Austin Hays' case as the next breakout Orioles is built on the end of 2021, and a lot of hope. What is each worth?
Everyone, myself included, seems to be hoping for an Austin Hays leap. I looked into how feasible that is based on his hot end to 2021.
It’s Austin Hays’ turn. It has to be, right? The former top prospect, who quickly ascended to that level in 2017 and has struggled to make good on it, is the choice of so many to be this year’s breakout Oriole both for how he ended 2021 and a lack of better options.
For most of the same reasons as anyone else, I gravitate toward that idea as well. But most of them are pretty subjective. Having seen him at his best helps. Having the idea of his health and regular playing time influencing his performance does as well. And so too does what he’s learned about himself and baseball at the highest level through over 800 big league plate appearances.
I set out to find more. There must have been something in the way Hays ended his season that wasn’t accounted for when projections had him being mostly the same player as in nearly a full season in 2021.
What made the best version of Hays there’s been in the big leagues so good? And what does it portend for the player he can be beyond that six-week heater?
The stretch that began with the Orioles first win in three weeks on Aug. 25 is one that proved to be the high-water mark of Hays’ career to date. He was fantastically productive, with a .979 OPS and a 163 wRC+ (with 100 being league-average) in 150 plate appearances from that day to the end of the season.
It’s not the first time Hays has ended a season well and thus launched into the offseason with high expectations, with his strong ends to 2019 and 2020 breadcrumbing breakouts as well.
The difference now, with Cedric Mullins and Ryan Mountcastle having the productive years they did and Trey Mancini and Anthony Santander’s breakout years already rewarded with Most Valuable Oriole awards in 2019 and 2020, is that Hays is really the only candidate for such a mantel this winter.
There’s nothing outsized or wrong about that hope from anyone involved. Hays shot to the majors in 2017, his first full professional season, and has endured an uneven major league career since. Even with how he ended the season, that stretch only brought his season totals to a .769 OPS and a 106 wRC+.
That accounting of his season seems to be around where most public forecasts systems have Hays projected for in 2022, which on the balance seems fair now. In the beginning, I was a bit surprised by it, though. That sent me back into the underlying data of how Hays ended the season in search of variables that might be easy to carry over and help him overperform that in a full season.
Those 150 plate appearances, by and large, featured batted ball data that was better than Hays’ season averages. His hard contact rate, according to FanGraphs, was 34.9 percent compared to 30.6 for the season and 29 percent before Aug. 25. He pulled the ball slightly more often, which explains some of the power, but he also hit the ball on the ground more often as well – 45% of the time during that stretch, compared to 43.2 percent for the season.
One factor in particular stands out, though, and not in the best way. Hays’ home run/fly ball rate (HR/FB) was 22 percent, well above the league average and his season mark of 15 percent. It was at 12.3 percent before Aug. 25, and all but one of the home runs that accounted for that after that date at Camden Yards were to left field.
At least three might have stayed in the ballpark had the fences in Baltimore been where they’ll be for 2022. Removing those three home runs from the equation wouldn’t change that Hays hit for better average and also mixed in nine doubles in that stretch, but it would bring his HR/FB rate back down near his season average to 14.6 percent in that period and his OPS in that season-ending stretch from .979 to .871. Not exactly a pleasant hypothetical to consider, though one that would surely impact how Hays was viewed going forward if that was the reality.
Essentially, there are two big changes from Hays’ best stretch to the rest of the year. One – the five-point spike in hard-contact rate – could easily be considered sustainable. The other – fly balls leaving the ballpark at an above-average rate – really isn’t, and the Camden Yards changes make that even more so.
That’s the data part, though, and to only really look at that would give one the discipline to work in certain aspects of a baseball front office. All the rest, both from those who have enjoyed watching Hays play and those who have been around him over the years, clouds that. His high-energy style is one that endears him to Orioles fans.
Behind the scenes, his work ethic has never wavered. There was a focus to his game as last year wore on, one that coincided with his upswing in production: he wanted to be part of the solution, and did what he could to make the Orioles better.
It’s easy to want someone like that to succeed. I think that as the Orioles’ rebuild starts to deliver the players from this front office’s drafts and trades to the major league level, there will still be an affinity for the players who stuck out the bad times and came out on the other side as pieces of winning teams.
Mullins and Mountcastle seem well-poised to do that. Mancini and Santander deserve the chance to, as does John Means. The Hays who ended 2021 is the type of player worthy of being on that list as well. Absent anything firm to rely on to forecast him sustaining that long-term, it will come down to his doing it consistently this summer to make it a reality.
Everything about the Orioles is informed by data to help make the best decisions possible. On this one, I’m glad not to be wholly swayed by it.