Waiver Wire: Corey Hart

I was just as surprised as anyone when I saw Corey Hart hit the waiver wire in two of my leagues. With a .245-29-4-18-3 start to the season, I know that he hasn’t been worth the high pick he likely cost for you to draft; but is it too early to give up on Hart?

Looking at Hart’s numbers this year, the thing that jumps out first is the 19 walks in 180 PA (10.7%). To understand the context, I should tell you that he drew 27 walks in a full season last year, and 36 walks the year before. Is this really the same guy? Hart has really tightened up his strike zone, lowering his overall swing rate to 45.1%, down from 54.7% in 2008. He’s only swinging at 23.3% of stuff out of the zone, and just 67.1% of the strikes he’s seen.

Taking all those pitches has resulted in all those walks, but it’s also resulted in a lot of strikeouts (25.8%) and fewer balls in play, which has hurt his contact rate and some counting stats. The BABIP is normal at .307, and he’s sporting a healthy 19.5% LD rate. He’s popping out on an incredible 25% of fly balls; that won’t last, and he’s likely got more power than he’s shown so far (7.7% HR/FB).

Assuming a 74% contact rate, .311 BABIP, 42% fly balls and an 11% HR/FB ratio, we might expect Hart to hit about .263 the res of the way with 13 more HR to his credit. ZiPS has Hart hitting .275-59-14-59-14 the rest of the way, so he’s still got plenty of value left. I hope you were smart enough to grab him for your team, as I did for mine.