Minnesota's Brian Dozier set a record last season. You probably know that if you're reading this, but it came with such little fanfare that you could be excused for missing it. What record? We'll get to that in a second.
In the non-Cubs genre, the 2016 season will be remembered for its proliferation of power. Hitters hammered the second-most homers in history, just 83 shy of the record set in 2000. There were 1,424 more homers hit last season than in 2014, the largest two-year jump in history (excepting seasons influenced by labor strife or expansion).
You might think that a slew of records would have fallen amid a league-wide explosion of long balls. That didn't really happen. The big league leader (Baltimore's Mark Trumbo) had just 47. A nice total but also one that has been surpassed 73 times. All of those extra homers were distributed pretty widely.
But there was one position that stood out: Dozier's at the keystone corner. His 42 home runs set an American League record for second basemen and fell just one shy of Davey Johnson's big league mark.
That's a flashy number but one easily overlooked for a couple of reasons. All those homers came on a Twins team that dropped 103 games, the most the franchise has lost since leaving Washington after the 1960 season. It's a familiar story for Dozier, whose 111 homers over the past four years is 10 more than second-place Robinson Cano among second basemen. But during that span, Minnesota's 370 losses are the most in baseball.
There's another reason why Dozier's numbers don't pop like you'd think: He's part of a bulging group of second basemen who have created a sort of golden age at the position. Along with Cano, Jose Altuve, Ian Kinsler, Daniel Murphy, Jason Kipnis and Dustin Pedroia, among others, teams are getting more offense from second base than ever before.
According to baseball-reference.com, teams got an average of 3.0 offensive WAR from second basemen in 2016. That's a half-win more than any other season in the past 20 years. There were 13 players who played at least half their games at second base and hit at least 20 homers. That's 11 more than 2015 and four more than any season before that. In fact, there were more 20-homer seasons by second basemen in 2015 than in every decade in baseball history before the 1990s. The 1950s, 60s and 70s saw a combined 12 such seasons. The 1980s had just 10.
In that context, Dozier's season was more emblematic than iconic. That leaves us with the real question: Can he do it again?
TRADE RUMORS
We may not have all the information we need because it's not a cinch that Dozier will return to Minnesota, though it seems likely at this point of the offseason that will be the case. It's easy to understand why Dozier would be such a hot name in the rumor mill. He turns 30 in May. His 2016 numbers certainly scream "career season!"
The Twins have a nice group of young position players who have already reached the majors, but it's likely going to take a couple of years for them to mature and be augmented. Dozier is signed through next season on a team-friendly contract, making his trade value as high now as it's likely ever going to be. Minnesota turned shortstop over to Jorge Polanco late last season, and the arrival of top prospect Nick Gordon -- also a middle infielder -- could coincide with the expiration of Dozier's deal.
That said, we'll proceed as if Dozier will play the 2017 season in Minnesota. The most salient fact in that regard is the park, one that is not severe for power hitters. In fact, Target Field is actually a pretty good park for righty power hitters. Last season, Dozier hit 21 homers at home and 21 on the road.
WHAT CHANGED FOR DOZIER
As illustrated by Dozier's aforementioned composite numbers from the past four seasons, his power breakout was not all that extreme. He has been one of baseball's better homer-hitting middle infielders for a few years now. Some of his other numbers from last season stand out more, such as his .268 batting average and .280 BABIP. But we're more concerned with his power hitting, so let's stick with that.
Dozier's strikeout and walk rates were right on target with his 2015 seasons, so he was putting the ball into play at about the same rate. However, the character of those balls was different in two key ways. First, more were fly balls, and a higher portion of those fly balls left the yard.
In 2016, 47.1 percent of Dozier's balls in play were flies, up 4.7 percent from 2015. That corresponded with a 6 percent drop in line-drive rate, suggesting a pronounced effort to create more loft with his swing. It worked; 16.7 percent of his fly balls left the yard. That was up from 9.7 percent in 2015. That makes this area one ripe for possible regression in 2017.
ADJUSTMENTS
Dozier is a tinkerer, but one who typically has some rhyme to his reason. In an illuminating Q&A with Fangraphs, Dozier offered up what might have been the most sabermetrically friendly quote of any player all season, saying, "I'm about one thing, and that's creating runs."
Dozier has learned what parts of his game are conducive to creating offense, and he has set out to maximize his strengths to correlate with those factors. It has worked.
He has become the most extreme pull hitter in the game. Dozier hit the ball to the left side 57 percent of the time in 2016, tops among 146 qualifying hitters -- Edwin Encarnacion was a distant second at 52.2 percent. And that was actually down 4.9 percent from 2015, when Dozier was also baseball's most pull-heavy hitter. In 2013, he pulled the ball just 44 percent of the time, so this has been a significant in-career adjustment.
Additionally, Dozier has developed a more aggressive approach at the plate. He walked 89 times in 2014 but has taken just 61 bases on balls in each of the past two seasons. He's far less prone to strike out looking than he was early in his career, but the aggression has not come at the expense of bloated strikeout rates or a deflated on-base percentage.
Dozier seems to have improved his fundamentals over the past few years, but his body seems to be better as well. Or at least stronger. According to ESPN's home run tracker, Dozier's homers traveled an average of 12.7 feet farther last year. He'd hit just two homers classified as "no-doubter" before last season, when he hit nine of them.
REGRESSION IS A ...
If you were to burrow into the career seasons of any player, you'd probably find sound, objective explanations for their sudden spike of success. And yet, kind of like the Iron Bank of Braavos, the regression monster will have its due.
Indeed, ESPN's Dan Szymborski projects Dozier for 31 homers and an .815 OPS for the coming season. The 2017 Bill James Handbook has Dozier at 30 homers and a .785 OPS. Yes, regression will have its due, but here's the thing: Regression is likely but not inevitable. This leaves us in the realm of the subjective.
Self-awareness goes a long way in sports, and Dozier seems to understand his own game better than most. The adjustments he has made during his career have not just paid off handsomely, but they've tended to stick. This may explain a player who, in 2012, broke into the majors at the age of 25 with a career total of 16 minor league homers over 1,613 plate appearances. Since then, he has hit 117 big league homers.
Dozier has shown a consistent and amazing capacity for improvement over his career. Yet there are questions:
- Can the Twins aid Dozier by improving their lineup behind him, if only through the maturation of young players such as Byron Buxton, Max Kepler and Miguel Sano?
- Was some of Dozier's long-ball spike largely a product of a league-wide wave of homers that could ding his numbers if the wave rolls back?
- Will pitchers find a way to exploit his extreme approach, requiring more adjustments on Dozier's part?
- Will he ultimately be moved for prospects and end up in less power-friendly environments?
There is a lot about Dozier's story that makes you think he is capable of bucking the regression monster. Yet, it would not be a smart bet. But if he does, a run at Johnson's big league record isn't out of the question. Still, even if Dozier isn't again breaking records that few hear about, chances are strong he will be one of the more valuable players in the game.