Grading Corey Dickerson’s 2014 Season

Is it fair to say that Corey Dickerson‘s season has flown somewhat under the radar, both in Denver and especially nationally? I think it is. In a league that’s becoming consistently more pitcher-friendly, the Colorado Rockies’ 25-year-old outfielder has raked all season.

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He is likely going to end up just short of qualifying for the batting title unless the Rockies play a lot of extra innings in their final four games (Dickerson needs 28 plate appearances in the final four games to qualify with 502 plate appearances), but he was tremendous in a part-time role early in the season and has sustained his play as a starter.

Why has Dickerson been overlooked? I suspect the main reason is that Dickerson has gotten most of his playing time late in the season, or long after the Rockies faded from the playoff race. In the first two months of the season (from the beginning of April to the end of May), when the playoffs were still a possibility and the Rockies were getting national attention, Dickerson had just 93 plate appearances and started 19 of Colorado’s 55 games (about 35%). He was noticed by some (yeah, that’s me), but excitement was tempered because Dickerson was an unheralded second year player who was only starting part time.

Since the end of May? Dickerson has 381 plate appearances and has started 87 of Colorado’s 103 games (about 85%). The problem is that while Dickerson has hit well all year, the Rockies were 28-27 in the first two months of the season (when he was sitting) and are just 38-65 since the start of June. That’s why he’s been overlooked.

If I had said Corey Dickerson would be the team’s most consistent hitter over the course of the season before this year started, you would have laughed at me. This is, after all, a team with Troy Tulowitzki, Carlos Gonzalez, Justin Morneau, and Michael Cuddyer, all established as above-average hitters, to go along with young up-and-comers Wilin Rosario and Nolan Arenado (not to mention Charlie Blackmon, who went on to have one of the best April’s in recent history). But Tulowitzki, Gonzalez, Cuddyer, and Arenado have had injury-marred seasons, Morenau has hit for average but not power, and Rosario has taken a huge step back.

That leaves Corey Dickerson as the Rockies’ best hitter in 2014. Remember, he won’t show up on the stats leaderboard because he doesn’t have enough plate appearances, but Dickerson places fifth in the NL with a .308 average, first with a .565 slugging percentage, third with a .926 OPS and tied for tenth with 24 homers. He strikes out more than a fifth of the time, but hits balls hard enough and is fast enough to maintain a good average.

Even if you remove the Coors Field effect, which you can do with wRC+ (ballpark adjusted), Dickerson places 10th in the NL with a 138 wRC+ and 20th in baseball. He’s also walked at around a league average rate and has stolen eight bases. His raw power (ISO), which subtracts batting average from slugging percentage, is .257, seventh in baseball and behind only Giancarlo Stanton in the NL.

By any metric, Dickerson has been one of the best hitters in baseball this year, and could have had a great shot at a Silver Slugger award had he gotten more playing time from the start. Not bad for a guy who was a candidate to get left off the roster out of spring training and started out as the team’s sixth outfielder.

That leaves Corey Dickerson as the Rockies’ best hitter in 2014.

Defensively, Dickerson is still a work in progress, which is the biggest thing that separates him from a superstar. His poor defense was the main reason Dickerson was in danger of starting the year in AAA, and there hasn’t been a magical transformation over the course of the season. But while he’s not good in left field, he’s definitely adequate, to the point that manager Walt Weiss has said that he no longer worries about leaving Dickerson in left late in a close game. He doesn’t make many jaw-dropping plays in the field and has a below-average arm along with bad range, but he makes all the routine plays. That’s good enough to keep him in the lineup.

I’ll just cut to the chase: Corey Dickerson’s going to get an A. He might be one of the only Rockies who earn that grade, and he deserves it. As one of the best hitters in baseball, Dickerson has exploded onto the national scene this year and should continue to get more attention as we look toward next season.

Two things to look out for next year, when Dickerson will surely be Colorado’s everyday left fielder: his BABIP and his platoon splits. Dickerson’s BABIP is .349 this year and could regress to average, which would depress his  batting average. As for his splits, Dickerson was much better against righties (.328/.379/.606) than he was in limited time against lefties (.253/.306/.418). Is he going to play against lefties next year? That will be a key question for the Rockies next season.

For now, though, let’s just celebrate Dickerson’s breakout 2014 season, because it was pretty darn good.