Kansas City Royals: What are Hunter Dozier’s All-Star voting chances?

Dozier’s Offensive Revolution…

What Dozier is doing in 2019 is no fluke. Take a look at this tweet from the Royals account that lists where he ranks in comparison to other AL third-basemen who have played at least 50 percent of their games at third-base.

When it comes to slash line (.311/.397.592) and OPS (.989), Dozier rises to the top of the current finalist pool. Urshela competes with Doz in average (.308) and OBP (.359), but his slugging (.465) and OPS (.824), pale in comparison to the Royals representative.

As for Bregman, he may better Dozier in home runs (21 to 12), but he still is slightly below the Royals representative in every other category listed above, with his batting average (.259) being the biggest particular eyesore.

Furthermore, one has to take Bregman’s HR totals with a grain of salt when one takes park factors into consideration. According to ESPN.com, Minute Maid Park in Houston is one of the more home run-friendly stadiums in Major League Baseball, ranking 12th with a home run factor of 1.07 (1 being average).

As for Kauffman, it is one of the tougher places to hit a home-run as it ranks 23rd with a factor of 0.77. So, if Dozier were playing half his games in a hitter-friendly park like Minute Maid rather than one that suppresses homers like Kauffman, it’s possible that the home run gap between the Astros third-baseman and Dozier may be a bit smaller than what it is today.

Furthermore, MLB statcast (via Baseball Savant) backs up Dozier as not just one of the better hitting third-basemen in baseball today, but one of the best hitters in general. He ranks in the 90th percentile in expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA), 82nd percentile in expected batting average (xBA), and 86th percentile in expected slugging (xSLG).

Those are some pretty impressive numbers, and considering his exit velocity ranks in the 89th percentile, it shows that when Dozier gets a hold of the baseball, it’s going to be hit with authority.

What has made Dozier’s breakthrough impressive is the fact that pitchers are pitching him tougher than they did a year ago. He is seeing fewer fastballs at the plate (53.5 percent from 59.4 percent a year ago, according to statcast data), and consequently more breaking balls (36.1 percent, up from 32.6 percent a year ago).

Despite the difference, Dozier is still mashing, as he is posting a xwOBA of .429 on fastball and .372 on breaking balls. The fact that he can hit two different kind of pitches almost equally well shows how legitimate a hitter Dozier is and how scary he can be considering this is only his second full season of ball at the Major League level.