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Nolan Arenado’s struggles: How much should Colorado Rockies fans worry?

By Kevin Larson

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA - JULY 28: Nolan Arenado #28 of the Colorado Rockies waits in the on-deck circle in the top of the first inning against the Oakland Athletics at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on July 28, 2020 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images)
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA - JULY 28: Nolan Arenado #28 of the Colorado Rockies waits in the on-deck circle in the top of the first inning against the Oakland Athletics at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on July 28, 2020 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images) /
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Nolan Arenado of the Colorado Rockies
DENVER, COLORADO – AUGUST 03: Nolan Arenado #28 of the Colorado Rockies celebrates after hitting a 2 RBI home run in the sixth inning against the San Francisco Giants at Coors Field on August 03, 2020 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images) /

The Rockies third baseman has some concerning stats

While Nolan is generally a league leader in wOBA (weighted On-Base Average, which he’s always been in the Top 10% of the league), he’s always had a lower xwOBA, or Expected wOBA. When you have a higher wOBA than xwOBA, that generally points towards the fact that you may be getting lucky. Nolan’s always been pretty true to his numbers, but the script has flipped so far this season.

His current wOBA is .287 with an xwOBA of .319. That means he’s been a bit unlucky this season, but both would be career lows regardless of any factor of luck.

A few other things are different from his career norms too:

  • His Average Exit Velocity has dropped from 89.4 mph to 86.9 mph, the lowest of his career
  • His Average Launch Angle has increased from 17.6 degrees to 20.6 degrees, the highest of his career
  • His Hard Hit Percentage has dropped from 37.6% to 33.0%, also the lowest of his career

Based off of this data, it’s not going to surprise you to hear that his Pop-Up Percentage has also increased from 11.7% to 17.5%. In addition to that, he’s also getting under 40.2% of all batted balls, up about 10% over his career norm of 30.3%.

Arenado’s also hitting differently in zones that we’re used to seeing from him. In 2019 he was very strong on the inside of the plate, whereas this season he’s started to be stronger near the bottom of the zone.

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