MLB

Fantasy Baseball: 6 Players Who Have Completely Erased Their Slow Starts

Matt Musico  —  @mmusico8 Jun 8th, 2017
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Justin Bour, 1B, Miami Marlins

The Slow Start

The counting stats weren't all that bad for Justin Bour during the month of April (4 home runs, 15 RBI, 8 runs scored), but the .222/.297/.407 triple slash with an 87 wRC+ and .303 wOBA was a bit off compared to what he had done between 2015 and 2016 with the Miami Marlins (.263/.332/.478 with a 116 wRC+ and .343 wOBA).

Judging from the power he displayed prior to 2017, he had a good shot at being part of a lethal one-two punch with Giancarlo Stanton in the middle of Miami's order. Although the results weren't there through his first 91 plate appearances, Bour was at least making solid contact. His 47.5% ground-ball rate is higher than we'd like for a power hitter, but his 41.0% hard-hit rate (and 13.1% soft-hit rate) were mighty impressive.

The Hot Streak

Bour recently went on the disabled list with an ankle contusion. That's sad, but we can be hopeful because manager Don Mattingly basically said we should be at this point. Before he was forced to the sideline, boy, was this dude freakin' raking.

Since May 1st, the first baseman has slashed .349/.423/.725 with a 198 wRC+, .473 wOBA and an Isolated Power (ISO) of .376. He's included 12 homers during this hot streak, which not only puts him among the National League leaders in the category, but he's already collected more dingers in 214 plate appearances than he did all of last year (15 homers in 321 plate appearances).

What's interesting is that his ground-ball rate (46.9%) didn't change much and neither did his fly-ball rate (34.6% since May 1st, 32.8% in April). However, he made the most of those fly balls since his homer-to-fly-ball ratio jumped from 20.0% to 42.9%. Having his hard-hit rate spike up to 51.9% didn't hurt, either.

It should also be noted that Bour, a left-handed hitter, has a 210 wRC+ in 45 plate appearances against southpaws this year. That's a limited sample size, but he only produced a 38 wRC+ in 30 plate appearances against them in 2016.

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