All season, Pittsburgh's run towards the best record in the majors (no seriously, look it up) has been punctuated by players that make me take a step back and say, "Wait, that can't be right."
First, it was FanGraphs. This shows how his hitting has changed throughout the season in each of the past three years. His fly ball rate is in blue, while his ground ball rate is in green.
Over the course of the season, and especially recently, Alvarez's penchant for hitting fly balls has skyrocketed, while his line drive rate has also increased slightly. For a guy who has hit homeruns on 16.6 percent of his fly balls for his career and an outrageous 23.5 percent this season, a huge increase total fly balls is positively deadly. It has resulted not only in a higher average (since line drive percentage didn't decrease but grounder percentage did), but a rapidly accelerating rate of homerun hitting.
What to Expect
Given that his previous 30.6 percent strikeout rate from the past three seasons has actually gone up to 33.0 percent, I doubt you're ever going to see the reign of Pedro Alvarez: Contact Hitter. It's simply not in the cards. But with his increased reliance on fly balls and a slight increase in line drive rate, we wouldn't be surprised whatsoever to see his batting average increase even more over the coming days.
Rest of the Season Projections
| PA | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 293 | 35 | 15 | 43 | 2 | .259 | .837 |
Over the rest of the season, we see Alvarez's homerun rate decreasing slightly. You can't hit 23.5 percent of fly balls for homeruns forever, even if you're hitting fly balls seemingly every other at-bat. Once that rate regresses closer to his 16.6 percent career HR/FB ratio average, his total homeruns will return back to earth once again as well.
We do, however, see his average rising to .259 over the rest of the season. That's certainly not a number that gets me throwing down my pierogi in joy, but it would still be an increase over his current .242 BA and his .244 BA from last season. Baby steps, here.
All told, we see Alvarez right around the 100th most valuable fantasy 3B the rest of the season, as well as the 15th best player who holds 3B eligibility according to our system. He's 12th among primary third basemen, ahead of Aramis Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval but still behind Chase Headley, Kyle Seager, or Josh Donaldson.
I'm not telling you anything groundbreaking. Alvarez is going to continue to hit homeruns while having a poor average. You knew that. But for anyone expecting a 50 HR man, I suggest you look elsewhere. Pedro Alvarez is due for a slight decline here soon.