January 28, 2016

Player Profile

Devon Travis

by J.P. Breen

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Devon Travis is a fantasy owner’s dream—guy who hit .304 in his rookie debut, who showed an ability to draw a walk, who posted an ISO near .200, and who stole a few bases. What many hardcore fantasy owners adore, though, is the fact that he did all this without ever ranking on a top-100 prospect list. He’s a dude who compiled impressive minor-league statistics without the prospect fanfare, yet could legitimately be an above-average second baseman at the major-league level—the kind of thing that validates “box-score watching” in the minors.

Still, the idea that Travis is going to hit .300-plus with 15 homers and 15 stolen bases is a bit of a stretch. We’re still only talking about a 238 PA sample size in the majors, and the fact that the early returns mirror the level of his performance in the minors doesn’t necessarily mean much.

The 24-year-old slugged eight homers in essentially one-third of a season. It suggests serious power potential for fantasy purposes, especially at second base. Perhaps that’s not out of line, either, given his 16 long balls in 2013; however, it’s important to note that Travis appears to have a serious power hole in his approach. Almost everything power related comes on the inner half.

Anything on the outer half, and especially anything down-and-away, did little to trouble Travis. At most, opposing pitchers surrendered a single. As the proverbial book gets written on the young second baseman, he’ll continuously get pounded on the outer third of the plate, as the potential damage is lessened.

As such, it’s not surprising that he found more success in 2015 against lefties. He hit .328/.371/.603 against southpaws. Lefties naturally work inside against righties, given their repertoires and the need to work in on the hands. Travis feasted on their mistakes. All eight of his homers were to left or center field. Nothing came to right. That should further incentivize working on the outer third.

Of course, there’s a problem with this solution for opposing pitchers. Travis didn’t really struggle on away pitches. Nor did he shy away from using the opposite field. In fact, many of his non-homer extra-base hits came to right and center field. He almost never used left field for base hits.

The above spray chart—along with his batting average heat map—indicates that pitching away from Travis won’t present him with a huge issue. He’s used to using the opposite field and would be more open to working to right if opposing pitchers continuously work him away. Sure, he perhaps becomes a high-average, low-power option for the Blue Jays, but that’s not really a problem.

In that way, Travis doesn’t seem to have the same yellow flags that many young hitters possess. Where he doesn’t hit for power, he still hits for average. When pitchers try to bust him inside to keep him from going to right field, he capitalizes and jumps on mistakes, hitting for power.

In 238 plate appearances, though.

And therein lies the rub. Everything looked good in his brief 2015 campaign. The 7.6 percent swinging-strike rate, the walks, the batting average, the power, the approach, the spray chart, the heat maps, the defense. Everything. But we can’t pretend that we’re working with a big-league track record at this point. It’s highly unlikely that the vast majority of scouts -- including the Detroit scouts who drafted him in the 13th round and later traded him away -- blatantly missed on the guy. The caveats that limited his upside still exist.

As far as fantasy owners go, though, they’re licking their chops. The underlying numbers are as good as the superficial ones. Perhaps the only real concern is that his average batted-ball velocity didn’t rank in the top-200, but even then, it’d be pretty easy to argue that he’s only trying to muscle up on mistakes and hitting for average most of the time.

Even his contextual situation is great. The Blue Jays should score a ton. Travis will benefit from a higher run-scoring environment—both in terms of runs scored and RBI. In standard leagues, it’s great. He’s going as the 24nd-overall second baseman due to a shoulder injury and the fact that he should miss the beginning of the regular season. That means he’s being treated as roster filler—and his 2015 campaign shows that he can be much more than that.

It’s just a matter of building a larger sample from which to work. Given the minimal investment, though, I have a hard time advocating against rolling the dice against Travis. I plan on drafting him in multiple drafts this winter.

J.P. Breen is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @jp_breen
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