Hero to Zero: July to August
All stats via Baseball Reference and FanGraphs
Here we are…the not-so-fun side of our July to August comparison. It’s a lot easier to highlight the guys that are on the up and up, showing improvement over a slump. It’s tougher to take a look at some players who had a solid July, and followed that up with a lackluster August. I have a hard time criticizing players since these guys are the best of the best, and what little skill I had to play in high school would make everyone laugh. But it’s only fair to point out who needs to pick it back up now that September has arrived.
If you’re unfamiliar on how this works, take a look at the recent article I did on Zero to Hero: July to August. First, we’re going to take a look at some guys that showed up on the list that I couldn’t include on the rankings. If the player is still providing a .715ish OPS, that means they likely had a great July and regressed back to the mean, and is still a valuable bat. So, I had to remove some outliers from the top OPS variances month over month. These honorable mentions are those outliers.
Honorable mentions:
Nick Kurtz (ATH)
July OPS: 1.433
August OPS: 1.008
Variance: -0.425
Although he has the 3rd highest dropoff in OPS month over month, I cannot in good faith put a guy who is still over 1.000 OPS on this list. That puts him in elite territory and goes to show how absolutely bananas his July was.
Willy Adames (SFG)
July OPS: 1.096
August OPS: .729
Variance: -0.367
Sure Adames dropped off, but he’s put it together over the past two months. Compared to where he was before that (sub .675 OPS), it’s hard to argue he’s in a slump. Plus he hit 9 homers in August.
Jarren Duran (BOS)
July OPS: 1.093
August OPS: .763
Variance: -0.330
Same scenario as Adames for Duran. He had an incredible July, and he still put together a solid August with his second-highest OPS month.
Tommy Pham
July OPS: 1.043
August OPS: .757
Variance: -0.286
I don’t want any smoke with Tommy Pham. He had his most PAs in August, aside from March/April when he posted a .460 OPS. I think he’s okay with a .757 in 100 PAs.
Jose Ramirez
July OPS: .952
August OPS: .716
Variance: -0.236
Jose was right on the edge. He’s still above .715, but not by much. August was his worst month. This one can be up for debate, but I chose to leave him off the list.
Alright, here’s where we begin the top (bottom) 10:
10. Mike Trout (LAA)
July OPS: .895
August OPS: .669
Variance: -0.226
It’s always tough to see a guy like Mike Trout on this list. Other than missing all of May, Trout has played in 105 games through August, and August was his worst month. When he hit the ball, he found the gaps, posting a top-20 BABIP in August. The problem was, Trout struck out 38 times. That’s a 36.9% K rate, only behind Gabriel Arias, Tyler Locklear, and Coby Mayo. He still walked a ton (18 times), as he had the 7th highest walk rate. He’s had a weird season if you look at his monthly splits. He posted his lowest SLG% of the year, down 185 points from July, likely due to only hitting 1 home run.
9. Mike Tauchman (CHW)
July OPS: .843
August OPS: .614
Variance: -0.229
Tauchman has really only put together 3 full months of playing time (June, July, August). In August, he walked more and struck out less, so that’s a positive, right? The problem with Mike was that in 106 PAs, he only had 2 extra base hits (a double and a homer). His slugging percentage dropped almost 200 points, sitting at .275 for the month of August. He’s not known as a slugger, but comparatively, his slug% in June and July was .440 and .471, respectively.
8. Elly De La Cruz (CIN)
July OPS: .831
August OPS: .575
Variance: -0.256
In August, Elly’s plate discipline went out the window. He’s always struck out a ton, but he’s been able to draw his walks too. In July, he had a walk rate of 12% and a K rate of 22.20%. Compare that to August, when he had a 4.10% walk rate and a 31.40% K rate! Elly had a stellar June, and has been declining since, with a major dropoff in August. Elly posted his lowest OBP all year and it’s really hard to provide value baserunning when you don’t get on base. He didn’t hit a single home run in August and only stole 3 bases. Since June, he’s only hit 1 home run. He’s still only 23 years old, but we’re all waiting for him to put together a full season.
7. Ceddanne Rafaela (BOS)
July OPS: .852
August OPS: .583
Variance: -0.269
Ceddanne has never been a patient hitter. He’s only walked 22 times all year (Juan Soto walked 27 times in August alone). When he gets up to bat, he’s swinging. This was fine in July, when he only struck out 13 times at 14.4% K rate. But in August, that jumped to a 20.20% K rate as he struck out 22 times. He only hit 1 home run (he hit 6 and 5 in June and July, respectively) and posted a .266 OBP, his worst all season. His BABIP was low at .256. He’s had some clutch moments, so let’s hope he brings it back up for the playoff push.
6. Randy Arozarena (SEA)
July OPS: .973
August OPS: .680
Variance: -0.286
Randy’s been pretty streaky all year. After hitting 11 home runs in July, he was bound to come back down. His counting stats stayed pretty much the same, other than the homers. He only hit 5 homers (which is still good). But he had 16 more PAs to factor into the same counting stats. So throw in an 0-16 stretch on top of his July numbers, minus the home run differential, and you’ll get his month of August.
5. Addison Barger (TOR)
July OPS: .895
August OPS: .583
Variance: -0.293
How about the season this guy is having. His May/June/July stretch was great, especially July. In 102 PAs, he had 14 extra base hits (7 doubles, 1 triple, 6 homers), and 24 RBIs. In 96 PAs in August, he only had 5 extra base hits (2 doubles, 3 homers) and 11 RBIs. His batted ball luck dropped, as his BABIP went from .339 to .242. He has to hit to get on base, as he’s only walked more than 6 times in a month once, and when he’s hitting it directly to someone, naturally his OBP will plummet. With the way the Blue Jays’ offense has produced, I don’t expect him to sit at a sub-.600 OPS long.
4. Jose Altuve (HOU)
July OPS: 1.055
August OPS: .695
Variance: -0.360
Jose has had a very average season, bouncing from LF to 2B to DH at an equal split. But July was his standout month. He slugged .626 with 7 doubles, 1 triple, and 5 home runs. He got on base at a .429 clip. But in August, that dropped to a .297 OBP and a .398 SLG. He still hit 5 home runs, but he only hit 3 doubles, which actually has been par for the course for him all year. This may be less of a “bad August”, and more of a regression to the mean after a fantastic July.
3. Manny Machado (SDP)
July OPS: 1.004
August OPS: .590
Variance: -0.414
The dog days of August hit Manny hard. March/April was his worst month with a .759 OPS before August came. After having double digit extra base hits in each month all season, Manny only hit 5 doubles and 1 homer in August, with only 8 RBIs. He walked a little more, but his K rate jumped from 18.90% in July to 24.40% in August. His SLG% dropped 322 points (!) from .616 to .296. He’s been an ironman all year, starting every single game for the Padres up to this point. Is it fatigue? Maybe, maybe not, but the Padres need him to get going again for this last stretch as they have hit some hard times recently.
2. Salvador Perez (KCR)
July OPS: 1.098
August OPS: .691
Variance: -0.477
Similar to Jose Altuve, Big Salvy might just be the victim of an insane July. He slugged .719, with 16 of his 30 hits being for extra bases (7 doubles, 9 homers - 53.3% XBH rate). In August however, he had 14 more plate appearances and 11 less hits, with the 4th-worst BABIP among qualified hitters at .182. He’s very consistent with his walk to strikeout ratio, as he strikes out about 5 times more than he walks. Now, he still had 5 doubles and 5 homers in August, maintaining his ~53% XBH rate, but if he’s not slugging, he’s not getting on base. And when you see his SLG dropped from .719 to .382, you can see where the decline is.
Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC)
July OPS: .984
August OPS: .446
Variance: -0.538
If you got this far, you already knew that Pete was going to be our #1 victim here. For Pete, every single number went down from July, except plate appearances (14 more), walks (stayed the same), caught steals (1 more), and strikeouts (8 more). The easiest place to go here is with his plate discipline. Pete swings at bad pitches. He doesn’t walk a lot and he strikes out a lot. I can remember during March through July, Pete would hit a ball that was an inch off the ground for a 400 ft. home run. Now, that has changed. Pete only had 16 hits in 112 PAs in August. To put that in perspective, he had 17 XBHs in March/April, 15 XBHs in May, 12 XBHs in June, and 17 XBHs in July. In August, Pete only had 5 XBHs. He only hit 1 HR. In the 4 months prior, he hit: 6 HR, 9 HR, 6 HR, 6 HR. So it won’t be a surprise when I mention his SLG dropped from .637 to .230. With how hot he started out and how young he is, I think we all expected a bit of a regression, but how quickly and how steeply it dropped off is alarming. Hopefully he can find his groove again, since baseball is much more exciting when PCA is himself.
We’ll have more of these types of comparisons as the season wraps up. Let me know if you have an idea of what you’d like to see broken down.
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