Collette Calls: Examining Skill Growth

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Updated on December 22, 2015 2:54PM EST

Do you smell that? No, not your old uncle baking brownies over in his recliner. I'm talking about baseball draft prep season. Fantasy football is nearly over, or least it has been over since Week 5 for some of us. While I have not yet seen the first baseball magazine on a store shelf, I am holding a copy of the 2016 Baseball Forecaster in my hands and I've already made my first trade of the season by sending Taylor Guerrieri to the defending league champ in my AL-only home league for Franklin Gutierrez. A risky prospect for a risky outfielder is right up my alley, considering I've had Gutierrez on many a fantasy roster throughout his beleaguered career.

One of the ways I like to look forward into 2016 is examining skills growth to see where players improved or declined from previous seasons. For this article, we'll look into some intriguing developments by batters in the following categories (all data via Fangraphs):

Walk Rate
Strikeout Rate
Isolated Power
Fly Ball Rate
Out of Zone Swing Rate
Swinging Strike Rate
Hard Contact Rate

Walk Rate:

Bryce Harper had the best year-to-year improvement in walk rate, which is why some are taking him with the top pick in mock drafts this year instead of penciling in Mike Trout for yet another year. Anything I say here won't change that. Dan Uggla was next, but it was in limited playing time, his old man skills are locked and loaded and he's

Walk Rate
Strikeout Rate
Isolated Power
Fly Ball Rate
Out of Zone Swing Rate
Swinging Strike Rate
Hard Contact Rate

Walk Rate:

However, the third-best improvement came from the diminutive Ryan Goins, who took his walk rate from an anemic 2.6 percent up to 9.1 percent last season. He ended the season with a .250/.318/.354 slash line because he was so bad early in the season. His second half line of .274/.361/.387 with 32 runs scored had value in AL-only formats. He qualifies at second base and shortstop at draft time and makes for a nice end-game target if he can continue to get on base at the bottom of the lineup and in front of the thunder the Jays have at the top.

If you're looking for a deep mixed-league second catcher option, take a look at Robinson Chirinos in Texas. He doubled his walk rate last season, got his Isolated Power up to .206 and has increased his fly-ball rate. He has his limitations in that he hasn't been able to hold over the course of a full season, and he's a lot better against lefties than he is righties, but there's cheap power to grab in deep leagues as a low-end second catcher or in AL-only leagues as a high-end second catcher.

Strikeout Rate:

The best year-to-year improvement in strikeout rate belonged to Kevin Pillar, who stunned even his own parents with his breakout season in 2015 when he stole 25 bases, hit 12 homers and batted .278 while reducing his strikeout rate from 23 percent to 13.5 percent. The next best improvement belonged to George Springer, who reduced his rate from 33.0 percent in his rookie season down to 24.2 percent last year. That rate is still below the league average, but that's a very nice rate of improvement for the second-year player. The increased contact did result in a drop in his power, but the .276/.367/.459 line in 102 games was nice growth and there could be even more coming in 2016. The early projections for him look quite strong.

We can also look at Aaron Hicks, who prior to being traded to the Yankees lowered his strikeout rate from 25 percent to 17 percent last season while pulling off a double/double stat line with 11 homers, 13 steals and 48 runs csored in 390 plate appearances. The new home park should help, though Hicks has been a much better hitter from the right side of the plate in his brief career. However, he has improved against righties, including with his strikeout rate, year over year.

YEAR	PA	BA	OBP	K%
2013	247	.189	.255	26.7
2014	142	.178	.300	23.9
2015	278	.235	.302	14.0

Lastly, Tyler Flowers made improvements as well. He has historically been a large swing-and-miss guy, but he dropped his K% from 36.0 percent in 2014 to 28.8 percent last season. However, it didn't help him with his batting average, nor his on-base percentage, and he hit with less power. He now takes his act to Atlanta and gets to face the Mets' and Nationals' pitchers on an unbalanced schedule, which will likely give that contact growth right back.

Isolated Power:

Jackie Bradley Jr. saw his ISO jump from a pathetic .068 in 2014 up to an impressive .249 last season. Nearly all of that damage came in the second half of the season when he hit .267/.352/.539 after folks had written him off as a glove-first bust by mid-season. He had 30 extra base hits in 220 second-half plate appearances with 17 doubles, four triples and nine home runs. The oddity of his line is that despite batting lefty, he was terrible against righties last season, hitting .221 compared to .306 against lefties. He added the power without adding to his already poor strikeout rate, but he still has too many holes in his swing to hit for a high average, so rostering him is a play for cheap power.

Zack Cozart was hitting for power until a knee injury in June ended his season. When he went down, he was slugging .459 with a .201 ISO, and both of those numbers were well above his career norms at the big league level. One reason for the spike was that he was lofting balls at a career-best rate and did so while not affecting his contact rates. If Cozart's knee is 100 percent by the start of the season and he can pick up where he left off, he could exceed the 15 homers he hit in 600 plate appearances back in 2012.

Fly-ball Rate:

The largest year-to-year change in fly-ball rate belonged to current free-agent Drew Stubbs. Stubbs had always hit more ground balls than fly balls, but that changed in 2015 with a 0.74 GB/FB rate and a career-high 50 percent fly-ball rate. Sadly, the fly balls did not go very far, as he hit a paltry .195/.283/.382 because fly balls have the lowest chance of landing safely in play. Meanwhile, his former teammate, Jay Bruce, parlayed a 10-percentage-point spike in fly balls into 26 homers - eight more than he hit in 2014. Yet another (now former) Red, Todd Frazier, turned a career-best 48 percent fly-ball rate into a career-best 35 homers last season. He now takes those tendencies to the south side of Chicago, which has been more favorable to fly balls than Great American Ballpark.

Colby Rasmus hit 52 percent of his batted balls into the air this year, by far a career-best. That helped him also hit a career-high 25 homers in 485 plate appearances for the Astros, and he has decided to stay in Houston for the next few years. Conversely, Mike Morse lost the ability to loft a baseball and hit three balls into the ground for every one he got into the air, hitting just five homers in 256 plate appearances. Jason Heyward was able to loft just 24 percent of his batted balls and failed to hit 20 homers for a third consecutive season since he hit 27 back in 2012 for Atlanta.

Out of Zone Swing Rate:

Charlie Blackmon was able to repeat his surprise 2014 and then some last season thanks to more improvement with his strike zone discipline. No other batter improved as much as he did in terms of chasing fewer pitches out of the zone. Manny Machado was right on his heels, and he parlayed that into his monster fantasy season as he became more difficult to get out.

Conversely, Chris Colabello expanded his strike zone even more than he had in 2014 and got better results out of it. The fantasy surprise ended up with 15 homers, 54 RBI and a .321 batting average after being un-drafted in most leagues and DFA'd by the Twins. The expanded strike zone, the .421 BABIP and the 27 percent strikeout rate are three big reasons to bet against any kind of repeat. Lastly, Adam Jones has never been mistaken as a disciplined hitter, as he will often chase pitches that he should spit on. In 2015, his out-of-zone swing rate was a career-worst 47.7 percent, and he had his worst offensive season in recent years in terms of advanced offensive metrics.

Swinging Strike Rate:

The biggest improvements were made by the aforementioned Springer and Machado, but next on the list is Jonathan Villar. Villar didn't get much playing time in Houston after an early-season slump and Carlos Correa's promotion, but when he did, he improved his strikeout rate and made more contact. He's now in Milwaukee, where he's currently projected as the team's third baseman, but he will undoubtedly get time at a few positions and is still a quiet source for steals.

Conversely, Kole Calhoun saw his swinging-strike rate jump nearly four full percentage points, his batting average sank 16 points and his OBP 17 points because of it. He did hit more homers than he had in 2014, but it came at a cost of making contact and getting on base.

Hard Contact Rate:

Yet another list where Harper was the man on top, but just behind him was Lorenzo Cain. This is no surprise for those who watch him play, and the hard contact allowed him to finally break into double-digits homers. He's making more hard contact and hitting more fly balls; do you see where this could go in 2016? Hello 20/20/100/.300! Another player who had a lot more hard contact last season than in 2014 was perennial sleeper Brandon Belt, who hit .280/.356/.478 to get back to where he was in 2013 before a wrist injury derailed his 2014 efforts.

Conversely, three of the larger drops in hard contact were Victor Martinez, Alex Avila and Howie Kendrick. The lack of hard contact showed up in Martinez's and Avila's production, but it has not yet affected Kendrick, as his slash line production has been remarkably consistent in recent seasons.