DFS PLAYBOOK PRO – An exciting offering from the Alarm is the DFS Playbook Pro. I will be doing a daily breakdown of the hitters – Hitting Coach – while Howard Bender looks into the Pitchers (Pitching Coach). You can find the link to the Hitting and Pitching articles under the DFS Playbook pro tab at the top right of the screen.
OTHER LINKS TO BOOKMARK
WHO IS SANO?
Miguel Sano has been great to start his career. A quote from Aaron Gleeman explains just how good. “Miguel Sano has the most homers (11), most walks (29), second-most RBI (34), and third-highest OPS (.978) in Twins history through 44 games.”
I had an interesting back and forth Sunday night on Twitter with a handful of Sano backers who must have been aware of the above numbers. We all agreed the power was massive but we had, shall we say, a massive disagreement as to where he is in his development as a hitter. Here are the arguments.
The supports said the following: we know he strikes out a lot, but he has unique hand/eye coordination, hits the ball supremely hard and always has a high BABIP so he should be able to hit .290 plus.
My response – no way in hell is he a borderline .300 hitter right now. I just don’t get why people expect players to do something no one has ever done before. Isn’t it dangerous to continually predict that someone will be the best to have ever played the game in order to reach lofty/unreasonable expectations? A point by point blow to address the thought that he’s a .290-.300 hitter follows.
Sano has a .418 BABIP with the Twins. No one, ever, does that. EVER. It doesn’t happen. Period. EVER.
Minor League Central lists the BABIP of Sano as a minor league as .318. Remember, BABIP averages about .290-.300 for most though players tend to establish their own levels meaning some guys are always at .270 while others are always at .330. Still, given that no one ever posts a mark of .418, and that his minor league number is literally .100 points lower than his mark with the Twins presently, what do you think will happen moving forward? Exactly.
Let’s talk strikeouts. Sano has 65 strikeouts in 44 games which would lead to a pace of 222 strikeouts over the course of 150 games. The all-time single season record is 223 by Mark Reynolds in 2009. Horrific for both men. Let’s combine the strikeouts and batting average. There have been six seasons in baseball history with a guy posting 200 punchouts. Here are the batting averages for each effort.
.260 average - 223 Mark Reynolds (2009)
.204 average - 222 Adam Dunn (2012)
.223 average - 212 Chris Carter (2013)
.221 average - 211 Mark Reynolds (2011)
.243 average - 205 Drew Stubbs (2011)
.239 average - 204 Mark Reynolds (2008)
You don’t hit well if you strikeout 200 times. Only one season even produced a .245 average.
Deeper.
There have been 32 seasons in which a player struck out 185 times. Only 16 times has a player who has done that hit .250. If we bump the number up to .260 the number of the 32 that qualify is 12. If we push the average up to .270 the number shrinks to five. Upwards further to .280 the number is four. And if we push it to .290 the number is a mere two (Bobby Bonds hit .302 with 189 KS in 1970 and Jim Thome hit .291 with 185 Ks in 2001). Guys just don’t hit for average when they strike out that much.
Further data that addresses the average/strikeout conundrum.
Sano has a 35.3 percent strikeout rate this season for the Twins. That’s a huge number, and it’s fair to think that the pace will slow, even with the holes in his swing. Let’s say the number drops to 28 percent (his career rate in the minors was 26 percent). There are nine guys at that level – 28 percent – this season. Of those nine guys none is hitting higher than .262 (Kris Bryant – more on him below). Seven of the other eight guys aren’t even hitting .245. Guys just don’t hit .290 when they strike out this much.
Finally there is this. Just look at Sano’s track record. He’s a career .278 hitter in the minors and was batting just .255 in 133 games at Double-A. He’s just not a .290-.300 hitter, sorry folks.
I seem to have heard the same argument with Kris Bryant as well. We can all agree that Bryant is a more complete hitter who also is more talented. Just the facts. Here are Bryant’s batting average totals per month:
April: .318
May: .265
June: .267
July: .168
August: .343
It’s just not that easy to be consistent in the batting average category when you have holes in your swing and you don’t make enough contact.
IS BAEZ CLOSE TO A RECALL?
Addison Russell injured his groin and is being listed as day-to-day by the Cubs opening up some playing time at second base. The natural 
inclination is to think that the Cubs might call up Javier Baez to play second base. Doesn’t sound like it’s going to happen though. Yeah, why would they call up a guy who is batting .304 with a .890 OPS over 62 games at Triple-A. Why do that when the guy also has 12 homers, 55 RBIs and 15 steals. Not sure why he isn’t being called up. All I can figure is that the Cubs must believe that Russell won’t be out long.
CUBS LOSE AN OUTFIELDER
Jorge Soler was placed on the DL with an oblique issue. Ugh. Soler has started to fine his game again and was doing well in August with a .284 average and .372 OBP while driving in 14 runs over 19 games. Alas he’s now out, likely for a month, which means he may or may not return this season. If so he will end the year batting .265 with seven homers and 42 RBIs over the course of 90 really disappointing games. How else can you term his effort that led to a .710 OPS?
Chris Coghlan will have to step up for the Cubs in Soler’s absence. Can he? Chris is batting .250 and is a career .269 hitter. Not much to see there. Chris has 35 RBIs over 393 plate appearances and that’s awful. It’s not all gloom and doom though. Coghlan has 15 homers and 11 steals, a nice little power/speed combo wouldn’t you say? You who cannot match those numbers? Try on this for size: Mike Trout who has only 10 steals. It’s pretty darn difficult to think that Coghlan can keep up the power pace, his HR/F ratio of 16.3 percent is nearly double his career rate of 8.7 percent, but he’s been a cheap action hero this season.
A RETURN IS NEAR?
How in the world is Marcus Stroman back on the hill? He threw a 40 pitch simulated game Monday and will throw another Friday. It’s starting to sound like he could take the mound at some point for the Blue Jays in September. I’m not counting on him at all, but my goodness. People talk about Adrian Peterson being a medical marvel but he’s got nothing on Stroman. Marcus had surgery to repair a torn ACL on March 19th. Wow.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday at 8 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 9 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).