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The curse of the Home Run Derby. Or maybe it’s a hangover? No matter what you call it, this is one of those tropes among baseball fans that returns every season. Fans don’t want players from their favorite teams to participate in the derby lest it ruin their momentum and ruin their seasons. With Shohei Ohtani, Joey Gallo, Juan Soto and others leading this year’s class, there’s a lot at stake if that were to happen.
Many fantasy players surely have the same concerns, but I do not share those concerns at all. To show why, I’ve looked at every home run derby participant since 2003, comparing their performance in the first half to their performance in the second half, as well as their performance in the previous season. After limiting it to players who had at least 250 AP before the break, 200 after and at least 350 the previous season, I still had 117 seasons of players among the derby participants.
Of those 117 players, they collectively hit .295 / .379 .558 before their performance at the Home Run Derby, up from .283 / .371 / .512 afterwards. It’s not an incredible drop in performance, but you’ll definitely notice an 8% reduction in power generation from Ohtani, right?
So, case closed, right? The derby ruins the swings and you should be very worried if you have one of the participants on your team, right?
Not exactly. Because, if you compare a player’s post-ASB performance to his previous season, there is indeed no difference:
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At the level of the population, at least, there does not seem to be a hangover at all after the derby. What that looks like is pretty obvious: The players who are selected for the Home Run Derby (and the All-Star Game) generally have a very, very good first half, especially compared to their established baselines.
This does not mean that all derby players will regress in the second half, or that there will not be some who struggle powerfully after the derby. There were 10 players who improved their OPS by 0.100 or more after the Derby. It’s not nothing ! It will probably happen this year as well.
But it is much more likely that a player will decline; 13 of the 117 players in the sample saw their OPS drop by more than 0.200 after the derby, and 24 saw their OPS drop by at least 0.150. Some of them probably stand out in your memory: Mark Trumbo in 2012, Todd Frazier in 2015, Bobby Abreu in 2005. Of course, it’s worth remembering that each of those 24 except Abreu in 2005 got better results than they had done. the previous season, including 14 who were at least 0.100 ahead of the previous season in the first half.
This is not necessarily proof that the derby cannot spoil a player’s performance. It’s just one more thing a player has to expend energy on for a long season, and there has been at least anecdotal testimony from players about how the derby spoiled their momentum. But, when trying to predict performance, there isn’t much of a reason to believe that derby participation is a particularly important factor to consider.
That is to say, yes, the guys who take part in the derby on Monday night probably won’t be as good in the second half as they were in the first. But it’s not because of the derby. This is because, as a general rule, you should expect that most players who perform much better in a sample smaller than their established baseline will fall back in the direction of that baseline.
Of course, figuring out which players are more likely to regress and which are not is a big part of playing Fantasy Baseball well, so let’s take a look at the eight entrants in this year’s derby and see which ones could be in one. second half-disappointment:
From a performance standpoint, I think Ohtani is mostly legit – he really has one of the best powerhouses in the game. I’ll take the least on a 1.062 OPS the rest of the way, but my real concern is mostly with injuries. . Ohtani will always be at a higher risk of injury than most positional players because he is not just a positional player. It also carries the occupational risk of throwing a baseball as hard as possible 100 times every six days. I think Ohtani is a candidate for sale, but he’s also so much fun to have on your team that I can’t really recommend selling him, if that makes sense.
Whether Olson continues to be an elite hitter ultimately comes down to one thing: whether he can keep hitting as well against a left-handed pitcher. For his career, Olson has a .109 higher OPS against righties than against lefties, but that has been reversed this season. He’s got 11 of his 23 home runs against lefties and he’s 21.1% strikeout against them; he had a 27.0% K rate against them in the previous two seasons. If those improvements persist, he’s a completely different hitter, one of the best in the game. He’s the consensus No. 3 first baseman among the three Fantasy Baseball Today analysts, so we agree.
It should be borne in mind that Gallo was only hitting 0.214 with an OPS of 0.764 as of June 19 and was considered one of the biggest disappointments of his Fantasy level. He’s been ridiculously hot ever since, hitting 13 home runs in his last 18 games to get his numbers where they are – a much more respectable triple-slash of 0.239 / 0.402 / 0.522 with 24 home runs. All of a sudden, he’s not far from where he was in 2019 before injuries derailed his season, and he’s doing a lot better than he did in a disastrous 2020. Gallo has his best strikeout rate this season, which is a good sign, but his expected stats don’t quite match what he’s done so far. Gallo is an incredible power hitter who should be a go-to fantasy option going forward, but he’s also an incredibly marked hitter, someone who could absolutely wear your team on their fingertips but could also fall apart. at the worst possible time. He’s probably a high sell candidate because his value has likely peaked, but it’s not like I expected the bottom to drop if you don’t.
Perez has played 126 games in the past two seasons and has 33 home runs, 85 RBIs and 63 RBIs, which is pretty exceptional for a wide receiver. Especially a catcher who has nearly 50 more home plate appearances than anyone else in this position. The area-level numbers aren’t as good as last season, but he’s hitting the ball even better, with expected stats suggesting he’s actually been a little bit unlucky. Perez appears to have taken a step forward over the past two seasons, although his OPS after the all-star break for his career is 0.042 lower than it was before, possibly because his massive workloads entail slowdowns linked to fatigue. If there’s a risk here, that’s where it comes from.
Honestly it might be a little too high as I think Alonso has probably underperformed so far this season. He has his lowest strikeout rate ever and has done so without sacrificing quality of contact. His expected stats back this up, suggesting he hit more like a .263 hitter with a .520 slugging percentage. In all likelihood, Alonso will likely be even better after the Derby.
Mancini’s return from cancer has been one of the best stories in the league so far, and there’s good reason to believe he can get even better in the second half. He doesn’t hit the ball as hard as in 2019, but his barrel rate fell from 9.9% to 12.9%, while his expected stats suggest he should have won something like an average of 0.285. with a 0.050 hit percentage above his .460 mark. There’s still a good chance Mancini will finish with 30 homers and 100 RBIs this season, and that’s a buy for the second half in my eyes.
If it’s too low, it’s only because there might be more than a 5% chance that the Rockies’ trade history is. There haven’t been a lot of rumors anyway, but he’ll be a free agent this offseason and the Rockies don’t have much to play in 2021, so it would make sense for them to see what they can. get . That said, even if he’s traded, I think Story would be able to handle better than a .249 / .323 / .442 line in the second half.
You’ve probably already missed your low buy window on Soto, which hits .296 / .418 / .504 with 30 home runs, 17 steals, 129 points and 109 RBIs since early June. His underlying numbers have been good all season, and I think he’ll be even better than that .922 OPS the rest of the way. Soto is still in the top five for me, even ahead of Guerrero, and I would always try to buy him if anyone considers him less than that.
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