Prince Fielder has an interesting new look compared to the rest of his career.  He built a profile for himself as a patient powerful left-handed batter and with his swing and tendencies there was no reason to expect a shift.  After 10 seasons in the MLB, Prince Fielder has re-invented himself after undergoing a spinal fusion surgery after the 2014 season.

The Raw Data

First, let’s take a look at Fielder’s batting trends over the past four years, excluding 2014 due to injury.

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The first thing we can see from this is that he’s completely changed the way he approaches his at-bats.  His walk rate is down from his career average of 12.7% to a pedestrian 8.8%.

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Comparing his swing% charts, it’s easy to see why his walk rate is down.  Fielder is swinging at more pitches in almost every part of the zone.  Usually this would also correlate with an increased strikeout rate, but Fielder is throwing that out as well.  Fielder has a career low 11% strikeout rate.  He’s making consistent contact and putting the ball in play.

The final piece to figuring out the difference with Fielder is the kind of contact that he’s making and where he his making it to.  Prince’s .343 BABIP is extremely high compared to his career average of .306, but after 400 at bats, small sample size problems are decreasing.  However, the inflated BABIP cannot be explained by his batted ball data, as his LD%, GB%, FB%, and Hard Hit% are all around his career averages.

The only other places to look are his spray charts.

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The main difference here seems to be that Prince has not been hitting into the teeth of the over-shift near as much when compared to years before.  This could explain why his batting average is up from his career average of .288 to .329.

Analysis

Prince Fielder’s largest shift is in his approach.  He’s significantly more aggressive at the plate, all while keeping his strikeout rate low and his batted ball rates in line with career averages.  To put it into perspective, his current 8.8% walk and 11.0% strike out rates are closer to Juan Pierre’s career averages than his own.

Fielder is also significantly more adept at hitting ground balls to the left side, decreasing the effect of the over-shift that is usually employed against him.  Both his and his low strikeout rate support his increased batting average.

The largest worrying trend is his HR/FB rate, which is 12.7% this season.  It is significantly lower than his career average of 18.4%.  However, seeing as though he just had a spinal fusion surgery, it is not surprising that he has lost a bit of power.

Conclusion

While Fielder is having a very solid comeback year, there are some concerning trends going forward.  Usually an aging player with decreased walk and power rates precedes a rapid decline.  However, with Princes other encouraging trends like his strikeout rate and getting his hard-hit rate back to career averages, it is hard to predict how the rest of his career will go.  Projection models will not have a very easy time projecting him over the next few seasons, but if I were to guess, I would say that Prince will either age more like a low-strikeout line-drive hitter over an aging power hitter.

Unless of course, he decides to change his style again.

Middle-market teams have historically tried to play the game like they are mini-large-market teams. They develop talent and when they have enough to make a run at the playoffs they make moves. They buy free agents, extend players through their age 27-33 years, and trade for proven talent. Unfortunately this usually does not work and we often see one of the top six most expensive teams (or the Cardinals) in the playoffs year after year. Then, the middle-market team’s “window” has closed, and the wait starts over.

It is time to have a change in the tradition of middle-market teams, and this includes the Texas Rangers.
The focus should not be on operating on a “window” of time where a World Series run is possible, but to create a team where there are very few years where this window is not open. The Cardinals are a good example of executing this plan. They rotate talent in and out due to a solid player-development system, while making very few large free-agent signings. This leads to a team where there is never too much money tied up to one or two players, and they can afford to make short-term deals or trades for players who add value to the team immediately without tying up long-term cash.

Let’s talk about how this relates to the Rangers though, specifically Elvis Andrus and his extension as this issue extends to all of the contracts the Rangers have given out. Most people look back and ask the wrong question as it was never about whether the Rangers thought Elvis was really going to be good for his contract. The Rangers obviously thought that he would be. The question the Rangers should have asked themselves is, should a middle-market team take a large risk by signing a player whose peak will probably be around age 26 to an eight-year extension, well past his peak? For a middle-market team, the contract is near impossible to avoid down the stretch if for some reason the player does not achieve the level of success that is expected.

Other situations, like Adrian Beltre, have worked. However, can you imagine a world where the Rangers spent all that money on Beltre, only to have him be awful? Of course you can, and it would have been miserable. The Rangers were fortunate that Beltre had a second peak at 31 that has lasted five years. Beltre is the exception, not the rule, and the Rangers should not expect to get lucky on a contract like his very often. It was a very high-risk offer that ended up working out. Unfortunately, we have the opposite side of the spectrum as well. Shin-Soo Choo was given a similar contract to Beltre, at a similar age. Unfortunately, this contract appears to be flat and the Rangers are already looking for a way to move Choo on.

The Rangers made a series of high-risk contract moves when they had players in the minors who were only a year or two away from being able to contribute on a major-league team, which led to a large amount of money being tied up. This is not to say that all long-term contracts are bad. If the Rangers were able to find a franchise player who brings extreme value consistently with a skill set that ages well, the risk would be worth the shot as long as a reasonable deal could be achieved.

The ultimate conclusion is that as a middle-market team, the Rangers should have a change in focus from spending money on long-term contracts, which are huge risks, to using money and trades to put together a solid supporting cast of players on shorter-length contracts. These players will support a group of younger cost-controlled players where their risk of failure is not tied to large amounts of cash. It is a superior strategy to hoping that during a window of opportunity, where long-term contract players are not past their prime, the team will make the playoffs a few times. If played correctly, with the Rangers’ amazing farm system and development team, the Rangers could have a consistently good team for long periods of time.