Anchoring Aaron Judge
Each year, members have access to all the columns I write for ESPN Insider. They will appear here every Thursday or Friday. Many will include a BABS-relevant postscript. Enjoy.
We are nothing if not beholden to our psychological biases.
If I ask you how many home runs Aaron Judge will hit in 2018, you will likely say “somewhere in the mid-40s.” After all, it’s rare for players to hit over 50 home runs in back-to-back seasons, and you would expect some level of regression.
It’s a completely reasonable analysis.
Taking a look at the projections from some leading information sources, I see similar expectations. One website says 45. Another says 42. A spring magazine says 43.
But then I’d argue that Judge had never hit more than 23 home runs in a single season at any level of play. Even if you pro-rated his previous best power output to the 542 at bats he had with the Yankees last year, he still would have hit only 29. Of course, that type of extrapolation is hardly scientific.
What do you say now? Is it possible that Judge might hit 39 homers? Or perhaps only 35?
There is another forecaster out there, called Marcel the Monkey. It is a rudimentary system that takes a weighted three-year average and adjusts for the player’s age. It provides no context or data massaging, and most analysts view it as a very rough baseline.
The monkey says 37.
We reject that possibility because the huge, shining “52” from last season keeps staring us in the face. How can a player reasonably go from 52 home runs to 35 home runs in a season? That 52 serves as an anchoring bias, preventing us from considering the true range of possible outcomes for Judge in 2018.
But, there’s this:
Chris Davis Year Home Runs 2013 53 2014 26
Alex Rodriguez Year Home Runs 2007 54 2008 35
Prince Fielder Year Home Runs 2007 50 2008 34
David Ortiz Year Home Runs 2006 54 2007 35
All of these occurred over the past decade, a period in which PEDs were no longer allegedly infecting power stats.
Here were the exceptions during that period:
Jose Bautista hit 54 homers in 2010, then followed strongly with 43 in 2011, but dropped to 26 in 2012. Similarly, Andruw Jones hit 51 in 2005, 41 in 2006 and then plummeted to 26 in 2007. Alex Rodriguez had several 50-HR seasons prior to 2007 and did have strong follow-ups then, but he also had outside help. Allegedly. Perhaps the others did too.
The big difference between these players and Judge is that they were all major league veterans. Bautista had been in the majors for six years at the time of his breakout. Jones had been in the majors for nearly a decade. A-Rod had a dozen years behind him.
In fact, every player above had more major league experience behind their breakout year than Judge had in 2017.
The average draft position rankings (ADPs) at the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) currently rate Judge as the 16th best player in baseball. These ADPs suggest that he is a better pick for 2018 than established power hitters like Joey Votto and Manny Machado. All of this is because our brains are so anchored to that 52.
Our brains are influenced by other biases as well, such as small sample bias, recency bias and my all time favorite, Fear of Missing Out. FOMO has killed many a first round pick:
# years drafted in 1st Rd # years earned Player for Fear of Missing Out 1st Rd value Troy Tulowitzki 4 0 Evan Longoria 3 0 Carlos Gonzalez 4 1 Prince Fielder 4 1 Bryce Harper 3* 1 * 2018 will make it 4
There are many reasons why it will be dangerous to draft Judge so early. But, there are also counter-arguments.
• Judge is only 25 and still on the upswing of his developmental curve.
• Judge fought out of a mid-season slump, demonstrating that he can adjust to the competition.
• Once you display a skill, you own it.
• As long as the baseballs are juiced, history doesn’t count.
This last point is particularly interesting, because… well, it’s probably true. Despite MLB’s assertions to the contrary, analysts suggested that the only logical explanation for the power spike was the baseball. You have to look no further than a player like Elvis Andrus, whose skills metrics were virtually unchanged from past seasons, except for a home run-to-fly ball rate doubling from 6 percent to 12 percent. It’s tough to find any other way to explain how he hit 20 home runs after never having hit more than 8 in a season. Many more players had career power years as well.
So maybe Judge’s output is real, or at least real enough that we have to inflate his historical track record to match the balls. His home run-to-flyball rate was 18 percent in 2016; it, too, almost doubled to 35.6 percent in 2017.
However, is that level repeatable? No player has sustained a 35.6 percent rate over a full season in 12 years. The last one was Ryan Howard, who hit 58 home runs with a 39.5 percent hr/fb rate in 2006.
As it turns out, Howard is one last outlier. He did have his breakout after fewer than 400 prior major league at-bats, then followed up that performance with seasons of 47, 48 and 45 HRs. Can we compare Judge to Howard?
Ryan Howard Year AB HR AVG HR/FB Iso BABIP ---- --- -- ---- ----- ---- ----- 2006 581 58 .313 39.5% .346 .356 2007 529 47 .268 31.5% .316 .328 2008 610 48 .251 31.8% .292 .285 2009 616 45 .279 25.4% .292 .325
Aaron Judge Year AB HR AVG HR/FB Iso BABIP ---- --- -- ---- ----- ---- ----- 2017 542 52 .284 35.6% .343 .357
You never want to draw conclusions from a sample size of one player, but logic still dictates that we expect a decent amount of regression. Perhaps Judge does still hit 40-plus home runs. It wouldn’t be unheard of, but it’s probably only about a 50-50 percentage play.
In the end, it probably doesn’t even matter whether Judge hits 35, 40, 45 or even 50 HRs. We cannot predict the future with that level of precision anyway. The best we can do is just classify him as a core contributor to our power game and build from there.
In the end, we might just want to listen to the monkey.
BABS Note: I often hear from folks who take issue with BABS’ inability to differentiate between a 35 HR hitter and a 45 HR hitter – they are all typically rated as (P+). The examples of extreme regression at this level of performance – as shown above – are the reasons for that. Based on history, it really is about a 50-50 shot that Judge hits 35 HRs. Just call him an extreme power hitter and slap the (P+) label on him. Then plan accordingly.
Great article, that nails an issue underlying perhaps the most important advantage remaining in fantasy baseball – exploiting biases.
There was a day when advantages in fantasy baseball leagues, especially non-expert leagues, came from using sabermetrics to better forecast outcomes. That day is nearly completely gone in my view.
The advantages nowadays come from:
1. Roster construction – timing picks to avoid big tier drop offs.
2. Exploiting biases, especially recency – this article. I’d argue many are still behind the curve here. I find it odd that many apparently weigh the most recent season far more heavily than every single year before, combined.
3. Exploiting small sample size errors, including and especially the mid-May “flinch” trade.
4. I personally incorporate a measure of Schechterian grind-out-a-few-extra-bucks on every pick/transaction strategy, so in a way I’m balancing two seemingly opposite theories: 1) micro – grind out as many bucks on your team as possible via specific projections, but, 2) use also toss out the specific projections and use BABS to manage risk, find “hidden” talent, and to balance your team.
5. Never reach. I simply won’t reach on draft day if I can avoid it. In that way, I use ADP – the collective wisdom of the crowd – to time picks.
6. Exploiting unique league rules.
I have no problem slapping a P+ on Judge and not worrying about whether he will hit 35, 45 or 55 HRs. What I am still having trouble getting my head around is Greg Bird with the exact same Assets. I know that should scream out buying opportunity based on the ADPs, but kicking a 25 year thought process to the curb is a difficult task.
Yeah, I get it. But it’s not all about the assets. Bird has significant liabilities (INJ, EX) which potentially shape his statistical output. Judge has his own liabilities (inj-,e,Rg) too, but Bird’s lack of even one full season of MLB experience really widens his range of potential outcomes.
Interesting article and good data on the past players who have hit 50 HR in a season.
I see reason to be optimistic about Judge.
The Forecaster article “Deserved Home Runs” has Judge with 63.4 Park Adjusted Home Runs compared to his 52 HR.
Not only did he seem to make needed adjustments during the season we do not know how much his shoulder effected him.
There is the strike zone issue too.
While Judge is not one to complain about strike calls Girardi did and the umps heard it from the media too. Will this effect ball / strike calls against him in 2018? I have to wonder how well umpires can adjust to a 6’7″ hitter after a 5’11” hitter (Gardner)
Lastly ….line up protection aka Stanton?
I’m in an OBP league so I am counting Judge as a P+, AVG. This would significantly elevate him on the BABS projection list.
Well, you can do whatever you want, but Judge is not a (P+,AV). He’s a (P+) with an asterisk for his OBP contribution, which elevates him but just among the (P+) asset group. If you absolutely have to own him, push him to (P+,a) but jumping him two levels is positioning yourself to overdraft him.