Judge and Sanchez in the HR Derby. Worried?

With the MLB Home Run Derby coming up, the usual questions about whether or not players should participate also arises.  The concern, held by many, is that the derby, through causing fatigue or a change of swing and/or batter philosophy would have a negative impact on the players’ game performance for the rest of the season.

Question:  Is this a legitimate concern?  For example, should the Yankees be concerned that their best two players, Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez are participating in the derby?  Their value to the Yankees over the second half of the season can’t be understated, so anything that may jeopardize their performance needs to be considered thoroughly.

Answer: I don’t know.  I don’t think anyone does.  There are too many variables to consider.

However, I did a little digging, and some interesting pieces of information arose.

I looked at the winners of the past 10 derbies.  (Here’s the first problem – small sample size.  One would really have to look at all participants going back to the 1980’s).

I compared their season performances prior to the all-star break and after winning the HR derby.

I used tOPS+ to measure their performance.  Why?

I’m not really interested in HR as a player evaluation tool.  It tells you that the ball was hit in the air, sometimes hard, then a whole bunch of randomness occurred.  Not much else.

I’m more concerned with how they played.  I.e., did their performance and value to their team decrease after participating in the derby.

I like OPS+ (on base percentage plus slugging percentage with adjustments for run scoring environments such as era and ballparks) because it encompasses offensive performance as a whole pretty well.  But again, my method isn’t comprehensive as other performance factors would have to be considered.

‘t” OPS+ compares a player’s individual partial season number to his total season number with 100 being average.  For example, Vladimir Guerrero’s 2^nd half tOPS+ in 2007 was 96.  With 100 being average, that means his 2^nd half was slightly below his own average performance that season.

Here’s what I found:

Among the last 10 winners of the HR derby the average was 104 tOPS+ in the first half season, 96 tOPS+ in the 2^nd half.

I.e., the players on average, generally performed a little better before winning the home run derby than they did after.  104/96 isn’t a huge difference over which we should panic, but it probably shouldn’t be ignored either.  Again, we’re dealing with a small sample of one measurement, so there’s no need to overreact, but if I were a player (or if I were writing a paycheck to players) I would definitely look into it further.

However, there is one exception that complicates things a bit.  But first the numbers:

The individual player’s performance with their 1^st half tOPS+ then their 2^nd half tOPS+.

2007 Vladimir Guerrero 103/96

2008 Justin Morneau 108/90

2009 Prince Fielder 109/90

2010 David Ortiz 110/90

2011 Robinson Cano 96/105

2012 Prince Fielder 88/114

2013 Yoenis Cespedes 95/108 (but hit fewer 2^nd half HR despite hitting better, strengthening my theory about HR not being a good performance measure)

2014 Yoenis Cespedes 98/103

2015 Todd Frazier 126/67

2016 Stanton 102/96

Again, nothing definitive, but worth keeping an eye on in totality.

However, Todd Frazier’s performance grabbed my attention and begs further questions.

It easily could be argued he was an outlier and the drastic difference in his 1^st and 2^nd half performances can be ignored as a fluke.  Remove his numbers and the other players’ numbers become more even, making this issue a non-issue.

However, his decline was so precipitous – he was Mike Schmidt until mid-July, then Enrique Wilson after – that it had to have affected his team’s performance, which ultimately is what we’re asking here.

Before the all-star break in 2015 the Reds (Frazier’s team) had a .453 winning percentage.  In the 2^nd half of ’15 the Reds’ winning percentage was .329.

Three. Twenty. Nine.

Now I’m not going to say the Reds’ drastic decline was Frazier’s fault, although it clearly was a big part of the picture.  And I’m not going to say Frazier’s decline was due to his participation in the HR derby.

But I certainly would understand the concern about your favorite players on your favorite team…

…although I wouldn’t worry too much.