KC Royals: Mike Moustakas Named Breakout Player By MLB.com

KC Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas is a likely breakout candidate for 2015, according to MLB.com’s Michael Clair.

Clair notes that Moose has struggled the last two seasons for the Kansas City Royals, but then concludes:

"But there’s reason to hope. “Moose” showed off his raw power with five home runs in the 2014 postseason and his regular-season line drive percentage of 20.4 was his highest since his debut in 2011. It also makes his .220 BABIP (the worst in the Majors for any player with over 500 PA) an extreme outlier. With just an average number of balls dropping in for hits, Moustakas’ average jumps from .212 to .276."

I found this to be an interesting theory, but was somewhat skeptical since the shift most teams employed against Mike Moustakas could be a big reason why his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) was so low.

If due to the shift, then expecting regression to the mean might be a questionable presumption.

Consequently, I decided to dig into Moose’s batted ball data and hit ratios on fangraphs.com. I found both reasons to believe Mike Moustakas is primed for a breakout, and reasons to doubt.

Let’s start with the good news first. The data suggests that Moose actually was striking the ball BETTER last season despite his terrible results.

Mike Podhorzer wrote an excellent article on Fangraphs.com about Moose, showing that his walk rate (BB%) and line drive rate (LD%) increased, while his strikeout rate (K%) and infield fly ball rate (IFFB%) declined.

Not only did those batted ball rates improve, Moustakas’ average fly ball distance showed a significant jump to 285.84 feet in 2014, up from 270.57 feet in 2013.

The puzzling truth is Mike Moustakas appears to have hit the ball harder last season despite an extremely low .220 BABIP (league average was .300 in 2014).

In short, Podhorzer’s suggests Moose’s plate skills improved last season—which shows Moustakas’ hard work in retooling his swing the winter after the 2013 season paid off.

So why didn’t those improvements show in his 2014 results?

Moose’s infield hit rate (IFH%) provides a strong clue. Last season, Mike Moustakas’ infield hit rate plunged to 1.3% from 3.5% in 2013 and 5.3% in 2012 and 5.4% in 2011.

What now happens if we presume those lost infield hits were all due to the shift teams employed against Moustakas last season?

That drop might not look like much, but even if you only consider the 2.2% decline from 2013, it has a substantial impact on his OPS. Over Mike Moustakas’ 500 plate appearances last season, that 2.2% drop cost Moose 11 hits.

Add 11 singles (since we’re talking about infield hits) to Moustakas’ totals, and he slashed .236/.289/.387 last season. While hardly great, a .677 OPS is much better than the .632 he put up in 2014.

We can see that the shift alone explains quite a bit of Moose’s struggles from last season.

Also considier that Mike Moustakas has a career .260 BABIP (most of which came from the two and-a-half seasons Moose played before teams began using defensive shifts against him), and you think his .220 BABIP last season wasn’t so outrageously unlucky.

Consequently, I think Clair’s analysis on MLB.com is a bit simplistic. We can’t just expect Moose to get more hits due to better “luck”.

Even so, I think there’s reason for hope in Moustakas’ improved batted ball rates. He’s brought down his outrageously high 20% infield fly ball rate down to 15% and improved his line drive rate to 20.4%.

That’s significant. Moose is barreling up the ball better. He’s also well aware of his need to beat the shift.

If he can now add a few bunts against pitchers that eat him up with high fastballs, he will go long way toward getting more of the low pitches he crushes.

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