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Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon And Alex Bregman Are On An MLB Leaderboard That Doubles As A Warning Sign

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The Great Offensive Explosion of 2019 has intensified in recent weeks. All but a small handful of clubs are set to break—or obliterate, in most cases—their franchise home run records.

Yes, the new baseball is the primary driver behind this development, but you can't ignore the impact of the increased hitter focus on the maximization of launch angle. Ground balls don't leave the yard, so hitters are doing their level best to eliminate them.

Problem is, there's quite a bit of risk in such a focus. This piece from the past off-season takes a look at the negative impact that a launch angle increase had on the development of the Indians' Jason Kipnis. It isn't for everyone, folks.

Let's take a look at 10 highest average launch angles among primary regulars from the 2016 to 2018 seasons:

2018

  • Brandon Belt - 22.5 degrees
  • Adam Duvall - 22.5
  • Rhys Hoskins - 22.4
  • Robinson Chirinos - 21.6
  • Jay Bruce - 21.5
  • Joey Gallo - 21.5
  • Christian Villanueva - 21.0
  • Matt Carpenter - 20.2
  • Gregory Polanco - 19.9
  • Lucas Duda - 19.7

2017

  • Mike Napoli - 22.2 degrees
  • Carpenter - 21.6
  • Duvall - 21.2
  • Belt - 20.9
  • Mike Zunino - 20.5
  • Todd Frazier - 20.4
  • Kyle Seager - 20.3
  • Curtis Granderson - 20.2
  • Yonder Alonso - 19.4
  • Ian Kinsler - 19.3

2016

  • Brandon Moss - 21.1 degrees
  • Belt - 20.0
  • Kris Bryant - 19.8
  • Chris Carter - 18.8
  • Frazier - 18.7
  • Carpenter - 18.2
  • Chris Davis - 18.2
  • Kinsler - 18.1
  • Brian McCann - 19.1
  • Justin Turner - 17.8

There are not a lot of success stories on those lists. Only Justin Turner—who had the lowest average launch angle of them all, which wouldn't rank within hailing distance of the 2019 top 10—has experienced extended success thereafter. I'm also quite optimistic about the near to intermediate-term outlook for Joey Gallo, as his ability to utterly annihilate the baseball would seem to trump any and all orange to red flags.

Chris Carter immediately disappeared. Kris Bryant has been good, but far from an MVP candidate after 2016. Chris Davis' decline has been stark, and particularly ugly.

Many others—the Yonder Alonsos, Lucas Dudas, Jay Bruces, Ian Kinslers—have slowly drifted toward irrelevance, with spurts of power marking their respective declines. Todd Frazier is right behind them. Some, like Robinson Chirinos, parlayed those bursts into late-career paydays, and others, like Christian Villanueva, took their act overseas.

A couple of multi-year repeaters, Matt Carpenter and Brandon Belt, might be the biggest success stories. Both hit tons of fly balls but not that many pop ups, managed their K and BB rates well and showed propensities for maintaining high liner rates. Still, Belt's having a rough 2019, and Carpenter spent some time in the minors this year.

Besides hitting tons of fly balls, there is a common thread connecting all of these players. Every one of them has (or had during their high launch angle phase) an extreme ground ball-pulling tendency. When you hit a bunch of fly balls, (usually) a bunch of pop ups AND a bunch of pulled grounders, you absolutely need to limit your Ks and hit a bunch of liners to stay afloat. Your path to success is quite narrow, your path to stardom all but impassable for all but the game's true elites.

And that brings us back to 2019. What does our list of Top 10 average launch angles among primary MLB regulars look like? There are some very interesting names included herein:

2019

  1. Rhys Hoskins - 24.9 degrees
  2. Edwin Encarnacion - 23.2
  3. Belt - 21.6
  4. Mike Trout - 20.7
  5. Jose Ramirez - 20.2
  6. Enrique Hernandez - 19.8
  7. Alex Bregman - 19.6
  8. Christin Stewart - 19.6
  9. Anthony Rendon - 19.5
  10. Renato Nunez - 19.3

Very, very interesting to see names the caliber of Trout, Bregman and Rendon on this list.

Let's handle this group from the worst prognosis for future success to the best. Christin Stewart is just a "guy," one of those regulars you see pop up on historically bad clubs, like this year's Tigers. He's an extreme grounder-puller, and hits those grounders very weakly thanks to a severe uppercut swing. If not for an inflated liner rate, his numbers would be downright awful.

Enrique Hernandez is essentially a nondescript regular. His batted-ball profile doesn't stand out in any meaningful way, but he is not an extreme puller on the ground, and his positional flexibility gives him a pathway to a extended stint as a complementary player on a really good club like the Dodgers.

Edwin Encarnacion and Brandon Belt are in decline, and are in the process of harvesting every last bit of power in their respective repertoires. Both are extreme grounder-pullers. Belt hits his fly balls harder than his liners or grounders; that has proven to be quite a red flag in recent years. Encarnacion's fly ball and pop up rates—always higher than the norm—have both exploded to stratospheric levels in 2019. He's basically pulling a Napoli, or a Granderson.

Renato Nunez is an interesting case, another player who might not have gotten his chance on anything other than a tanking ball club. On the positive side, he hits all batted ball types well harder than league average, and doesn't have a pronounced grounder-pulling tendency. On the other hand, he's primarily a DH at a young age, and his K/BB profile evokes Adam Duvall.

Rhys Hoskins had an old player profile the day he showed up in the big leagues. Extremely high average launch angle? Check. Extreme ground ball-pulling tendency? Check. His profile is aging somewhat rapidly, as well, as his pop up rate is rising while his fly ball rates seems to have topped out. The Phils should not make a mistake and hand Hoskins a huge long-term deal, as he's likely to be a washout by the end of it.

Jose Ramirez was horrendous in the first half of 2019, surprising a whole lot of people, but not me. An extreme grounder-puller from both sides of the plate, Ramirez has relied on fly ball volume more than authority to amass strong power totals. He was a weak fly ball machine in the first half; his average launch angle was over a degree higher, at 21.5, as recently as the All Star break. His floor is high thanks to a minuscule K rate, but don't be fooled into believing he'll ever again reach his 2017-18 ceiling.

That leaves us with the Big Three. Alex Bregman scares me the most. He is very adept at selectively pulling the ball for distance, Ian Kinsler's calling card in his heyday. Bregman's average fly ball velocity is actually measurably lower than league average, and his pop up rate is off the charts high. His very low K rate gives him plenty of margin for error contact authority-wise, and Gold Glove-plus level of defense certainly counts, big-time. I believe in the overall package, but don't see him as a long-term franchise player offensively.

No one in the majors, not even Hoskins, has a higher 2019 fly ball percentage than Anthony Rendon. Despite its explosive upward move since last season, he is hitting way fewer pop ups. He's never been an extreme grounder-puller, and though his batted-ball authority, once comfortably above average across BIP types, has now been concentrated more in his fly balls, there aren't material signs of aging in his profile. That said, his fly ball volume has nowhere to go but down, so this likely marks his career peak.

Which leaves us with Mike Trout. As with Rendon, there are no red flags here. There may be some yellow ones, however. Prior to 2019, Trout had never posted the average range liner authority and below average range grounder authority that he has posted this year. His fly ball rate spiked by an order of magnitude in 2017, from the slightly to well above average range. Now, it's at still another level, and has nowhere to go but down. Ditto his liner rate, which is now comfortably in ripe-for-regression range.

Now don't get me wrong, Mike Trout is as close as we have to Superman in today's game. Despite the way he's impacting the baseball, his K rate is flirting with a career low despite the industry trend in the opposite direction. Still, those 2016-18 average launch angle leader lists show that he, and the others on the 2019 list, are playing with fire. Focusing on lifting and pulling opens up holes for pitchers to exploit. Let the first half struggles of Jose Ramirez serve as fair warning; an overt focus on power at all costs is likely to come back and bite you at some point.

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