Are These Breakouts For Real? Ha-Seong Kim, Chas McCormick, CJ Abrams

Determining if these red hot hitters have undergone a skills change

No need for a long intro today. It’s a busy time of year and the title says it all. Today we’ll be taking a closer look at three red hot bats to see if there’s been a real change in skill, or if they’re simply riding a stretch of good fortune.

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Otherwise, let’s dive in!

Ha-Seong Kim, 2B/3B/SS, Padres

Kim was quietly underrated from a real-life baseball perspective in 2022.

Last July I even wrote a piece for Underdog Network wondering what the Padres might do with Fernando Tatis Jr. upon his return. The idea was that Tatis hadn’t historically been a good defender at shortstop, while Kim was thriving at the infield’s most demanding position.

Kim has maintained that defensive excellence in 2023, ranking in the 94th percentile of Statcast’s “Outs Above Average” metric for the second straight campaign. Meanwhile, he has the third most defensive WAR according to Baseball Reference, and, incredibly, the third most WAR overall - only trailing soon-to-be MVPs Shohei Ohtani and Ronald Acuña Jr.

Regardless of your defensive metric of choice, Kim’s been highly valuable in his third year in San Diego. But it’s his offensive gains that have fantasy managers singing his praises:

After parsing through Kim’s underlying numbers, the biggest (only?) change is that he’s being much more selective this season. Entering Sunday he has a 36.7% swing rate in ‘23, down from 44.1% and 43.1% the two years prior.

And yet his contact rate is up, his BB% has risen, and he has a career-best ISO.

Kim has fully taken off since May 1st. In April he hit .209 with a 78 wRC+. Since then he’s batting .311 with a 152 wRC+, while his strikeout and walk rates inch closer and closer towards each other.

Kim’s season-long BABIP is only .332, so there isn’t massive regression coming for that.

What could be a concern are his expected stats:

• .286 BA vs .252 xBA

• .456 SLG vs .391 xSLG

• .366 wOBA vs .334 xwOBA

As poor as his batted ball results are, Kim’s newfound (and elevated) BB% is keeping that xwOBA in the 60th percentile of qualified MLB bats.

Complicating the going-forward situation is that Petco is currently the 2nd-worst MLB environment for offense, per Statcast’s 3-year rolling average park factors. And yet, Kim has seemingly found a way to overcome it - he’s pulling fly balls 36.6% of the time, the 7th highest mark in the league among hitters with at least 100 fly ball events.

Lastly, Kim’s 24 thefts entering Sunday are tied for the 11th most in the majors. And this is why he has captivated the hearts of so many fantasy gamers. He’s hitting for power by pulling fly balls, walking more by swinging less, and also utilizing his 82nd percentile sprint speed.

Rest-of-season projections haven’t fully bought in yet, which might be wise, but they also might be making too much of his 2021-22 statistics. After looking at the data, this new version of Kim looks (mostly) legit.

Chas McCormick, OF, Astros

Here we have a former 21st-round pick who has probably always been a tad underrated. McCormick didn’t debut until he was 26 years old in 2021, but through the end of ‘22 he was 11% better than league average with the bat, all while playing plus-plus defense in the outfield.

As a part-time player without much pedigree coming up, it’s really hard to shed people’s priors, and I’ve admittedly been very late to the party with McCormick.

Despite a disastrous May, the 28-year-old has been phenomenal for the defending champs, checking into Sunday’s action with a 148 wRC+ and 3.1 fWAR.

The most obvious change in his surface level profile has been a vastly improved ISO, which might be led by a career-best 46.7% pull rate. McCormick has made other improvements too:

Gains against right-handers and sliders in general have been huge for McCormick, who has been ever hotter since May 28th:

• .310/.403/.601

• 13 HR

• 8 SB

• .386 BABIP

• 41.2% hard-hit rate

• 50% pull rate

• 28.3 HR/FB%

Of everything that has gone right for him this season, things have been even more exaggerated since the end of May. His BABIP and HR/FB% are both top-6 in the league during this time, which suggests regression.

All this is to say that McCormick is undoubtedly continuing to improve as a player. Is he this good? Probably not, but not many are. He’s over performing his expected numbers, and it isn’t with a drastic pulled fly ball rate, so I’m less inclined to believe in its sustainability than I am for Kim.

That being said, he’s hitting the ball hard, hitting it in the air, and pulling it. Those are components of a strong profile. Add in some speed and an elite player development situation, and we have some fantasy goodness here.

CJ Abrams, SS, Nationals

The 22-year-old enters Sunday having led off every single game for Washington since July 7th. It was part of a breakout month for Abrams, who entered it slashing just .230/.276/.385 with 7 HR and 9 SB.

Since then, he’s hitting .302/.359/.457 with 3 HR and 16 SB.

(Note Abrams popped a homer and swiped two more bases on Sunday!)

The changes have been noticeable:

There’s a lot going on in that graph, but the basic idea is Abrams has begun hitting less grounders, chasing less, and pulling more.

Furthermore, not shown above, he’s making less “soft” contact while also making more frequent contact in general. And the overall plate discipline is better:

• Pre-July 1:

  • 3.3 BB%

  • 23.4 K%

• Post-July 1:

  • 6.9 BB%

  • 14.6 K%

Here are some season-long improvements from 2022:

• 2.1 barrel% to 5.9% in ‘23

• 109.6 mph maxEV to 112.5 in ‘23

All of this makes sense from an aging curve perspective, especially since Abrams doesn’t turn 23 until October. There was no guarantee these July gains even happened this year, so it’s certainly been encouraging.

And for fantasy, the stolen base upside is immense. Steals are a stat of intent, and Abrams is clearly showing more of a willingness to run. He’s “only” in the 84th percentile sprint speed this season, but as the leadoff hitter for a bad team, they’re going to give him the green light whenever he gets the chance. In 5x5 roto leagues, this is major.

And yet, until we see more, Abrams’ fantasy value is really tied to those formats that place a priority on stolen bases. There’s still plenty of time for him to continue growing — he’s much younger than Kim and McCormick — but he isn’t a finished product.

Therefore, I’m buying into him the least from this group, at least from a short-to-intermediate perspective (he’s a great bet in dynasty 5x5, of course). I’m really curious, and excited, to see how he closes out 2023.