After a stint on the IL, Inciarte is back in action. Prior to this season, he had been a reliable ~3 win guy by contributing elite defense in CF and an average or slightly below average bat. The Braves have ~2 weeks to decide if Inciarte is "back", which isn't a lot of time. Luckily, there are some bits of data that stabilize relatively quickly, and showed us signs that he was injured even before he hit the IL officially.
1. Average FB/LD exit velocity:
2015: 87.8 mph
2016: 87.7 mph
2017: 87.5 mph
2018: 87.9 mph
2019: 84.7 mph
Inciarte was a very consistent ball striker until suddenly losing 3 mph of exit velocity in 2019. This screamed injury, and now that he's supposedly healthy I expect to see his exit velocity increase significantly over the next 2 weeks.
2. Average Sprint Speed:
2015: 28.0 ft/s
2016: 27.9 ft/s
2017: 27.2 ft/s
2018: 27.9 ft/s
2019: 26.2 ft/s
Inciarte was never a burner, but he was consistently around 28 ft/s (pretty sure he dealt with nagging injuries in 2017). Suddenly in 2019 his sprint speed tanked. Unfortunately, there is no way to set a date range on the sprint speed leader boards, but since this metric is calculated using the fastest two-thirds of a player's competitive runs, his overall value should start to increase relatively quickly. A healthy Inciarte for 2 weeks should get that mark over or near 27 ft/s.
3. FB%
2014: 24.6%
2015: 25.9%
2016: 26.8%
2017: 29.1%
2018: 30.9%
2019: 18.1%
Inciarte obviously isn't a power hitter, but whatever was wrong with him caused his launch angle to suffer, and lots of fly balls became grounders. We don't want to see Inciarte grounding out weakly to the right side, and a FB rate of 25%-30% will be a good proxy as to whether or not that's happening.
4. Z-Contact%
2014: 95.5%
2015: 94.2%
2016: 94.9%
2017: 92.4%
2018: 90.4%
2019: 84.5%
Inciarte went from excellent bat control that was declining, to a sudden and sharp drop off in 2019. It's not hard to imagine how a back injury could affect contact rate. I expect a healthy Inciarte to post a Z-Contact of 90% or better.
Regardless of the results over the next 2 weeks, if Ender's exit velocity is up around 87-88 mph, his sprint speed creeps up towards 27 ft/s, his FB% gets back to 25%+, and he makes contact with ~90% of balls he swings at in the zone, I think the FO will determine Inciarte is "back". If those rates do not improve, I think they will look to add an OFer at the deadline.
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