONSIDERATIONS
Springer will play everyday in the outfield. The rest of the crew could vary around him with Evan Gattis (Player Profile), Colby Rasmus, Jake Marisnick likely to see the most time. Don't worry about Springer. As long as he's healthy he's playing 150 games.
CONCLUSION
If we double the games played mark of Springer from 2014, and leave him at the same level of performance per plate appearance, we would end up with a 156 game season in which he hit a mere .231 but socked 40 homers with 102 RBIs and 90 runs scored. If he were to give 90 percent of those numbers this season he would be a beast. If he also were to steal 20 bases he would be an absolute monster. The batting average won't be there, but the rest of his game certainly could make him an elite option in the outfield. Raw talent but somewhat unrefined, I can't help but get the feeling that Springer isn't quite going to live up to some folks wild expectations this season.
10 team lg: A second outfielder though his lack of batting average does shrink his value a tad in this format. You will have to roster a couple of .290 type hitters to overcome Springer's obvious failing in that category.
12 team lg: A second outfielder, albeit with less concern than in a shallower league. If he runs as expected, and the power continues unabated as it should, there's not much to fear withe Springer. But, if he doesn't make adjustments... you would be wise to back him up with a solid 3rd outfielder.
15 team lg: Still a second outfield option, at least in my eyes though I know others disagree. If he goes 30/20 and pushes triple digits in runs and runs batted in I will be wrong about that. However, if he doesn't hit 20 thefts and fails to hit .250, there's a chance that he doesn't even end up as an OF2. Hey, it's possible.
AL-only: You know what I'm gonna say. While you build around Springer I'll roster players who have a more established track record who won't potentially crush my batting average.