Nolan Arenado: Just How Good Can He Be?
By Billy Moy
Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports
I’m just going to get my opinion out of the way early: Nolan Arenado is going to blossom into a star in 2015.
Now, to be fair, I’d personally call 2014 a breakout season for the Colorado Rockies gold-glove third baseman but a fractured finger in the middle of the season cost him a good chunk of time and played in 111 games As a result, he is ever-so-slightly flying under the radar as we head into 2015. According to fantasypros.com, Arenado is currently going in the sixth round at pick 55 and is the sixth third baseman (seventh if Miguel Cabrera has third base eligibility in your league) being drafted. For a sixth-round pick, I think there’s tons of value to be had here.
Arenado is entering the 2015 season at just 23 years old and he already has two major league seasons under his belt. Over those two seasons he’s made 981 plate appearances and has a .277/.314/.450 line to show for them to go with 28 home runs, a 13.3 percent strikeout rate (league average last season was 20.4 percent), .173 ISO (league average was .135) and a .333 wOBA (league average was .310).
Those numbers are impressive within their own right, but this story gets even better though when you see the jump he made from his rookie to sophomore years. Check out this table below:
I know, that’s a lot of numbers, but they illustrate just how big of a jump Arenado made from year one to year two. Basically, he was able to make huge strides in his ability to hit for power while not sacrificing any other skills, in fact, they pretty much all improved.
- He showed so much more power in his second season. He went from having a slightly above-average ISO in 2013 to the 19th best ISO in MLB in 2014. His HR/FB rate shot up a little over four percent (probably had something to do with him increasing his fly ball distance from 280.30 feet to 289.24 feet) and he slashed his ground ball rate by nearly five percent.
- His plate discipline improved by every measure. He increased his walk rate while decreasing his strikeout rate (that 12.4 strikeout percentage he posted last year was the 28th best in MLB); he chased fewer pitches outside of the zone and he whiffed significantly less.
- Despite posting a slightly worse BABIP in 2014, he was still able to raise his batting average by 20 points. That’s not a typical correlation. But when you:
- Cut down the number of pitches you swing at outside of the strike zone, along with the number of pitches you swing and miss at (leading to fewer strikeouts and weakly hit balls) and
- Hit more of your fly balls out of the park and
- Hit fewer ground balls (which are converted into outs more often than line drives and, obviously, home runs) it’s going to lead to a better average, even if you do experience a little bit of bad luck on the balls you put in play.
It really can’t be overstated how impressive it is for a young, developing hitter to show that big of an improvement in power while also showing a great deal of improvement in plate discipline. Arenado showed real, legitimate growth last season. He didn’t get lucky in a few areas or sacrifice some batting average for power. His skills at the plate just flat out improved.
It amazes me that a guy who was once a high-level prospect who held his own during his age 22 season, showed drastic improvement in his age 23 season, has a lock on his job and gets to play half of his games in Coors field isn’t getting more love entering 2015. I’ll take Arenado as my third baseman over Anthony Rendon, Todd Frazier or Evan Longoria any day of the week; and as a corner infielder I much prefer him over Freddie Freeman (who I believe is going to be a big disappointment in 2015), Adrian Gonzalez or Albert Pujols.
There aren’t too many guys who are going to provide a tremendous amount of value in the sixth round (you’ve got to put up a pretty damn good season at that draft spot to actually provide value, if the guy who was drafted 50th finishes a season ranked as the 60th best player he had a good year but he didn’t provide value), I strongly believe Arenado will be one of the few.