This is a results-oriented business, and Hanley Ramirez just doesn't much in the way of results to offer his Fantasy owners so far. Among players classified as a DH by FanGraphs.com, Ramirez ranks just 12th out of 13 in wOBA, with a .256 mark. After hitting his first homer of the year Sunday, Hanley ranks just 536th among all players in Roto scoring, including just 41st at first base; the numbers in H2H scoring are similar.
By any measure, Ramirez has been a huge disappointment this season.
Or at least, by most measures. MLB.com recently introduced a stat, Expected Weight On-base average (xwOBA) that attempts to predict player performance based on Statcast data. They compare every batted ball to similar ones from the past, and then assign a hit probability as well as a slugging probably to each one. Basically, they are trying to predict what a batter's results should be, based on how they have hit the ball.
What they are trying to define is intuitive: A batter can't control what a fielder does. If you get robbed of a home run, you don't get credit for that home run, but it's hard to argue that was a failed trip to the plate. A well-struck ball doesn't always lead to a positive result, but an ability to hit the ball well consistently tends to, in the long run, lead to positive results.
And, at least by this metric, few hitters have been more unlucky than Ramirez. His expected wOBA of .406 would actually be an improvement on last season, and his best mark since that magical half season in Los Angeles back in 2013. It would also be tops among major-league designated hitters. However, he has underperformed that number by .147 to date.
It remains to be seen how predictive this data ultimately ends up being in the long run, but it certainly has descriptive power. Which is to say, Ramirez is, on the whole, hitting the ball hard, sporting an above-average 90.5 MPH average exit velocity. And, he isn't just hitting the ball hard into the ground, one sure way to underperform despite hitting the ball hard, as his career-low groundball rate shows. However, this isn't the only stat that shows reasons for optimism for Ramirez.
Take, for instance, MLB.com's stat, "Barrels". This, essentially, is the way MLB.com defines an ideally struck ball. Last season they collectively resulted in an .822 batting average and 2.386 slugging percentage. Ramirez ranks tied for 12th in the majors with eight barrels, but has gone just 4/8 on such balls, with nine total bases. Here are two pretty obvious examples of where Ramirez has just been flat-out robbed for what should have been extra-base hits:
You don't need some fancy algorithm to tell you those would likely be hits more often than not, as the defenders needed to leave their feet at a full run to track down a ball hit to the warning track. Results aside, it's hard to come up with a better outcome when you swing the ball than what Ramirez managed there. He just hit them to the wrong spots.
And, it's not like Ramirez is being killed by the shift, the way someone like Joe Mauer, another would-be xwOBA star might be. Ramirez has gone 4 for 7 against shifts, per FanGraphs, after hitting .390 against them last season. However, he is just 8 for 44 when putting the ball into play against traditional defensive alignments; he had a .310 BABIP against them last season.
Add all of this up, and it's pretty easy to come to one conclusion: Ramirez has been the victim of some no-good, rotten luck. Maybe you don't buy the numbers, which is fair, but if you are looking for someone to buy low on, I think there's a pretty good argument for why Ramirez should be near the top of your list. He's still hitting in the heart of a Red Sox lineup that has the second-highest team on-base percentage, so RBI opportunities are there for him, if he can just take advantage.
It might not happen for him. Ramirez's history of inconsistent performance is perhaps only overshadowed by his history of injury on the list of reasons to be skeptical of him. And he is dealing with a shoulder injury that has kept him out of the field, though I'd be more worried about it if it seemed to be affecting his swing. However, those are also reasons why his owner might be willing to give him away for relatively little, which could make the investment worthwhile. If I had the chance, I would swing Travis Shaw or Ryan Zimmerman for Ramirez without thinking twice about it.
There's still a lot to like about what Ramirez is doing, if you just look past the results.
