Don’t Worry About Joe Panik

The 2016 season was a frustrating one for the promising 26-year-old San Francisco Giants second baseman Joe Panik. After posting 4.1 fWAR in only 100 games in 2015, Panik posted 2.1 fWAR in 127 games in 2016. A solid season, especially in limited playing time, but there was definitely more to be desired for Panik. This would most likely be a career year for someone like his fellow infield mate Kelby Tomlinson, but Panik is capable of much more than this. Taking a few looks at Panik’s number line and Statcast profile shows that he is an excellent candidate for a bounce-back 2017 season.

At first glance, I don’t think Joe Panik’s 2015 season was as appreciated as it should have been. He didn’t even qualify for the batting title (432 PAs) and yet finished 38th among position players in fWAR. He was the 27th-best hitter according to wRC+ among those with over 300 PAs. Keep in mind that 2015 was Panik’s first full season in the major leagues and he is one of the best, if not THE best, fielding second basemen in the league. It seems like Panik has been around forever after his postseason heroics on the 2014 Giants squad, but it is easy to forget he got his first start of his career in late June of 2014. A 6-fWAR pace in his first full season in the big leagues in nothing to scoff at.

Unfortunately, injuries are what has held him back early in his career. Lower-back inflammation limited his playing time in 2015 and a nasty concussion and groin issues plagued him throughout the 2016 season. Some wonder whether those back issues carried over into the 2016 season. Even if they didn’t, suffering a concussion is enough to warrant that Panik was nowhere close to 100% in 2016.

Even without taking account for the injuries, there are reasons to believe 2017 is going to be different. Panik’s elite plate discipline is what is going to keep him at least mildly successful for years to come. He was one of three players to have a BB/K ratio over 1, sandwiched between plate discipline aficionados Ben Zobrist and Carlos Santana. Yes, he was ahead of even the likes of his teammate Buster Posey and Joey Votto. He doesn’t walk much, but he keeps the strikeouts down. Both rates were right around 9%. That leaves room for an incredible amount of balls in play.

Panik has run a decently high BABIP throughout his professional career. For his minor-league career it stayed mostly around .320-.330. In his 73 major-league games in 2014 it was .343. And in 2015 it was .330. All numbers that would indicate he is a line-drive-type hitter who run a better-than-average BABIP. But something changed in 2016. His BABIP fell to .245, second-worst among qualified hitters. Low BABIPs are reserved for power hitters such as Jose Bautista and Todd Frazier who don’t rely on balls in play but rather balls over the fence, not for contact hitters such as Joe Panik. A BABIP that low is concerning but there are of course explanations.

Joe Panik would not have made it this far if he were always running a BABIP as low as he did in 2016. Panik was one of the most unlucky hitters in 2016. There is no way Panik can be expected to run a BABIP as low as he did, and I would even venture to guess that it creeps up back over .300. His Statcast numbers suggest he was hitting the ball about as hard in 2015. The real difference is the angle at which he was hitting the ball. Panik traded line drives for many more ground balls in 2016. Bad luck and a change in launch angle combined contributed to the down season from Joe Panik.

My guess is that a weird injury-plagued season is what led to his disappointing 2016 campaign. There is too much evidence in Panik’s history that suggests 2016 is not the real Joe Panik, and we can expect a return to being the elite contact hitter he is capable of being in 2017.