Fantasy Baseball: Potential Bust Candidates at Each Position
Third Base: Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Rays
Current ADP: 105.69
The overall 2016 numbers for Evan Longoria look great -- his 36 home runs were a new career high (most since 2013), and his 98 RBI's were the most he's driven in since the 2010 season. His production goes to show exactly how deep the third base position is for fantasy baseball this season.
There are some peripheral numbers to back up this performance, as well.
Longoria slashed his ground-ball rate to 31.9%, which was a drop of nearly 8% from the year before. That difference mostly went to his fly-ball rate, which increased to 46.4% (nearly 7% higher than the year before). His 36.3% hard-hit rate was also the highest it's been since 2013.
So, what's the problem? His plate discipline has been deteriorating for years.
Check out his progression since 2013 in overall swing rate (Swing%), contact rate (Contact%) and swinging-strike rate (SwStr%), along with the impact on his walk rate (BB%).
| Year | Swing% | Contact% | SwStr% | BB% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 41.4% | 76.5% | 9.6% | 10.1% |
| 2014 | 47.7% | 77.2% | 10.7% | 8.1% |
| 2015 | 47.3% | 78.4% | 10.1% | 7.6% |
| 2016 | 48.8% | 75.4% | 11.9% | 6.1% |
So, he's swinging more and missing with those swings more than ever, while his walk rate is just about half of what it used to be. This trend hasn't wrecked havoc on his strikeout rate just yet, but it feels like a ticking time bomb. And entering his age-31 season, we should be expecting more of what he did in 2014 and 2015 instead of last year.
That's basically what our projections are saying -- we expect him to hit 25 homers and drive 91 runs in 2017.
