Eric Hosmer’s fantasy value for the rest of 2013

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It’s 9:13 AM PDT Tuesday morning, and I’m staring at my 22.22 Oz¹ Oakland Athletics 2012 AL West Champions mug attempting to think of a topic to write about for my debut article. I acquired the mug from a proprietor with a blue and white ice cooler, which was full of uniquely adorned A’s mugs all of the same size, for $10 as I tailgated at the O.co Coliseum before game three of the ALDS. It’s only been seven months and the lettering is still is still intact and shows no sign of deprecation.² I tend to ramble and get off track a lot. Rambling is a technique I learned in freshman year creative writing or from the movie Finding Forrester.³ Either way, it helps get the creative juices flowing.

It just occurred to me, what can be better than fantasy heartbreak? Specifically, when fantasy owners draft a player with high expectations, but the player drastically falls short of those expectations. Every fantasy player experiences heartbreak with at least one player every year. In fact, if you play fantasy baseball long enough, you come to expect it – like someone coughing on your right hand as you ride the Muni N Train home.

Last year, Eric Hosmer broke my heart. However, that didn’t stop me from believing in him again. I targeted and drafted him in all four of my NFBC Leagues.⁴ There wasn’t a bigger believer in Hosmer’s fantasy value entering this season than me. I legitimized my love by citing many reasons why he performed so poorly (in 2012) and how this was the year he was going to turn it around.

“Making adjustments at the major-league level is difficult, especially at the age of 22.” “There’s no way he’s going to have .255 BABIP again.” “His approach has become more refined; his walk rate went from 6.0 percent in his rookie season to 9.4 percent in 2012.” “He’ll revert back to the swing mechanics he had during his rookie year.” “At the time of his call-up, Kevin Goldstein said, ‘Hosmer is arguably the best hitting prospect at the upper levels (in the minors).’ Therefore, Hosmer has all the tools necessary to have a great rebound season.” These are some of the statements I made to myself about his fantasy value and everything pointed to a breakout season.

We’re one month into the season and, suffice to say, I’m not giving up on Hosmer, but I do have one foot out the door. I’ll begin with the statistical analysis first. All the caveats about a small sample size apply. His slash line, in 101 plate appearances, is .258/.337/.326. That’s not a misprint; he actually has a .326 slugging with zero home runs. His strikeout rate, 20 percent, is four percentage points higher than last year. The most troubling stat is he’s continuing to hit a lot of ground balls. According to FanGraphs, he’s hitting a ground ball 52.1 percent of the time; last year it was 53.6 percent. Players with 50 percent ground ball rates are usually reserved for contact hitters such as Elvis Andrus and Howie Kendrick.

The biggest difference this year is how he’s being pitched to. In 2011, he saw a lot of pitches away in the strike zone, but this year, he’s being pitched more on the inner half of the zone. The heat map below shows the difference in pitch frequency between 2011 and this year.