KC Royals: Is Paulo Orlando Really This Good?

KC Royals outfielder Paulo Orlando is hitting a team leading .334 after going 4 for 5 with 2 singles, 1 triple, and 1 home run against the Minnesota Twins on Sunday night. Is Paulo Orlando really this good, or is his success a mirage destined to collide with reality?

This question has been percolating in the mind of Kansas City Royals fans across the country, especially after Sunday’s game in which he fell just a double short of hitting for the cycle. Royals Review even wrote a long analysis of this question on August 9, concluding that Orlando is really nothing more than a fourth outfielder.

One major source of skepticism about Paulo Orlando is that he was a 29-year-old rookie. Players who take so long to reach the major-leagues rarely become dominant players over the long term. Second the 30-year-old second year player boasts a Batting Average Balls In Play (BABIP) of .412, which is unusually high. That number generally hovers around .300 for most major-league veterans.

Consequently, most sabermetrically-inclined analysts believe that Orlando’s recent success is not sustainable and that he’ll fall back to earth sooner or later.

Paulo Orlando is a fast runner who was a track star in his native Brazil before he took up baseball. Players who run fast often post high BABIPs because of their ability to beat out ground balls for infield hits. Yet, a .412 BABIP exceeds any bump that you’d expect a player to get just from his foot speed.

However, players with high career batting averages also tend to have unusually high BABIPs over their careers. Could it be that Paulo Orlando is a late-blooming hitter will consistently put up high batting averages over the next few years?

Next: Can Paulo Orlando Sustain A High BABIP?

Can Paulo Orlando Sustain A High BABIP?

If such is the case, Orlando will be almost entirely unique in baseball history in that no one has sustained a .412 BABIP over 2,000 plate appearances going back to 1920. I chose 1920 as my starting point since that is the year Babe Ruth hit 54 dingers to break the prior single season home run record by 25. To my mind, that’s when baseball begins to resemble the game we currently know today. Before that, home runs were rare and players focused on hitting safely rather than hitting for power.

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Since 1920, the highest career BABIP is Rogers Hornsbys .377. However, current players like Joey Votto (.358), Mike Trout (.358), and Paul Goldschmidt (.354) all possess BABIPs much higher than the norm. These three players currently rank sixth, seventh, and eighth in BABIP since 1920.

Trout, Votto, and Goldschmidt are all sluggers who bash a lot of home runs and extra base hits. In short, they look nothing like Paulo Orlando, who has 11 career home runs in 581 plate appearances. A power hitter he ain’t.

Looking a little farther down the list, we see recently retired Derek Jeter (2015) with a .350 career BABIP at no. 13, and DJ LeMahieu (.346) at no. 20, Dee Gordon (.346) at no. 22 and teammate Lorenzo Cain (.346) at no. 24. All of these players look much more like Paulo Orlando since they sport career ISO (isolated power) below Orlando’s career .150 ISO.

In short, they’re guys who have high career BABIPs despite lacking power.

The interesting part about these recent players is we have batted ball data for them, including estimates of soft, medium, and hard contact frequencies. So, how do these players compare to Paulo Orlando’s batted ball rates? (all data from Fangraphs.com)

                                                Soft%          Med%          Hard%       

Derek Jeter                           15.2%          58.1%          26.7%

DJ LeMahieu                        12.9%          58.6%          28.5%

Dee Gordon                          33.8%          48.4%         17.7%

Lorenzo Cain                        18.7%          50.9%         30.3%

Paulo Orlando                      17.9%         55.2%         27.0%   

Thus we see that Orlando’s contact quality rates are right in line with other current players who have sustained unusually high BABIPs for more than three seasons of play. So it seems that it’s possible that Orlando is a player that can enjoy high BABIPs for a number of seasons to come.

Notice, however, that none of them have come close to Orlando’s current .412 BABIP.

Next: Can Orlando Really Finish The Season With a .412 BABIP?