Predicting Ceddanne Rafaela’s Future Power

With the offensive improvements that Ceddanne Rafaela has made this year, what could they mean for his future?

The Boston Red Sox offense has been inconsistent and has struggled to score. They desperately need players to step up with the loss of Rafael Devers. One player who has been a consistent force in the lineup is Ceddanne Rafaela. Red Sox fans are witnessing a breakout for the second year player. With an increase in his numbers and the batted ball profile, it has me wondering what the potential is for the 24 year-old center fielder.

Year two did not start out well for Ceddanne Rafaela. A lot of the same struggles we saw last season were occurring again. On May 3rd, Rafaela was hitting just .208 with a .309 slugging percentage. Then, something clicked for the Boston center fielder because since May the Force Be With You (May 4th), Rafaela has been one of the best bats in the Red Sox lineup. Over the past 48 games for the Red Sox entering Friday night, Rafaela is slashing .275 / .314 / .469 with a 114 wRC+. Over this extended run of success, Rafaela’s batted ball data has taken a significant jump up from last season making many wonder if what Rafaela is doing at the plate is sustainable and what his power numbers could be.

Last season, Ceddanne Rafaela had an average exit velocity of 86.6 mph and a max exit velocity of 108.2 mph. Rafaela had a 7.5% barrel rate and a 26.4% K-rate. This season, Rafaela has raised his average exit velocity to 90.3 and has a max exit velocity of 112.1 mph. Rafaela has also seen his barrel rate jump to 11.8% and has lowered his K-rate to 21.2%. For his sophomore season, these are improvements that you want to see Rafaela make.

After seeing the improvements, I began wondering if the increase in his batted ball profile could mean there is more power coming for Rafaela. There are a couple of statistics that are used for projecting power. The first is max exit velocity paired with pulled fly ball rate. The harder a player hits the ball to his pull side in the air, the higher the chances are for a home run to occur. Another statistic that is used is barrel rate as players must hit the ball on the sweet part of the bat to consistently drive the ball out of the ballpark. The final stat is K-rate. The more a player can put the ball in play, the more opportunities there will be to showcase power.

By looking at batted ball data, I compared Rafaela’s batted ball data from last year to players with similar data. The comparisons are not a bad group of hitters but a group of hitters who do not have a ton of power. The criteria for this list was a max exit velocity of 107.8 - 108.7 and a barrel rate above 5%.

Obviously, Altuve has had a terrific career with power but I would consider Altuve more of an anomaly than the norm. The hitters above have been productive but the majority of them have capped their power at about 20 HR.

The improvements that Rafaela has made this season puts him on a list that is completely different. Some of the players on this list have had some big power years in their careers. The criteria for this list was a max exit velocity between 111.9 - 112.1 and barrel rate above 10%.

It’s ironic that Rafael Devers makes this list. But Rafaela finds himself on a list that is quite intriguing. Rafaela is only 24 years-old and everybody but Michael Busch (27 years-old) is 30 or older. So far, Rafaela has yet to display the power that the rest of this list has in the big leagues. There are two big differences that I will be interested to watch to see if Rafaela can continue to improve.

The first big difference is pulled air percentage. Rafaela is much lower than everybody on the list and he is only close to Devers because Devers designed his swing to take advantage of the monster at Fenway Park. If Rafaela can continue to pull the ball in the area especially at Fenway Park, it should lead to more doubles and home runs.

The second big difference, which is not listed on the chart, is swing percentage. Ceddanne Rafaela is the second most free swinging player in all of baseball with a swing percentage of 60.3%. All of the hitters on that list have a swing percentage between 39 - 48 percent and they all have a walk rate above 10%. Now, I don’t anticipate Rafaela ever drawing a ton of walks. However, if he can become more selective and get into better hitting counts, that should allow him to take more aggressive swings to drive the baseball and tap into that power.

It’s always tricky trying to predict what a player can be but I think Rafaela has 20-25 HR power as he continues to get bigger and stronger. If he can continue to make improvements with his swing decisions, it should allow him more opportunities to be aggressive in the zone. Rafaela’s development will be fun to watch over the next several years.