Ray profiles Indians outfielder Michael Brantley, and opines that Brantley will have difficulty repeating his 20 home run, 20 stolen base breakout in 2015.
Last season was a huge breakout season for Indians outfielder Michael Brantley. After hitting 26 home runs over his previous four seasons, Brantley hit .327-.385-.506 with 20 home runs, 94 runs scored, 97 RBI and 23 stolen bases in 676 plate appearances. In addition to the 20 home runs, he smacked 45 doubles, after hitting just 26 doubles in 2013. So the improvement in power appears to be real, but I am not sold yet. Brantley isn't the first hitter to have a power breakout, only to disappoint owners the following season.
Here is a look at his ISO and SLG over his five seasons in Cleveland:
2010: .081 ISO, .327 SLF
2011: .118 ISO, .384 SLG
2012: .114 ISO, .402 SLG
2013: .112 ISO, .396 SLG
2014: .178 IS0, .506 SLG
Brantley experienced a power breakout in his age 27 season, which wouldn't be the first time we saw this happen for a 27 year old hitter. But looking at his career power stats, we could look back at 2014 as a career year for him. Brantley doesn't hit a ton of fly balls, and his home run total benefitted from a career high 12.7 HR/FB% last season. Here is a look at his fly ball percentage and HR/FB% over the last five seasons:
2010: 31.7 FB%, 3.7 HR/FB%
2011: 31.3 FB%, 5.9 HR/FB%
2012: 28.8 FB%, 4.2 HR/FB%
2013: 29.8 FB%, 6.8 HR/FB%
2014: 28.3 FB%, 12.7 HR/FB%
Does that look like the profile of a power hitter? I think not. I see his power and runs scored dropping in 2015, along with his batting average, which benefitted from a .333 BABIP in 2014.
His power breakout looks remarkably similar to the breakout we saw from Padres outfielder Will Venable in 2014, albeit at an older age. In 2013, Venable hit .268-.312-.484 with 22 home runs, 64 runs scored, 53 RBI and 22 stolen bases in 515 plate appearances. The power breakout occurred a year after Venable hit just 9 home runs in 2012. Here is a look at his fly ball rate and HR/FB% prior to the breakout:
2009: 40.3 FB%. 14.8 HR/FB%
2010: 44.1 FB%, 11.2 HR/FB%
2011: 36.3 FB%, 9.2 HR/FB%
2012: 29.4 FB%, 9.8 HR/FB%
2013: 31.5 FB%, 19.8 HR/FB%
How did Venable perform in 2014? He hit .224-.228-.325 with 8 home runs, 47 runs scored, 33 RBI and 11 stolen bases in 448 plate appearances. His fly ball percentage rose to 33.3%, but his HR/FB% fell back to 8.2%, within the range of the previous two seasons before the 2013 breakout.