Franchy Cordero recalled to the major league team

nvalvo

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Re: Story, the slow start makes sense given the reasons mentioned - but the recent performance is concerning too. He’s got 8 bb / 45 k in June - July; he’s been worse in those two months than he was in April. He’s also got really extreme home / road and lefty / righty splits. And a large % of his production is coming from defense. I think it is likely an adjustment year; seems like that often happens with players joining new teams.
Oh definitely. The spike in strikeouts is the big concern with him. But if his BABIP were even halfway to his career norms, we'd be looking at more of a .770ish OPS. Not a barnburner of a season, but competent, and great coming from a plus defender up the middle.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Oh definitely. The spike in strikeouts is the big concern with him. But if his BABIP were even halfway to his career norms, we'd be looking at more of a .770ish OPS. Not a barnburner of a season, but competent, and great coming from a plus defender up the middle.
It will never be to his career norms because he's not playing half his game in Coors. It should bounce back some, though.
 

The Gray Eagle

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Franchy is 0 for his last 21, with 15 strikeouts. That is beyond horrendous. I mean any one of us could have had his last 21 at-bats and not done worse, and only would have whiffed a few more times than he did.
 

jon abbey

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They should bunt more often.

JbJ and Cordero aren’t bad at it.
HOU has had a bunch of beautiful bunt hits in their 4-0 start to the second half against NY and SEA, I have seen I think 4 including back to back against Montgomery to start an inning.
 

Humphrey

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Maybe Franchy is destined to be the next Tuffy Rhodes.

1995- 2 for 28 for the Sox, 2 for 17 for the Cubs...went to Japan and hit over 400 homers there.
 

Harry Hooper

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Franchy is 0 for his last 21, with 15 strikeouts. That is beyond horrendous. I mean any one of us could have had his last 21 at-bats and not done worse, and only would have whiffed a few more times than he did.
For his career, Tim Wakefield struck out 47 times in 111 AB.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Francoeur was "Frenchy" for the same reason Wade LeBlanc and Jim Lefebvre were "Frenchy": baseball folks aren't that original.
Or that bright, since both examples CC cited had monosyllabic first names yet were both saddled with the same two-syllable nickname.

Then again, it seems like every manager that's come through Boston just adds a -y to everyone's name, or a shortened version of it, so I guess your original point stands.
 

chawson

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It hasn't always been pretty, but Franchy Cordero now has a 100 wRC+ on the season. Here's how he got there, in three parts:

A) April 29-July 1: .259/.335/.415, 10.2 BB%, 26.3 K%, 11.4 Barrel%, 51.4 HardHit%, 13.5 SwStr%, 27.6 O-Swing%, .366 expected wOBA, 110 wRC+
B) July 2-Aug 1: .132/.213/.250, 9.1 BB%, 44.2 K%, 11.1 Barrel%, 22.0 HardHit%, 19.5 SwStr%, 42.6 O-Swing%, .202 expected wOBA, 27 wRC+
C) Aug 21-present: 5 for 13, .385/.467/1.308, 2 BB, 4 HR, 6 Ks in 15 PAs, 30.2 SwStr%, 42.4 O-Swing%, .397 expected wOBA, 376 wRC+

Part A, we have a pretty productive hitter, albeit one who gives some value back playing emergency below-average defense out of position. The power numbers aren't eye-popping, but the underlying xStats are very promising (barrel rate, walk rate, chase rate, launch angle/ground ball rate). He was also the victim of some bad luck on deep fly balls that would have been home runs in other parks, hence the robust xwOBA.

Part B, we have an unplayable disaster. Cordero maintained his decent walk rate, but his chase rate (O-swing) skyrocketed and the whiffs snowballed. (He was demoted to Worcester on August 2nd, where he hit .370/.426/.674 in 54 PA.)

Part C, ongoing...is it some kind of synthesis of the two? He's hit four home runs in 15 PAs (off Berrios, Kluber, a tough reliever in Dillon Tate and soft-tossing lefty in Yarbrough). The plate discipline is still mostly there, but the chase and whiff rates are still very high. I'm not sure if he's doing something differently or if he's just run into a few, but the power is quite nice.

The easy, laced-with-frustration knock has been to say Cordero is a AAAA player. I'm not sure about that. I still think there's a gap between overall perception of his productivity and reality. I get it: a lot of fans have a low tolerance for high-strikeout players, and his associations with Benintendi's departure and Bloom's unsuccessful first base tinkering has not endeared him. But he's still a guy with tremendous power and athleticism who lost several years to injury, and still has only one full season of ML at-bats (715 PA) under his belt. We're seeing his most substantial season of plate appearances to date, and the 100 wRC+ he's put up is, definitionally, major-league caliber.

Time is, however, running out to establish himself, and it might not be here. I think we can all agree that he's not the future at first base. But he is a decent outfielder, and can play right field arguably better than Verdugo. In fact, given their timelines of team control (both through 2024) and defensive positions, the two are strangely comparable despite much different approaches. Here are their lines this year, with Hosmer's thrown in for good measure:

FC: .228/.307/.417, .189 ISO, .320 expected wOBA, 100 wRC+
AV: .283/.327/.400, .118 ISO, .333 expected wOBA, 102 wRC+
EH: .267/.333/.381, .115 ISO, .311 expected wOBA, 103 wRC+

Between Hosmer's injury and September garbage time on the way, it's possible Cordero will get another another month of PAs. I'd like to see them. I still think that there's plenty of upside here, as long as whatever happened in July doesn't return. For perspective, his .315 wOBA has been more productive in 2022 than Max Kepler, Nick Castellanos, Andrew McCutchen, Eric Hosmer, Ryan Mountcastle, Gleyber Torres, Jorge Soler, Tyler O'Neill, Riley Greene, Marcus Semien, Trevor Story and Ramon Laureano.

Much has been made about the value of Hosmer being league-average while making the league minimum. Cordero will probably make roughly $4M total in arbitration across '23 and '24. Meanwhile, Verdugo's arb salaries will probably cost $15-16 million over the same period. We have plenty of money so I don't expect this will be a deciding factor for keeping one over the other. But one guy is considered a core member of the team and another is someone I'd think most people would be content to DFA, and the value between the two seems closer than I had thought.
 
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AB in DC

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Nice analysis. He's got to be in the mix for the 2023 OF, right? Verdugo is the only sure thing for next year, unless Pham's mutual option ($6m) gets exercised.
 

GB5

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Chawson: awesome analysis. If you have the time or inclination can you do Bobby. I am trying to figure out the disconnect between the 2nd half of last year and this year. To the eye it seemed like he hit a ton of balls hard last year and was even a bit unlucky. This years seems to see a lot of K’s and weak grounders. Not sure what the numbers show.
 

Rovin Romine

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Time is, however, running out to establish himself, and it might not be here. I think we can all agree that he's not the future at first base. But he is a decent outfielder, and can play right field arguably better than Verdugo.
Do you have easy access to his defensive numbers? I had always thought he had good tools in terms of footspeed (basepaths and fielding) and a good arm. So I was under the impression he was a good corner OF, not just a passable one. If so, in Fenway, his main position would seem to be RF.

The question with Franchy has always been contact. He just does not make enough of it. If he has potentially turned a corner, I think playing him v. ML pitching this September is the wisest path.
 

Humphrey

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How can one say he's a decent outfielder when he can't catch a popup in the infield?
 

chawson

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Do you have easy access to his defensive numbers? I had always thought he had good tools in terms of footspeed (basepaths and fielding) and a good arm. So I was under the impression he was a good corner OF, not just a passable one. If so, in Fenway, his main position would seem to be RF.

The question with Franchy has always been contact. He just does not make enough of it. If he has potentially turned a corner, I think playing him v. ML pitching this September is the wisest path.
He was a +1 outfielder by defensive runs saved in 2021 (mostly playing left). He's been a -1 outfielder by DRS in about 10 games' worth this year, mostly in right field. (He is -4 playing first base, where he's seen most of his '22 action).

Interesting to see his first Red Sox start in center field. He’s -2 defensive runs saved there in about 40 games spread over the last six years.

About the contact, you're of course correct. Changeups specifically pester him, though he’s improved some there. He handles breaking pitches very well, but anyone who watches a few of his PAs can see how pitchers attack him with changeups tailing out of the zone. If there’s hope, it’s that his contact rate is pretty good within the zone. If he can keep the chase rate low, the walk rate high and maintain his bat speed, then that’s still a plenty productive player. His contact rate is about where younger Judge (2016-20 editions) and Stanton are, which can work if you hit the ball 95+ mph half the time.
 

scottyno

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Verdugo has no platoon split, which adds a lot to his value.
This is pretty huge, and I didn't realize it until I looked at his splits recently. In 2019 and 2020 he hit well vs lefties. Then last year he was completley putrid vs them. Seemingly figuring it out again this year is pretty huge for the next few seasons before they need to figure out if he's a longer term part of the team than that.
 

simplicio

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(He is -4 playing first base, where he's seen most of his '22 action).
I thought he was surely worse than that even, then I checked the bottom of the list and there are only 3 guys worse (with -5, -6 and -7 respectively, oh hey Bobby), and here they all are with their innings played.
54801
Wow.
 

Bergs

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How can one say he's a decent outfielder when he can't catch a popup in the infield?
It helps to not take the worst plays a guy makes in a position he never played and assume they're indicative of his ceiling at another position.
 

chawson

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Another thing to consider when agonizing over Franchy's contact rate is that he almost never pops it up.

What are the two least competitive PA results in baseball? The strikeout, obviously, and the infield fly, which similarly does not move runners along.

Just for fun, let's invent a stat -- something like, rate of noncompetitive plate appearances, or NCPA%, to evaluate how many of a player's at-bats turn out to be totally unproductive.

Cordero's strike out rate is 32.2%, which is 11th highest in MLB (min. 250 PAs). But for all his struggles to make contact, Cordero's pop-out rate is somehow extremely low, low enough to be elite. He's popped up twice this year, giving him a IFFB rate of 3.5%, which is 20th lowest in MLB. (The league-average IFFB rate is 10.3 percent). So according to this newfangled metric, Cordero's NCPA rate would be 35.7%.

Compare this to a guy like Bobby Dalbec, who has a near-identical strikeout rate (32.4%) on the year. But Dalbec also has 9.9% IFFB rate, so his noncompetitive plate appearance rate would be 42.3%. The MLB leader in NCPA rate would be Joey Gallo, whose 38.7 K% and 15.9 IFFB% combine to make well more than half of his at-bats totally unproductive.

Let's look at a few players who have similar walk rates to Cordero (around 10 percent) and HardHit rates (around 45-50 percent):
Again, Cordero has a 10.0 BB%, a 32.2 K% and a 3.5 IFFB rate, giving him a 35.7 NCPA%.
Manny Machado has a 9.9 BB%, a 19.5 K% and a 15.6 IFFB rate, giving him a 35.1 NCPA%.
Teoscar Hernandez has a 6.6 BB%, a 28.9 K% and a 6.5 IFFB rate, giving him a 35.4 NCPA%.
Matt Olson has a 10.8 BB%, a 22.9 K% and a 12.5 IFFB rate, giving him a 35.4 NCPA%.
Rhys Hoskins has an 11.4 BB%, a 24.1 K% and 12.8% IFFB rate, giving him a 36.9 NCPA%.
Giancarlo Stanton has a 10.7 BB%, a 27.7 K% and a 10.0 IFFB rate, giving him a 37.7 NCPA%.
Kyle Schwarber has a 12.1 BB%, a 30.9 K% and a 12.0 IFFB rate, giving him a 42.9 NCPA%.

Are these players careers what we can expect from Cordero going forward? No, likely not. And yes, citing these kinds of players is a bit like using positive outcomes to reverse-engineer my argument. But you begin to see where the optimism comes from. Again, this does not apply to the July version of Cordero (Part B in my post above). That guy is unplayable, and it may be telling that the only two times he popped up this year came during that stretch. I think a lot of people thought July was some reversion to his true-talent level, and maybe it was. But plenty of good players have bad months (see Rafael Devers, Aug. 2022). It could also have been a lapse in mechanics that has since been fixed.

In other words, take the following traits, in no particular order:
a) above-average and consistent hard contact by Barrel Rate (league-average 7.5%), HardHit rate (38.2%), Exit Velocity (88.6%), etc.
b) above-average strikeout rate (league-average 22.3 percent)
c) low pop-up rate (league-average 10.3 percent)
d) above-average walk rate (league-average 8.2 percent)

So, maybe you need three of these traits to be a middle-of-the-order major league hitter. Franchy Cordero the oft-injured prospect had flashed two of them (A and C) when we acquired him. The 2021 version only had one (A). The 2022 version has flirted with three (A, C and D), except in July when for whatever reason he only had the walk rate.
 

Sin Duda

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I love your analysis, chawson, and your new stat, NCPA%. Do Franchy's career #s align with you small sample, or are you proposing he may have reached a new level?
 

mikcou

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Another thing to consider when agonizing over Franchy's contact rate is that he almost never pops it up.

What are the two least competitive PA results in baseball? The strikeout, obviously, and the infield fly, which similarly does not move runners along.

Just for fun, let's invent a stat -- something like, rate of noncompetitive plate appearances, or NCPA%, to evaluate how many of a player's at-bats turn out to be totally unproductive.

Cordero's strike out rate is 32.2%, which is 11th highest in MLB (min. 250 PAs). But for all his struggles to make contact, Cordero's pop-out rate is somehow extremely low, low enough to be elite. He's popped up twice this year, giving him a IFFB rate of 3.5%, which is 20th lowest in MLB. (The league-average IFFB rate is 10.3 percent). So according to this newfangled metric, Cordero's NCPA rate would be 35.7%.

Compare this to a guy like Bobby Dalbec, who has a near-identical strikeout rate (32.4%) on the year. But Dalbec also has 9.9% IFFB rate, so his noncompetitive plate appearance rate would be 42.3%. The MLB leader in NCPA rate would be Joey Gallo, whose 38.7 K% and 15.9 IFFB% combine to make well more than half of his at-bats totally unproductive.

Let's look at a few players who have similar walk rates to Cordero (around 10 percent) and HardHit rates (around 45-50 percent):
Again, Cordero has a 10.0 BB%, a 32.2 K% and a 3.5 IFFB rate, giving him a 35.7 NCPA%.
Manny Machado has a 9.9 BB%, a 19.5 K% and a 15.6 IFFB rate, giving him a 35.1 NCPA%.
Teoscar Hernandez has a 6.6 BB%, a 28.9 K% and a 6.5 IFFB rate, giving him a 35.4 NCPA%.
Matt Olson has a 10.8 BB%, a 22.9 K% and a 12.5 IFFB rate, giving him a 35.4 NCPA%.
Rhys Hoskins has an 11.4 BB%, a 24.1 K% and 12.8% IFFB rate, giving him a 36.9 NCPA%.
Giancarlo Stanton has a 10.7 BB%, a 27.7 K% and a 10.0 IFFB rate, giving him a 37.7 NCPA%.
Kyle Schwarber has a 12.1 BB%, a 30.9 K% and a 12.0 IFFB rate, giving him a 42.9 NCPA%.

Are these players careers what we can expect from Cordero going forward? No, likely not. And yes, citing these kinds of players is a bit like using positive outcomes to reverse-engineer my argument. But you begin to see where the optimism comes from. Again, this does not apply to the July version of Cordero (Part B in my post above). That guy is unplayable, and it may be telling that the only two times he popped up this year came during that stretch. I think a lot of people thought July was some reversion to his true-talent level, and maybe it was. But plenty of good players have bad months (see Rafael Devers, Aug. 2022). It could also have been a lapse in mechanics that has since been fixed.

In other words, take the following traits, in no particular order:
a) above-average and consistent hard contact by Barrel Rate (league-average 7.5%), HardHit rate (38.2%), Exit Velocity (88.6%), etc.
b) above-average strikeout rate (league-average 22.3 percent)
c) low pop-up rate (league-average 10.3 percent)
d) above-average walk rate (league-average 8.2 percent)

So, maybe you need three of these traits to be a middle-of-the-order major league hitter. Franchy Cordero the oft-injured prospect had flashed two of them (A and C) when we acquired him. The 2021 version only had one (A). The 2022 version has flirted with three (A, C and D), except in July when for whatever reason he only had the walk rate.
Your numbers dont work - for Cordero its not a big deal because he has so few infield fly balls - but IFFB rate is a percentage of balls put into play, not percentage of plate appearances. You cant add the two to come up with numbers that represent percentage of plate appearances (e.g., why 2 IIFB is a 3.5% rate for Cordero and not something under 1%).

Edit: Taking Schwarber as an example, he strikes out or walks in 42% of PAs. He homers in 6.8%. So balls in play is roughly 50% of PAs so you're metric really should be like 37% for him; not 43%.
 

chawson

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Your numbers dont work - for Cordero its not a big deal because he has so few infield fly balls - but IFFB rate is a percentage of balls put into play, not percentage of plate appearances. You cant add the two to come up with numbers that represent percentage of plate appearances (e.g., why 2 IIFB is a 3.5% rate for Cordero and not something under 1%).

Edit: Taking Schwarber as an example, he strikes out or walks in 42% of PAs. He homers in 6.8%. So balls in play is roughly 50% of PAs so you're metric really should be like 37% for him; not 43%.
Ah, good catch - my mistake. That would change the numbers around a bit.

So, YMMV with the comps. Still, I think we maybe overemphasize strikeouts and perhaps lag in our assessment of hitters who have the skill of limiting pop ups, especially in this era of high fastballs.
 

The B’s Knees

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Cordero also has a surprisingly low GIDP rate.
1 GIDP in 261 plate appearances.

Not sure it means anything, but it's another interesting stat for Franchy.
I guess it would be more meaningful if we knew the number of PAs with a runner on first with less than 2 outs.

For approximate plate appearance comparisons, Kiké has 8 GIDP in 281 PA, Dalbec has 5 GIDP in 336 PA and Arroyo has 6 GIP in 230 PA.

MLB link
 
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Whoop-La White

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Cordero also has a surprisingly low GIDP rate.
1 GIDP in 261 plate appearances.

Not sure it means anything, but it's another interesting stat for Franchy.
I guess it would be more meaningful if we knew the number of PAs with a runner on first with less than 2 outs.

For approximate plate appearance comparisons, Kiké has 8 GIDP in 281 PA, Dalbec has 5 GIDP in 336 PA and Arroyo has 6 GIP in 230 PA.

MLB link
Bref keeps the stat: he's had 54 DP opportunities (runner on 1st w/< 2 out) on the season: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cordefr02-bat.shtml#batting_situational

He's grounded into a DP only 4 times in his career in 128 DP opps (3.1%). MLB average is 10.2%.
 

mauf

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Only Devers, Story, Verdugo, and Pivetta are locked into spots in the 2023 lineup or starting rotation. Chaim will have a ton of money to spend, but with so many holes, some spots will have to be filled cheaply. Franchy will absolutely be in the mix at corner OF or DH — that plus-plus power has always been tantalizing, and there have been some signs of him harnessing it this season.
 

rlcave3rd

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I wonder how much of Franchy's low IFF and GIDB rates are related to the fact that he strikes out a lot. If he had better bat-to-ball skills, some of those whiffs would presumably turn into pop-ups or ground balls.
 

moondog80

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I'd be shocked if GIDP rate wasn't almost 100% a function of ground ball rate, foot speed, % of PA with a runner on 1st, and randomness.
 

OCD SS

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I think you could also add how hard the ball is hit into the mix, but I guess that would complicate things in that a harder hit ball is more likely to be a hit, but if it's not it must be right at someone, and therefore would actually increase the chance for a DP...
 

Cesar Crespo

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Still, I think we maybe overemphasize strikeouts and perhaps lag in our assessment of hitters who have the skill of limiting pop ups, especially in this era of high fastballs.
Pop up % tells you the % of Fly balls that were pop ups. 57 of his 265 PA have ended in a fly ball.
Cordero, he has 2 pop ups/57 FB. AKA 3.5%. At 10.3%, he would have 6 pop ups. That's a difference of 4 across 265 PA.
He has 87K/265 PA. AKA 32.5%. At 22.3%, he would have 28 less strike outs.
Franchy has a .320 BAbip this year. Had he put the ball in play 28 more times, that would have ended up as 9 more hits.
If Franchy was striking out 22.3% of the time and had a pop up % of 10.3%, with everything else staying the same, he'd be slashing .265/.338/.449. Instead, he is at .226/.304/.410


You think wrong. K% is based on all 265 PA. PU% is based on 57. One Sample size is almost 5 times bigger than the other, so it should be treated 5 times more importantly.

Would you trade 4 more pop ups for 28 less Ks?
 

Cesar Crespo

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One of the biggest goofs of the 2000s was pretending Ks didn't matter. Maybe back then they didn't because everyone was hitting it over the fence.

Odds state if you put the ball in play, there's a 30% chance it falls for a hit. A K is a K. For every 10k, that's 3 hits. I don't think BAbip was widely known about in the late 90s/early 00's. Nowadays, hitting an empty .300 is valuable again.
 

chawson

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Pop up % tells you the % of Fly balls that were pop ups. 57 of his 265 PA have ended in a fly ball.
Cordero, he has 2 pop ups/57 FB. AKA 3.5%. At 10.3%, he would have 6 pop ups. That's a difference of 4 across 265 PA.
He has 87K/265 PA. AKA 32.5%. At 22.3%, he would have 28 less strike outs.
Franchy has a .320 BAbip this year. Had he put the ball in play 28 more times, that would have ended up as 9 more hits.
If Franchy was striking out 22.3% of the time and had a pop up % of 10.3%, with everything else staying the same, he'd be slashing .265/.338/.449. Instead, he is at .226/.304/.410


You think wrong. K% is based on all 265 PA. PU% is based on 57. One Sample size is almost 5 times bigger than the other, so it should be treated 5 times more importantly.

Would you trade 4 more pop ups for 28 less Ks?
You're right, my mistake. I did not realize that FanGraphs calculated IFFB as a percentage of total fly balls, but that is in fact correct. I had figured it was a total percentage of batted ball events, which seems more intuitive to me, but that's wrong.

One of the biggest goofs of the 2000s was pretending Ks didn't matter. Maybe back then they didn't because everyone was hitting it over the fence.

Odds state if you put the ball in play, there's a 30% chance it falls for a hit. A K is a K. For every 10k, that's 3 hits. I don't think BAbip was widely known about in the late 90s/early 00's. Nowadays, hitting an empty .300 is valuable again.
I think there's a more holistic set of factors that explain this than "pretending Ks don't matter." There are many material differences between then and now. For one thing, pitchers now have access to a tremendous amount of training resources and equipment (like Driveline), helping them throw faster, harder and with more spin and break. The average fastball is about 5 m.p.h. faster than it was in 2002, and is steadily climbing every year. We only have about five years' advanced data on spin rates, but pitchers are infinitely more aware of these developments than they were in the 2000s. Advanced global scouting has ensured that there's a ready supply of live bullpen arms who can throw 95+, even if they burn out before hitting free agency. Surely there are more creative ways to cheat too (the sticky stuff appears to be back, btw).

Hitters don't have the same resources to keep up. K's are up 6 percent league-wide since 2002, and it's not just because of the swing change revolution of five years ago.

There are major handedness differences now too. For left-handed batters, the shift has made it even tougher, incentivizing them to swing through their heels. Lefties have put up a collective .697 OPS this year. Twenty years ago it was .773. (Righties have dropped from .729 to .715 in the same span. In general, RHH now make up the bulk of major league offense, which is a significant switch from 20 years ago).

Sure, as a general rule, putting it in play is a decent idea. But that's less true for lefties, who have dipped to a (probably) historical low of a .282 BABIP leaguewide, compared with a .297 for RHH. Lefties who hit ground balls have a .216 BABIP, compared to .249 for RHH.

It's possible that this corrects itself quite a bit next year, which would be good news for Devers, Verdugo, Cordero, Valdez and others. For now though, it makes sense for those with power to swing for the fences.