Fantasy Baseball: 10 Players Who Surprised Us in 2017
Aaron Judge, OF, New York Yankees
Preseason ADP: 343.48
Well, this shouldn't be shocking, right? New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge is a lock to win the American League Rookie of the Year award and is one of the frontrunners for AL MVP mostly because of what he can do at the plate. Those 52 home runs that he's hit -- the most ever by a rookie -- are a big reason why.
The biggest difference between his subpar cup of coffee in 2016 and this monster 2017 campaign is his plate discipline. Check out how his chase rate (O-Swing%), swings inside the strike zone (Z-Swing%), swinging-strike rate (SwStr%), walk rate (BB%), and strikeout rate (K%) has changed.
| Year | PA | O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | SwStr% | BB% | K% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 95 | 33.6% | 63.4% | 18.1% | 9.5% | 44.2% |
| 2017 | 678 | 24.7% | 66.2% | 13.1% | 18.7% | 30.7% |
Sure, a 30.7% strikeout rate is still awfully high, but when you look at what he was doing the year before, this year's number is like a breath of fresh air -- especially with a walk rate that basically doubled.
This shift in plate discipline improved his contact rate over seven percentage points (67.6%), so when we combine more contact with a hard-hit rate of 45.3% and a fly-ball rate of 43.2%, dingers are just going to rain down on this man. His 173 wRC+ is among the top-10 marks this decade, and who knows what he could've accomplished if he did slash .179/.346/.344 with an 86 wRC+ for a month and a half following the All-Star break.
