Another year, another baseball season with me addressing various categories for your fantasy squad and helping lift your team in certain statistical categories. The Category Impact will do just that. I will recommend a few guys for a particular category that can give you an impact, whether it’s for a few weeks or a long-term solution. Each week, be sure to check out my Twitter (@colbyrconway) and vote on which category should be featured in the week’s Category Impact.

It feels like the season just started yesterday, but we are already a few weeks in and this is the THIRD installment of your beloved Category Impact article. Based on the results of the Twitter poll from earlier in the week, we will be talking about home runs in this week’s edition of Category Impact, because you know, chicks dig the long ball!

Without further ado….

Hunter Dozier , 1B KC – Despite having just 11 home runs at the big league level to his name entering this season, the 27-year-old first baseman has made slight work of the beginning of his 2019 campaign, slugging five home runs in 16 games and posting an average exit velocity in the 94th percentile amongst qualified batters. The latter metric above has a big reason to do with his home run prowess here in the beginning of this season. Furthermore, he is one of just 12 players (entering Thursday evening) with a fly ball rate north of 45 percent and a hard contact rate above 43 percent, per FanGraphs. Looking at that further, of those 12 players, his HR/FB rate (23.80%) is middle of the pack and his line drive rate is in the upper half, ahead of players like Anthony Rendon and Paul Goldschmidt .

 

 

 

 

Dozier is a StatCast darling right now (See above, courtesy of Baseball Savant), and while there is some regression to the mean forthcoming, it’s hard to deny his increased exit velocity and launch angle. While he’s on pace for 45 home runs this season (and just 90 RBI to boot), he certainly won’t reach that mark, but a 25 home run season is on the table thanks to this hot start.

Brandon Belt , 1B SFG – There is another interesting guy that meet the same criteria above that Dozier met, and that is San Francisco’s Brandon Belt . In fact, Belt is hitting even more fly balls than Dozier and only a few less line drives. Belt is making hard contact and currently on pace for 34 home runs, and boy wouldn’t that be nice if he could get to that mark! The veteran corner infielder flirts with about 20 home runs each year, but injuries in recent seasons have prevented him from reaching that mark. Health willing, he should burst through that 20 home run brick wall, largely due to a career best .055 HR/PA mark through the first 19 games of the season, per Baseball Savant. Albeit an incredibly small sample size, look at the early season returns on all pitches in terms of Belt delivering the ball to different parts of the field with authority.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s impressive nonetheless, and it’s worth noting that his launch angle is over a degree higher than last season. Belt isn’t, and likely never will be the sexy play in fantasy, but he’s getting the job done and owned in well under one-third of fantasy baseball leagues. It might not be flashy, but this move will benefit your fantasy team and make it better immediately.

Steven Duggar , OF SFG – Despite a less than favorable home park, especially for lefties, we find a second batter from the left hand side residing in San Fran on this list. Steven Duggar and his three home runs on the season is an intriguing add in deeper formats for his potential power production. He only had 10 home runs in the minors once, and that was back in 2016, but he has three long balls on the year already in 2019, despite a suppressed launch angle compared to last season. The encouraging part is that here in 2019, he’s making harder contact and while the ground balls are up, it should slowly creep to where those marks were in 2018. Beyond that, he’s chasing out of the zone less and making less contact outside of the strike zone, explaining why his average exit velocity is about three miles per hour faster and his hard contact rate is up 13 percentage points from last year.

He’s practically free in all formats and won’t cost much in FAAB setups, but this is a purely speculative add, assuming that he can start hitting more fly balls to offset the inevitable regression of that lofty 21.4 percent HR/FB mark.

Brandon Lowe , 2B TB –Lowe’s power numbers escalated throughout his time in the minors, and despite hitting just six round trippers in 43 games with the team last season, the young second baseman has already swatted five in the first 17 games of 2019. He’s making above-average hard contact and ranks above the league average in terms of average exit velocity (65th percentile) and xSLG (78th percentile). The launch angle is decreased from last season, but it’s a small sample size and it hasn’t affected his home run total yet. Again, small sample size, so take it how you wish, but Lowe is doing much better against non-fastballs compared to 2018. See for yourself below, courtesy of Baseball Savant.

 

BATTING AVERAGE

 

SLUGGING PERCENTAGE

 

2018

2019

 

2018

2019

Fastballs

.309

.333

 

.588

.778

Breaking

.143

.250

 

.310

.450

Offspeed

.158

.333

 

.263

.583


Honorable Mention: Scott Kingery, Jorge Soler , Jorge Alfaro

 

Be sure to follow me on Twitter (@colbyrconway) to get your vote in for next week’s edition!