Miami Marlins’ Justin Bour poised for a big 2016
Headed into the 2016 regular season, the Miami Marlins are a popular sleeper pick in the NL East. If you followed their endeavors last year, you would know Justin Bour had one of the more quiet, yet successful seasons, amongst all rookies league wide.
Finishing fifth in NL Rookie of the Year voting, Bour did a lot as a 27-year-old, despite not having a whole lot around him. No one in the Marlins’ lineup had the protection of right fielder Giancarlo Stanton‘s lumber from June 26th onward. Despite the absence of a franchise player with prolific power in the lineup, Bour managed to still finish first on the team in OPS+ (118), first in RBI (73) and second on the team in home runs (23).
In December of 2014, Miami signed Mike Morse to be their full-time first baseman. The club inked him to a two-year, $16MM deal and fully expected him to produce. When he did not, Miami called upon Bour early in 2015, amidst logging only 51 at-bats in his second Triple-A season.
More things working against Bour in 2015 aside from Stanton’s bat being around was he played his home games at Marlins Park. In 2015, Marlins Park ranked 28th across MLB for the number of home runs hit on average in a game (0.740) at the venue. Of Bour’s 23 long balls, 10 were hit at home.
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Some of the opposing arms he hit no doubters off of according to ESPN home run tracker was pretty impressive as well, with names like Shelby Miller, Julio Teheran, Jordan Zimmermann and Gerrit Cole having been victimized. In the category of plenty, which ranges between a no doubter and just enough, Bour also went deep on Matt Harvey at Citi Field.
As the season progressed, so too did Bour. After Stanton permanently vanished from the club’s lineup, in 81 gams from June 28th onward, Bour went deep 17 times and posted an OPS of .815. In the 48 games prior while Stanton was still around, he hit just six home runs and posted an OPS of .764. His splits for home runs per at-bat with Stanton’s protection and without are 20.5 and 16.8, respectively.
It’s foolish to think there is a prefect correlation between anyone’s success in the Marlins lineup when Stanton is or is not playing. There are far too many other factors that come into play. However, Stanton’s ability maximizes everyone else’s potential in that lineup when he plays.
In 2015, Bour was able to rise to the occasion and be a big difference maker in a lineup when its biggest asset went down. He finished second in MLB amongst all rookies for home runs hit, while logging less at-bats than both freshmen who tied for first with 26.
For a late blooming 25th round pick in 2009, Bour went a long, long way in 2015. So too did a grand majority of his round trippers. Of all Major Leaguers last year, Bour’s average true distance for home runs hit ranked 20th at 407.3 feet, just behind Jose Bautista (407.4).
Given the opportunity for 500-plus at-bats in 2016 with Dee Gordon, Christian Yelich and Stanton firing on all cylinders ahead of him in the Miami Marlins’ batting order, Justin Bour is a great candidate to build on his power numbers and emerge as a prototypical first base threat at the plate.