The Hardball Times Fantasy

Baby he was Bourn to run

by Paul Singman
December 01, 2009

Looking back

Few players in the MLB have the quickness necessary to steal upwards of 50 bases in a season. Over the last 10 MLB seasons the feat has only been accomplished 31 times by a combined 17 players, led by Jose Reyes' 78-steal campaign in 2007. Therefore, whenever a player displays the necessary skills to have such an impact in one category, fantasy owners tend to take notice.

Michael Bourn is one such player whom people took notice of in 2009.

+------+-----+-----+-----+----+-----+----+-------+
| Year | Age | AB  | R   | HR | RBI | SB | AVG   |
+------+-----+-----+-----+----+-----+----+-------+
| 2007 |  24 | 119 |  29 |  1 |   6 | 18 | 0.277 |
| 2008 |  25 | 467 |  57 |  5 |  29 | 41 | 0.229 |
| 2009 |  26 | 606 |  97 |  3 |  35 | 61 | 0.285 |
+------+-----+-----+-----+----+-----+----+-------+

Even though Bourn showed the 50-plus steal potential after his 2008 season that included 41 steals in just 467 at-bats, people still refrained from drafting him in 2009 due to wariness about his .229 batting average and .288 on-base percentage. No matter how fast the player, if he will not get on base or will start losing playing time, then there is no point in owning him.

As you can see, in 2009 Bourn alleviated those concerns by becoming a solid three category threat in runs, batting average and steals. To the people who drafted him late in drafts or picked him up off waivers, Bourn rewarded them nicely with his production.

So the question is what changed from his 2008 to 2009 seasons? Below is a chart of all the metrics I feel explain the change.

+------+-----+----+----+-------+-----+-----+------------+
| Year | AB  | BB | K  | BABIP | GB% | FB% | Judgment X |
+------+-----+----+----+-------+-----+-----+------------+
| 2008 | 467 |  7 | 24 | 0.291 |  54 |  29 |        89  |
| 2009 | 606 |  9 | 23 | 0.367 |  58 |  22 |        94  |
+------+-----+----+----+-------+-----+-----+------------+

BABIP explains a good amount of Bourn's improvement since a 75 point increase will do wonders to any player's batting average. Was the dramatic increase in BABIP lucky or deserved? Just based off intuition knowing how fast Bourn is, a .350 BABIP seems normal. Taking a more mathematically sound approach using Chris' xBABIP calculator, Bourn's expected BABIP in 2009 was a surprising .379. I would not interpret that number to mean Bourn was unlucky on balls in play in 2009 or that his BABIP should rise in the future; but rather simply that Bourn was at least not lucky on balls in play in 2009.

The second reason for Bourn's better 2009 is his improvement in plate discipline. He showed increased judgment in deciding which pitches were the best to swing at and as a result saw a slight increase in his walk rate and also the slightest decrease in his strikeout rate.

The third reason is his increased groundball and line drive rates, and consequently his decreased flyball rates. Players who use their legs more than their arms to reach base typically derive more value out of their grounders and lose value on their fly balls. Bourn was no exception to this rule since, according to the batted ball stats found in the THT Annual, he earned double the MLB average in run value for each of his grounders and was 25 percent worse than MLB average in run value on his fly balls. Therefore the four percent increase in GB rate and seven percent drop in FB rate Bourn saw from 2008 to 2009 certainly helped increase his production level.

Looking ahead

There is very little that appears unsustainable about Bourn's past season, so a similar-looking 2010 seems like a reasonable projection. Promising is the fact that Bourn managed to hit a combined 39 doubles and triples, meaning he is not completely dependent on beating out grounders as, say, Willy Taveras is and also possesses some gap power.

From a fantasy perspective, another season similar to Bourn's 2009 would be fantastic though the question remains how confident people are in his abilities and where he will get drafted. The most apt comparison is Jacoby Ellsbury coming off his 2008 season in which he hit a similar .280 with 98 runs and 50 steals. In 2009 drafts, Ellsbury was taken around picks 55-70 in drafts, though granted he has more power potential and also plays for the Red Sox—two things that would help his ADP.

Using Ellsbury's ADP as a relative marker, I would expect Bourn to be picked somewhere in the 85-100 range in drafts, which is a spot the speedy outfielder could provide value from considering he finished 2009 with a Yahoo rank in the 70s. It is still early in the offseason to know for sure, but will Michael Bourn be finding his way onto your fantasy teams in 2010?

Paul has been managing fantasy baseball teams for many seasons and writing for THT Fantasy over the past three years. He is currently a student at UPenn welcomes readers' thoughts at his email here or in the comments below.


<< Return to Article