Chances are, someone other than Mike Trout is going to finish as the No. 1 hitter in Fantasy baseball this season. As brilliant as Trout is, he has only finished as the No. 1 hitter in Roto leagues in two of his five full seasons in the majors, though no player has topped him twice in that span.
With that in mind, this preseason series is going to look at the seven players with the best chance to finish ahead of Trout in 2017. We'll look at the path that could take them to the No. 1 spot, as well as the potential pitfalls along the way.
This time up, it's Mookie Betts' turn.
Path to Glory
I could just copy and past last year's results here, but that would be lazy. It's hard to imagine Betts improving on his 2016 season, just because he was already so good, but we're also talking about a player who improved in nearly every conceivable way from 2015 to 2016, and is still just 24 years old for nearly all of the upcoming season.
What makes Betts so special is his ability to hit for power while avoiding strikeouts. His short, pull-happy stroke keeps him quick to the ball, and despite his slight build, he showed no problem putting the ball over the fence without selling out for power. He might not have a ton of raw power, but Betts' power plays up thanks to his approach at the plate.
If you're looking for ways he might potentially be able to improve, it mostly comes down to generating free passes. In the minors, Betts walked in 13.2 percent of his plate appearances, a number that dipped to just 6.7 percent last season. Now that he is an established power threat, you have to imagine pitchers will approach him with a bit more caution, which could help boost that on-base percentage.
Betts seemed to maximize his skill set last season, and he had better circumstances than pretty much anyone not named Nolan Arenado, so 2016 might have been a best-case scenario for Betts.
What could derail him?
When you're having trouble finding ways a player can get better from one year to the next, it's probably a pretty safe bet to assume you won't have much trouble finding ways they might get worse. Such is the case for Betts heading into his third full major league season.
As crazy as it might sound, there's a pretty decent chance Betts just had his best season as a major leaguer. Everything that could have possibly gone right for him did, as Betts benefited from the best lineup in baseball and some fortuitous luck when it came to home runs. Betts missed just four games, and racked up opportunities in a Red Sox lineup that just kept turning over, which helped him rack up 730 plate appearances. He made the most of them, obviously, but with David Ortiz gone, this Red Sox offense will likely return to the pack, after they scored nearly 100 more runs than the nearest AL club in 2016. There are just going to be fewer opportunities for Betts to produce runs, and that's really where he shined.
Betts also saw a pretty big spike in his home run rate last season, driven by a jump in HR/FB rate from 8.2 percent to 13.2. While he does play in a park particularly well-suited to his style of play, but Betts benefitted from quite a bit of luck in that regard in 2016. According to HitTrackerOnline.com, Betts had nine home runs that would not have gone over the fence in 20 other parks in the majors, and he had five "lucky" homers, second in the majors. Fenway helps, however in 2015, he had no such homers. It's fair to expect him to take a step back in that regard as well.
It's important to note, I'm not necessarily arguing Betts' skill set will regress. At 24, he is still developing, and as pitchers adjust to him, he will probably make the necessary adjustments to turn things back around. Betts is going to get better as a player, even if the results are never quite as dramatic as they were in 2016.
Chances he finishes as the No. 1 player: 10%
Even building in a healthy amount of regression, it's going to be hard for him not to be one of the best hitters in baseball this season. Dropping his averaging 13 points, lopping off seven homers, and taking away 39 combined runs and RBI -- a more than 15 percent drop from last year -- still lands Betts in the No. 2 spot pretty safely.