While all good analysts will caution people to not get excited over a single month of a baseball player's career, these hot and cold starts frequently do in fact matter for a player's outlook. We talk about things like a player's "true ability," but that in itself is a bit of an abstract concept. It's always changing and you never truly get to find out the right answer.
Projections are snapshots of our best guesses for a player's abilities at a brief moment in time, and depending on how a player has his hot or cold start, those projections can move, sometimes even quickly. As we approach the quarter mark of the season, it's a good time to see who has seen their projections move the most, because those are the changes that are likely more fact than fiction.
Here are some of the players whose changes in outlook I find the most interesting:
Hot
Cody Bellinger
Preseason projection: .270/.357/.523, 34 HR, 101 RBI, 4.8 WAR
Updated projection: .316/.398/.628, 43 HR, 122 RBI, 8.1 WAR
The ZiPS projections already thought that Bellinger was a star, but not quite to this degree. His 3.3 WAR increase from his preseason projection is the largest deviation in baseball. Bellinger had quick success as a rookie in 2017, but one of the surprises is just how broad his improvement has been. Even taking some of the air out of his BABIP (.400), he'd still be much better at hitting for average than he has ever been, and since coming to the majors, he has developed two things that nobody saw coming: the ability to play center field as needed and being one of the faster runners in the majors.
His plate discipline, never weak, has gotten even better, with his swinging-strike rate dropping from 13.2 percent and 12.3 percent his first two seasons to a microscopic 7.4 percent this year. He has been an above-average hitter against every type of pitch this year except for splitters, where he has been right around average. And Bellinger doesn't turn 24 for two more months.
Hunter Dozier
Preseason projection: .226/.285/.383, 15 HR, 51 RBI, -0.2 WAR
Updated projection: .266/.341/.486, 23 HRs, 65 RBI, 2.7 WAR
I've never been the biggest fan of Dozier as a player and really, I've complained plenty about some of the head-scratching moves the Royals have made during the early stages of their official rebuild. Dozier's minor league career was quite mixed and he generally needed to repeat levels to master them, not usually the sign of someone who will adjust well to major league pitching.
But the Royals did show some forward thinking here, and while Dozier was no longer someone who could claim the status of a top prospect -- his .229/.278/.395 line in 2018 cemented that fact -- they decided to give Dozier every opportunity to prove people wrong rather than sign a retread, as they did at other positions. Dozier has become a launch-angle superstar this year, hitting for more power than ever, with nine homers in 33 games after hitting just 12 in 137 combined major and minor league games in 2018.
Dozier also has showed a shocking amount of patience compared to 2019. The number of bad pitches he has swung at has dropped by a third, and he's making contact with 96 percent of his swings in the strike zone. He's not going to hit .342 for long, but Dozier's improved approach at the plate gives him a solid shot at retaining much of his breakout.
Chris Paddack
Preseason projection: 5-5, 4.07 ERA, 79.2 IP, 77 H, 12 HR, 19 BB, 82 K, 0.9 WAR
Updated projection: 7-5, 2.93 ERA, 111 IP, 84 H, 11 HR, 27 BB, 122 K, 2.7 WAR
The question for Paddack coming into the season was more "when" rather than "if." Rather than play any service-time games with one of their top prospects, the Padres saw getting Paddack to the majors as soon as possible and hoping for a breakout as one of their best chances to push the team toward being competitive. The Padres are still floating around .500, but they've put the doormat status behind them and Paddack is a big reason why. With 46 strikeouts against just 10 walks and a 1.55 ERA after seven starts, Paddack has been remarkably mature as a pitcher for someone with only seven starts above Class A.
Tyler Glasnow
Preseason projection: 10-9, 3.89 ERA, 152.2 IP, 131 H, 18 HR, 75 BB, 182 K, 2.1 WAR
Updated projection: 15-7, 3.15 ERA, 166 IP, 137 H, 17 HR, 61 BB, 192 K, 3.6 WAR
If Tampa Bay's plan for continued competitive relevance is "find a new Cy Young contender every season," well, that's a pretty good plan if you can pull it off. A pitcher with wonderful stuff but so-so capabilities at handling said stuff, Glasnow has rapidly turned the corner this spring and somehow ranks sixth in baseball among qualifiers in best walk rate. Crazy from a pitcher who put up a 6.4 BB/9 in 62 innings for the Pirates in 2017 and was at 5.5 in relief before being traded to Tampa Bay.
Martin Perez
Preseason projection: 8-7, 4.58 ERA, 129.2 IP, 144 H, 13 HR, 45 BB, 79 K, 1.4 WAR
Updated projection: 11-7, 3.99 ERA, 150 IP, 155 H, 12 HR, 55 BB, 113 K, 2.7 WAR
Perez was a top prospect and found success very early in his 20s, going 10-6, 3.62 in his first full season with the Rangers in 2013. He has been treading water since then, not really developing as a pitcher, and his strikeout rate continually slid after a successful return from Tommy John surgery.
This year, Perez has reconfigured his whole game and it seems to be working. Perez has changed his delivery to use his legs as much as his arms and stolen a page from Mariano Rivera -- smart people crib from the best -- by adding a new cutter that is already his most effective pitch. If you had told me last year that Perez would be striking out 8.5 batters per nine innings in 2019, I'd have guessed that you meant per month.
Cold
Jose Ramirez
Preseason projection: .293/.380/.535, 29 HR, 93 RBI, 6.3 WAR
Updated projection: .261/.352/.455, 23 HR, 77 RBI, 4.5 WAR
I'm worried. After one of the best first halves for a third baseman ever, Ramirez slumped after July, hitting .218/.366/.427 in the second half of 2018, with his BABIP dropping off the cliff to .208. Typically, sudden changes in BABIP are flukes, but this is a problem that is extending into the new season, with Ramirez's BABIP at .221 through Tuesday night. The power is gone, his contact numbers have dropped, and at this point, I'm befuddled as to why he suddenly can't get around on a fastball. If you gave me those facts in isolation, I'd assume you were describing someone who was playing through a shoulder injury. J-Ram's dip has been severe enough that ZiPS isn't calling it a fluke, so the Indians should be taking his problems very seriously.
Jackie Bradley Jr.
Preseason projection: .246/.326/.438, 17 HR, 68 RBI, 2.5 WAR
Updated projection: .214/.298/.347, 11 HR, 52 RBI, 0.2 WAR
JBJ was generally the weakest part of the Red Sox outfield offensively, but managed to mostly make up for it with a top glove in center field. But his defensive numbers have dropped off the face of the earth, and while there are always small-sample-size issues with glove measurements, he could be playing center field like Kevin Kiermaier to the power of Willie Mays and it wouldn't make up for a .147/.241/.176 line. The shift was never a problem for Bradley in the past, but this year, he has hit weak grounder after weak grounder into the shift. The book on him in 2019 is that you can get him out with ... pitches.
Joey Votto
Preseason projection: .291/.421/.467, 18 HR, 74 RBI, 4.3 WAR
Updated projection: .265/.390/.426, 17 HR, 58 RBI, 2.7 WAR
In an era in which a lot of big-money contracts for top first basemen failed miserably for teams, Votto was the outlier in that his actually worked out for the Reds. But we knew he'd start aging eventually, and at 35, it's looking largely like a power rebound from a down 2018 isn't going to happen. Even Votto's vaunted plate discipline appears to be slipping; he'd become a master of rarely swinging at bad pitches and of making contact on those occasions when he did. That's something we've seen a lot less of in 2019. Votto is not a bad hitter, but there are good reasons to believe that the most scientific hitter of his generation is less capable of applying those abilities than in the past.
Collin McHugh
Preseason projection: 10-7, 3.69 ERA, 134 IP, 127 H, 16 HR, 37 BB, 126 K, 2.5 WAR
Updated projection: 11-11, 4.67 ERA, 150 IP, 142 H, 24 HR, 46 BB, 147 K, 1.4 WAR
The Astros certainly aren't struggling given that they're in first place, but McHugh's return to the rotation hasn't exactly gone as expected. McHugh's sojourn in the bullpen wasn't due to any ineffectiveness as a starting pitcher, but rather because the Astros had a very deep rotation in 2018 and McHugh was still less than a year removed from major injury. The plan was that McHugh would enter the rotation this year, allow the team some time to ease in Josh James, and help make up for the losses of Charlie Morton and Dallas Keuchel.
Instead, McHugh has left 3 mph in the bullpen and batters are now half as likely to swing and miss at his fastball as they were in 2018. Batters are slugging .735 off his fastball, resulting in McHugh throwing a ton of sliders, the only pitch he has that's actually fooling batters this year. That's not even hyperbole: McHugh struck out 54 batters in 2018 with his fastball and curve; this year, with already more than half his 2018 innings, he has struck out a total of ... three. That's three as in one-two-three -- there was no digit lopped off in the editing process!