2017 VEB Community Projections: Stephen Piscotty

Stephen Piscotty played his first major league game on July 21, 2015. Over the next year, Piscotty got 638 plate appearances, hit 20 homers, 38 doubles, and six triples, good for a .299/.365/.490 stat line with a 132 wRC+ and a 3.2 WAR. After that time, Piscotty’s bat slowed. His strikeout rate for the rest of the season was at 25% which helped cause a low .242/.306/.413 stat line with just a 92 wRC+. For a corner outfielder, that production is less than ideal.

So which Piscotty shows up this season? His first full season in the big leagues might have worn him down a bit, but we also saw Kolten Wong have really good numbers from the second half of 2014 and the first half of 2015 followed by a slow second half that carried over into the 2016 season. Piscotty, who has typically been a high-contact hitter, will need to get his strikeout numbers in order to have a strong season.

Piscotty ended last season with a solid .273/.343/.457 line with a 115 wRC+ and 2.8 WAR. That wasn’t too far off from what we predicted at VEB last season. The full season numbers seem more reliable than either his great first half or his disappointing second. You can find ZiPS here, Steamer here, and Baseball Prospectus ($) on their player pages.

How do you think Piscotty will do this year?

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