Collette Calls: Is Recent History Repeating Itself?

Erik Halterman and I discussed some bold predictions on a recent episode of the RotoWire Fantasy Baseball podcast, and on it, I repeated a line I have frequently used this season: history is a great teacher. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr used the line to discuss the history of the labor movement while I invoke it to look back at the statistical history of baseball when trying to predict what will happen in its future. The process of leaning on precendence has served me well over the years, but my massive miss fading Pete Crow-Armstrong this year continues to haunt me, as he's currently on a near-unprecented run of production for a young player. However, if history is indeed a great teacher, can we apply this very recent lesson to another player who appears to be making his own adjustments to change his career course?

Ceddanne Rafaela is on quite a tear these days, hitting .316/.350/.654 with 12 doubles and 11 home runs since June 1. It's even more impressive when you consider that eight of those 11 home runs have come since June 20, and he's hitting a Bondsian .346/.370/.782 in that time. It is obviously impossible for him to continue such a pace, but Rafaela's recent success is impressive if not insane when we consider where things stood at the end of this past May. Rafaela had exactly 200 plate appearances as the calendar flipped to June, with a .239/.288/.359 line which included three homers, 15 extra base hits and seven steals. He had scored 32 times and plated 20 runs himself, but a 75 wRC+ showed just how poor his overall offense was, and he was likely barely hanging onto many mixed-league rosters.

It is near impossible for 10- and 12-team mixed leagues to carry ninth-place hitters who are not producing, unless they have an affinity to the player because of the draft capital used to roster them or because the player is on their favorite team. After all, I finally cut Michael Harris II in my 12-teamer last weekend, a player who was severely underperforming, despite the fourth-round pick it took to have him on my team. He was a sunk cost, and best of luck to the team who just picked him up.

Rafaela's .660 OPS through his first 200 games played over 835 plate appearances is one of the worst in recent history for players age 25 or younger with that must accrued playing time. The list of players of a similar age and experience includes the likes of Miguel Vargas, Mike Zunino, Jacob Young, Carlos Gomez, Jo Adell, Aaron Hicks, Jake Bauers and Jarred Kelenic. That list is mostly a list of fantasy teases rather than fantasy studs, and most of them have failed to live up to expectations outside of bouts of greatness ranging from two weeks to a couple months. Only Zunino and Adell had lower on-base percentages than the .278 Rafaela posted through his first 200 games played. 

However, as Jen McCaffrey pointed out at The Athletic this week, Alex Bregman has gotten into Rafaela's head in a good way. Several quotes stood out from the piece about the relationship between the two players:

For Rafaela, Bregman has been a sounding board in various ways... Bregman encouraged him to continue with his approach, but had another suggestion.

"It started off with my mind because I'm the type of player and person that wants things to happen right away," Rafaela said. "The other part of it, he wanted me to have less hand movement, and he showed me a couple videos and we went in the cage a couple of times. He's been a huge part of what I'm doing right now." When Rafaela steps to the plate now, he hears Bregman's voice telling him to sync his hands with his leg kick. Rafaela's .774 OPS is more than 100 points higher than what he had last year. He homered in three straight games this week and has hit .319 with a .989 OPS since late May. "He (Bregman) always has a plan. He's already studied the pitcher before the hitters' meeting and he's ready to give us advice in the meeting, and I started doing that."

It sounds like Bregman has helped Rafaela construct a plan of attack at the plate and prepare for all possibilities, rather than taking a reactive approach to whatever is happening in the moment. Rafaela may never have a walk rate anywhere near Bregman's career 11.8 percent rate, but it's obvious Rafaela has made some systematic changes in what he's doing in his preparation and execution. For example, his swing-and-miss rate has drastically improved in a short amount of time just this season:

He had a similar trend earlier in this season, but he has sustained this success now over a longer stretch of time this month and is doing a much better job of making contact than he was even a month ago. Over that same time, Rafaela's bat speed has made improvements, and he has worked through some of the mechanical and timing issues of his swing:

Finally, his strikeout rate has gone from well above the league average to better than league-average in an accelerated fashion this summer. As the weather has heated up, so has his ability to make contact:

When a player walks as infrequently as Rafaela does while striking out more often, it's critical they make the most of their contact. Alfonso Soriano made a career out of such an approach, and Rafaela is growing into a similar skillset. His selectivity in what he chooses to chase out of the zone while what he makes contact within the zone are both trending in the right direction these last few weeks:

Rafaela has 1,001 career plate appearances with a .254/.288/.421 slash line, a 3.5 percent walk rate and a 24.5 percent strikeout rate. If you go to StatHead and look up all players who have walked fewer than 40 times while striking out as often as Rafaela has in his career to date, he's the only player to reach 1,000 plate appearances before age 25.

Six months ago, I would have told you to run away from this skillset because it was such an outlier and fraught with downside. PCA taught me a lesson that there is always an outlier, and I am here to state that Rafaela could very well follow in Crow-Armstrong's footsteps and continue his growth because he is not the same guy we saw last season or even earlier this season. This is what Boston was projecting for him when they gave him the eight-year, $50 million contract last season.