Kansas City’s Whit Merrifield was in rare company in the shortened 2020 season. He was one of 13 players to steal at least ten bases last year, and one of just eight to steal 12 or more bases. Furthermore, only Merrifield, Trevor Story , and Trea Turner had at least nine home runs and 12 stolen bases. That is pretty rare company to say the least. In fact, if you really look at it, Merrifield was just a step behind Story in 2020. I don’t envision that to be the same in 2021, but Merrifield has been a guy that just continues to produce when many believe that regression is going to bite him where the sun doesn’t shine. Is 2021 the year that happens, or does he remain an elite fantasy asset, due to his production in fantasy baseball’s most dreaded offensive category. Let’s discuss.

He cut into his strikeout rate and his 12.5 percent mark from last year is exceptional. However, his walk rate dropped to 4.5 percent, so he doesn’t have the benefit of walks boosting his on-base percentage. However, he swung out of the zone less, swung in the zone more, and his contact rate jumped up to 85.5 percent, so you can live with a slight downturn in walks. The only negative regarding the walk rate is that it is the second straight year that his mark has decreased.

Partly due to league groupthink on pitching philosophy, but 2020 was the second straight year of less fastballs and more off-speed pitches for Merrifield at the dish. Now, to his credit, he had a nice jump in exit velocity against off-speed pitches, but the red and blue lines are worrisome for different reasons. The red line is a concerning trend and the blue line is a return to normalcy, suggesting 2019 was an outlier.

Merrifield isn’t going to be a huge power producer, but any further decline in exit velocity could turn him from a 16-18 home run guy down to a 12-14 guy. Sure, it’s only a couple home runs, but it is a big deal! However, I’m not a Merrifield guy, and I’m going to avoid again in 2021. There’s a concerning trend with his most important fantasy asset. His speed is slowly declining and it’s going to catch up with him sooner or later. Take a look at this, courtesy of Baseball Savant.

 

5ft

15ft

30ft

60ft

75ft

80 ft

2017

0.55

1.11

1.78

2.88

3.39

3.55

2018

0.55

1.12

1.79

2.89

3.40

3.57

2019

0.55

1.12

1.79

2.90

3.41

3.58

2020

0.58

1.18

1.85

2.97

3.49

3.66


The typical lead for a runner attempting to steal is anywhere from 9-to-12 feet. To make it easy, let’s say he gets a ten-foot lead, meaning he has 80 feet to cover between the end of his lead and his destination. The league average pop time for catchers is 2.00, and the higher end of the average for the pitcher to get the ball to Merrifield is 1.5 seconds. That 3.5-second window, which of course has plenty of wiggle room due to a plethora of factors involved on this play, doesn’t leave Merrifield much room for error. Again, yes, this is a situation in a vacuum with a lot of moving parts, but the fact remains that losing nearly a tenth of a second off his time from recent years is a really, really, really big deal.

While I have my reservations about Merrifield in 2021, the fact remains that he’s likely going to be a similar player to what we have seen in recent years. He should hit about 15 home runs and will likely steal somewhere around 20-25 bases. At his current price, even with steals being super valuable in this age of fantasy baseball, I don’t know if 20 or 25 bags is going to entice me to pull the trigger near the end of the third round. Having eligibility at a couple positions helps, but there are other guys after him that are more enticing.

If it were my team, around the same price, I’d target Luis Robert ’s upside or grab an outfielder like Starling Marte .

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Statistical Credits:
fangraphs.com
baseballsavant.mlb.com
nfc.shgn.com/adp/baseball