Is It Legit 4/24: Scrutinizing Hitters On Hot Streaks

(Photo by Douglas Stringer/Icon Sportswire)

Let’s take a look at some of this week’s hottest hitters.

Yoan Moncada (23 AB / 3 HR / 3 SB / .348 AVG)

Moncada is rocking a 38% strikeout rate. Even during this last week of heat he’s been striking out a lot. It doesn’t seem enough to stop him though as he has been putting up excellent fantasy stats lately. Per FanGraphs, he leads the majors with the lowest soft contact rate (4.8%). That intrigues me as he’s hitting for such good contact that the strikeout rate is actually not prohibitive, well, at least over the past week it hasn’t been. He’s crushing the ball and it is showing. The weird thing about Moncada is he actually has a really low outside swing rate (18%) so we know he doesn’t swing wildly, it’s just when he does swing for a good pitch he doesn’t always make contact. That is at least something to put him above other players going all out for hard contact. The problem is that his BABIP has been .378 and that is entirely unsustainable. Even with that sky-high BABIP he has only managed a .240 batting average on the season. I’m hopeful that this past week can lead to some plate discipline gains but I’m also way too worried he hits .200 for the rest of the season. There’s upside but I’m not ready to buy in to the batting average. NOT LEGIT

Javier Baez (25 AB / 3 HR / 9 RBI / .480 AVG)

Baez was on Is It Legit last week and I called it legit. He has only kept up the pace. I said we would expect a huge upswing in batting average and that’s exactly what we saw. xStats.org is giving him a .299 batting average on the season. He is maintaining the reduced strikeout rate as he only struck out 4 times this past week. He’s similar to Moncada as they both swing very hard but are showing improved selectivity on which pitches they are actually swinging at. Once again I’m buying in. LEGIT

Mitch Haniger (26 AB / 4 HR / .423 AVG)

Haniger is showing everything we were hoping from him this year. His strikeout rate is down, walk rate is up, hard hit rate is over 40%, fly ball rate is over 40%, and his contact rates have remained steady. He doesn’t have an inflated BABIP or any major signs of concern. Haniger should be a safe bet to continue to produce a strong batting average and great power stats. Preseason I was expecting something like a .265 batting average and 25 home runs from Haniger. With the improvements he’s shown I could see the average ending up closer to .285, depending on how the plate discipline holds up. 25 home runs seems very low considering he’s at 8 thus far. I could see him hit out as many as 35 home runs this year, if that isn’t too bold. Who knows, maybe that isn’t bold enough. He did face some weak pitching from the Texas Rangers so we won’t be hitting 4 home runs every week, but on the whole I’m liking his profile. LEGIT

Marcus Semien (27 AB / 2 HR / 2 SB / .296 AVG)

Batting leadoff for the A’s has been excellent for getting plenty of at bats for Semien. Semien does have some history being a good power/speed combo so I think even without digging into the numbers we shouldn’t be shocked to see a nice HR/SB combo week. While his slash line has been .270/.327/.420 on the year, xStats has his expected numbers at .258/.320/.410. That’s a little below where he’s at but not drastically. So while the higher average this past week was nice, we do know that we shouldn’t expect him to exceed what we’ve seen in the past. NOT LEGIT

Brandon Belt (22 AB / 4 HR / .364 AVG)

What is Brandon Belt doing? He’s supposed to be the guy with no power. Well he played every game this week away from AT&T Park and he has taken full advantage of it. Belt has become an even more extreme fly-ball and pull hitter than he already was. The fly ball percentage is up from 47% to 54% and the pull percentage is up from 39% to 48%. This may simply be normal variation but at least for the time being he seems to be yanking the ball to the max. I’m concerned this pull and fly ball rate might be too extreme. xStats.org does believe the power is legit with 5 xHR but his xAVG is down at .220. With a batting average down there a boost in power wouldn’t be worth it. This early change is interesting but its not going to push Belt into the top 10 at 1B any time soon. NOT LEGIT