The Fantasy Baseball Diary: Yoenis Cespedes

Yoenis Cespedes had 23 home runs for the Athletics in 2012.

I just got home from dinner with a friend. Unless I’m on the way to a ballpark, I hardly go out for dinner. Not because of my social anxiety, which I sometimes I exaggerate to get out of having to go to events I don’t want to go to (insert evil laugh), but because I’m vegan. Most people when they hear vegan they conjure up a stereotypical archetype in their head. In most cases it’s either a hippie living near Haight and Ashbury or a young female in a Lifetime movie where the audience learns she's a vegan when she meets her boyfriend’s parents, who are meat and potatoes people, for the first time. Either way, veganism isn’t seen in a positive light.

The first question I’m always asked is some variation of “I hope you’re able to eat here” in a pandering tone. The tone of the question reminds me of intoxicated people at a bar continually asking the sober person why they’re not drinking. Since its Monday, the restaurant was relatively empty, which made my experience more enjoyable. Unless I’m talking baseball, I never know what to say after about ten minutes of conversation. But I was in luck, my friend works in the same industry I used to worked in so we talked about regression and multivariate landing page testing. Pretty interesting stuff right? Now think how much more interesting it would be if you went on a first date with me. I bet it would exceed all your expectations.

Speaking of expectations, to say Yoenis Cespedes surpassed all expectations in his rookie season is an understatement.

Compare out these two heat maps:

Player A is Cespedes and Player B is Ryan Braun.

What made his season more remarkable was his acculturation to the big leagues and to living in the United States. It’s easy to forget he didn’t speak English, had to live in place that was foreign to him and do all this without the help of his support system. The simplest things we take for granted such as ordering a pizza or going to the laundromat were tasks for him. I’m not implying Cespedes did all this on his own; he had Ariel Prieto, former Athletics pitcher from Cuba, as his mentor/interpreter for the entire season.

With only a few weeks of spring training, the Athletics decided to put the best all-around player to come out of Cuba on their final 25 man roster. Other than the jump from high-A to Double A (minor leagues), jumping to the big leagues is the hardest jump in baseball. He had to make adjustments, on the fly, from facing pitchers in the Cuban National Series to exploding breaking stuff in the big leagues. Consequently, Cespedes started off slowly, putting up a slash line of .245/.319/.434 (AVG/OBP/SLG). However, for the rest of the year he posted a slash line of .304/.366/.525. If he maintained his .525 slugging percentage for the entire year he would have ranked 12^th in the league, just behind Prince Fielder.

The question for fantasy owners is he legit?

His .326 BABIP (batting average on balls in play) was a little higher than average BABIP of .300, implying a regression is coming. However, his plus (above average) speed will allow for him to have a higher BABIP because he’ll be able to leg out hits.

Cespedes has the rare combination of speed and power, leading to comparisons to Bo Jackson. If you don’t know Bo, you should check out him out; he had the best tools (run, throw, hit, power, fielding) of any player I’ve ever seen. By looking at Cespedes’ cold zones it looks as though are no weaknesses in his plate coverage. He has the raw tools be a 30/30 (home run/steals) player and he's being drafted 63^rd at Mock Draft Central, which is a tremendous steal. 

ROY or Not, Cespedes a Quick Learner

Ordinarily, Oakland A's outfielder Yoenis Cespedes would earn Rookie of the Year hardware for his performance during the 2012 season. Cespedes racked up nearly 250 total bases and slugged 23 home runs while transitioning from Cuban baseball (thought to be the equivalent of A-Ball stateside) to the majors. 2012 could hardly be described as an ordinary year, however -- not with a Mickey Mantle-in-training grabbing the nation's attention with each circus-like catch and clout.

While Cespedes lost out to Mike Trout in ROY voting, the new face of Oakland's franchise proved to be a quick study against major league pitching. He started his big league career swinging and missing at Adam Dunn-like levels, but he connected much more frequently as he led the A's to their first playoff appearance since 2006.

At times, Cespedes looked like he came straight from A-Ball during his first month in the majors. His 38% miss rate during April was second-highest among qualified hitters, besting only Dave Kingman doppelganger Mark Reynolds. Cespedes had an especially hard time against low pitches, whiffing 57% of the time that he swung:

Cespedes' contact rate in April

Cespedes logged only 23 plate appearances in May due to a left hand injury. But when he returned in June, he was a much more complete hitter. His 28% overall miss rate matched the MLB average, and he sliced his miss rate on low pitches to 36%:

Cespedes' contact rate in June

He plateaued contact-wise during his monstrous July, missing 28% of pitches overall and a slightly smaller percentage of low stuff than the month before (33%)...

Cespedes' contact rate in July

...Then cut his miss rate down to 22% in August (26% on low pitches):

Cespedes' contact rate in August

Cespedes whiffed slightly more in September (25% overall, and 32% on low pitches), but that was still far below his early season rates:

Cespedes' contact rate in September

Cespedes was a near-automatic out against low pitches prior to his hand injury, coming up empty over half of the time he swung at stuff thrown at the knees and slugging just .333 (about 40 points below the MLB average). From June on, though, Cespedes cut his miss rate to below the league average led the American League with a .563 slugging percentage against low pitches. He went from a liability to lethal in no time, and his counterpunching pitchers so quickly bodes well for his future. Cespedes is no Trout, but he's much more than the one-dimensional slugger some feared he would become.

Cespedes with a Veteran's Strike Zone

All 2012 data through Sunday, April 22nd; Minimum 100 Pitches Outside the Strike Zone. (Click image to enlarge)

Athletics' rookie Yoenis Cespedes is getting calls like a veteran.  He has the lowest called strike rate on pitches out of the strike zone - in fact, of the 88 pitches he's taken outside the zone, only one has been called a strike.  In 2011, MLB players who saw at least 500 pitches out of the zone averaged a 9.6% called strike rate.

Yoenis Cespedes - All pitches taken outside the strike zone.You can see that the vast majority of called balls for Cespedes are not close to the strike zone, which certainly brings down his overall rate.  However, there are a number of pitches in that borderline area that have simply gone his way; six have come with two strikes. Not bad for a guy with only 16 Major League games under his belt.