Looking at Hank Conger from an offensive perspective

Hank Conger has been traded to the Houston Astros from the Los Angeles Angels, according to multiple reports. Off the bat this move does not jump off as a “hot stove-worthy” transaction because many are under the false impression that Conger is just a backup catcher and nothing more. From an offensive standpoint, you are totally right….. well, sort of.

Last season (or this season — however one chooses to refer to it as) Conger compiled a mediocre .221/.293/.325 slash line in 260 plate appearances, which equates to an 82 wRC+. There is no question he performed poorly from an offensive perspective in ’14; in fact, I do not know how one can even attempt to refute that claim. I will say, however, that the 26-year-old catcher was a decent bat the year prior, as he produced an exactly league-average 100 wRC+ in approximately the same number of plate appearances. Also, one must take into account that Conger is a catcher. Those guys aren’t supposed to hit very well, and that 100 wRC+ was actually above-average in comparison to other catchers.

The question, though, is which one – the slightly above-average offensive player in ’13 or the below-average offensive player in ’14 – is the Hank Conger we should anticipate seeing going forward? It’s a tricky one to answer because 1.) he’s only twenty-six and 2.) he’s only amassed 768 plate appearances in his career.

Let’s take a look at his minor league numbers in which a viable sample size can be judged in order to get a feel for what the switch-hitter’s offensive potential really is.

• 2007 Single-A Cedar Rapids (320 plate appearances): 127 wRC+
• 2008 Single-A+ Rancho Cucamonga (318 plate appearances): 118 wRC+
• 2009 Double-A Arkansas (524 plate appearances): 115 wRC+
• 2010 Triple-A Salt Lake (452 plate appearances): 120 wRC+

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Yeah, so that is awfully encouraging. In his four most recent years in the minors where the sample size was moderately telling, Conger flat out raked. That’s a hyperbole. In reality, Conger was a very good hitter in the minor leagues and the sample size is much more massive, meaning that his numbers above should tell us more about his potential than his major numbers to this point.

We cannot lose sight of the fact that minor league talent does not always carry over into the majors (I’m looking at you, Justin Smoak). Pitchers and hitters in the majors are almost always better than Triple-A guys — that should be fairly obvious — and subsequently players will perform worse against big league competition opposed to minor league ones most of the time.

Truthfully, Conger is a hard guy to figure out. It should be noted, however, that his batted ball data is very positive and suggests that he has the basis for being a successful MLB hitter. Let me explain to you what I mean: in 2014, the average MLB FB% (fly ball percentage) was 34.4% and the average MLB GB% (ground ball percentage) was 44.8; Conger, in ’14, posted a 46.5 FB% and a 36.6 GB%. Why is this such a big deal? Well, because FanGraphs calculates line drives produce 1.26 runs per out, whereas fly ball produce 0.13 runs per out and ground balls 0.05 runs per out.

If it was not common knowledge already, fly balls result in runs more often than ground balls. Thus, hitting fly balls at a high rate is good and so is hitting a low rate of ground balls. Conger does both, but he does hit line drives at a low rate, which, if you looked at how often line drives lead to runs, is kind of a big deal. Here is his career batted ball data: 17.3 LD% (line drive percentage), 43.2 FB%, 39.5 GB%, and 9.8 IFFB (infield fly balls).

Two positives and two negatives stem from the above numbers. The positives being that, like last season, he hits fly balls at an above-average rate and ground balls at a below average rate; the negatives, of course, is his tendency not to hit many line drives and to hit slightly more infield fly balls, which are essentially guaranteed outs, than the regular hitter.

The problem with just giving you the batted ball information, though, is hitters do not equally do as well with fly balls, ground balls, line drives or infield flies as other hitters. So, let’s take a gander at the damage Conger has done with fly balls, ground balls, and line drives over his four-year career.

• Fly balls: .694 OPS and 87 wRC+ | 2014 MLB Average With Fly Balls: .797 OPS and 114 wRC+
• Ground balls: .405 OPS and 9 wRC+ | 2014 MLB Average With Ground Balls: .497 OPS and 35 wRC+
• Line drives: 1.689 OPS and 396 wRC+ | 2014 MLB Average With Line Drives: 1.565 OPS and 355 wRC+

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Man, he really crushes line drives even relative to the rest of the hitters in the bigs. If he could hit line drives more frequently then his offensive potential would not even be a question.

One more note before I wrap this thing up is the backstop’s basically even platoon splits. In his career, Conger has collected an 87 wRC+ versus southpaws and a 84 wRC+ against righties, Granted, he only has faced a left-handed pitcher 73 times in his career, and that is not really a reliable sample size.

Conger’s offensive outlook is foggy. He is probably better than the hitter we saw last year, but to what extent remains a mystery. His minor-league numbers are encouraging, yet his line drive frequency, or lack thereof, is holding him back. I could lie to you and say I know what to expect from Conger in Houston from an offensive perspective, but I do not. Steamer Projections projects in 2015 he is better than last season, as they see him finishing the season with an 88 wRC+ — if that offers you any solace. All I can say, is thank goodness for his super-human pitch framing abilities! He definitely will provide the Astros with some value. That is, of course, when he is not backing up Jason Castro.