Colorado Rockies: Five individual, advanced offensive stats that must be fixed in 2021

Josh Fuentes exit velocity (84 MPH): Not ranked because he didn’t qualify

Josh Fuentes is, perhaps, the most perplexing guy on this list. In his first full season in the majors, he was on the bench to start the season but ended up taking over the everyday first baseman job after Daniel Murphy struggled.

Fuentes hit .306 and seemed to have some clutch hits as well. But, at least on offense, those are the only two things that show that he had a good season at the plate. In fact, he looks like he has some massively good luck.

With that .306 average, he only walked twice (twice!) on the season so his OBP was only .320. His slugging percentage wasn’t off the charts at .439 but it was above the league average of .418.

However, he had:

• A hard hit percentage that would have put him in the bottom two or three percent of the league (23.9 compared to 34.9 league average)
• A launch angle below league average
• A chase percentage that was among the worst on the Rockies (38.8 percent compared to league average of 28.2 percent

But for this, we will discuss his average exit velocity of 84 MPH. 88.3 MPH was league average and the Rockies lowest qualifier was Daniel Murphy. His exit velocity was in the bottom five percent of the league and his average exit velocity was 85.1 percent. In other words, Fuentes, if he would have stayed on that pace and had enough bats to qualify, would have been in the lowest one or two percent of the league.

Part of that luck is why the Rockies decided to sign C.J. Cron to, almost definitely, be the team’s Opening Day starting first baseman but if Fuentes can spell Cron or Ryan McMahon at third or maybe even spell Raimel Tapia in left field occasionally and prove that it wasn’t luck but talent at the plate this year, the Rockies will have to find a place to put him in the lineup every day.