Archive for Player Analysis

Every franchise is looking for that player who seems to come out of nowhere to be a major contributor in their lineup. Players like José Bautista, who went from 1.8 WAR in 2009 to 6.5 WAR in 2010, or Justin Turner, who jumped from 0.5 WAR in 2013 to 3.4 WAR in 2014. The cost for acquiring these players was affordable because they were no longer prospects and most of the league had written them off as potential everyday players.

If a team had the ability to identify which players are most likely to exceed industry expectations, they would have a significant advantage over their competition. That is why I decided to create a model that tries to identify potential breakout performers.

Methodology

The first thing I needed to do was to define what constitutes a breakout performance. I thought of several different definitions, but I decided to define a breakout performance as any player that exceeded their career high WAR in a single season by at least 2.0 WAR. So if a player had recorded a season of 0.0 WAR, they would need to have at least a 2.0 WAR season. If a player had recorded a season of 1.0 WAR, they would need to have at least a 3.0 WAR season and so on and so forth. Read the rest of this entry »

Cody Bellinger was called up by the Dodgers to the big leagues on April 25^th of this year. Coming in at only 21 years of age, Bellinger was looking to make a name for himself. Toward the beginning of the season he would split starts between left field and first base. Eventually Adrian Gonzalez would go down to injury, giving Bellinger the opportunity of being an everyday first baseman. Bellinger rose to the occasion, cementing himself in the history books, as he will be the National League Rookie of the Year. Not only will he achieve this award, but he helped bring his team to the World Series. Before Bellinger’s arrival to the team, the Dodgers were 9 for their first 20 games. The Dodgers would go on to win 104 of their 162 games.

During the course of the season, Bellinger put up incredible numbers. He played in 132 games throughout the year, driving in 97 runs, scoring 87 times, and belting an astonishing 39 home runs, finishing only behind the powerful Giancarlo Stanton (with 59). Bellinger had a respectable .267 batting average while maintaining a .352 on-base percentage and .581 slugging percentage. He was a force at the plate, putting fear into the eyes of many pitchers. Although he didn’t walk so much — only 11.7% of the time — he still managed to have a wOBA of .380, staying in the top 30 for the MLB. On average, he would draw a walk for about every two strikeouts; not the best, but still better than most players belting over 30 homers. His plate discipline was above average for power hitters throughout the season, but come postseason, this would all change.

Throughout much of the postseason, most people were reflecting on Aaron Judge’s struggles, after having himself a historic season at the plate. Judge would break the record for strikeouts in a postseason until Bellinger would then beat this unfavorable record with 29. Through Bellinger’s 15 postseason games, he would belt three home runs, driving in nine runs and scoring 10 times while walking only three times. Most of these statistics happened during the NLDS and NLCS. His wOBA would fall to .295, with a .219 batting average, walking 4.5% of the time, while striking out in an astounding 43.3% of his plate appearances. In fact, in the World Series alone, he would achieve 17 of his 29 strikeouts. Bellinger would struggle immensely at the plate throughout the World Series, with the exceptions of Games 4 and 5.

During the series, the Astros pitching staff would focus on beating Bellinger in on the hands with curveballs falling out of the zone, and with fastballs tailing up and away. Amazingly, Bellinger during the regular season only chased pitches out of the zone 29.7% of the time. This would change immensely as the Astros pitching staff’s effective deception would often pull Bellinger’s bat out of the zone.

In Game 4, Bellinger would face Astros pitcher Charlie Morton in the top of the 5^th with no outs in a 1-2 count. Bellinger’s stance is in a more upright position with his bat also in a vertical position. This makes creating torque through his hands a little more awkward, as he rolls his hands into a hitting position. When this curveball begins to spin further in on his hands, it becomes too difficult to bring his hands in further, leading to this awful swing and follow-through shown. His approach on this pitch looks as if he’s trying to hit the ball 500 feet over the right-field wall; not an optimal mindset in a 1-2 count when you know the curveball is coming. His head was nowhere near the zone; he may as well have swung with his eyes closed. This is the position we often saw Bellinger in throughout the World Series when thrown an inside curveball. However, Bellinger would use this at-bat for his next plate appearance.

Now we see later in the game Bellinger is in a 1-1 count facing Morton in the top of the 7^th. He knows he’s going to see a curveball in on his hands and adjusts accordingly. His body is in a lower position with his bat in a more angled approach, with his hands staying back, anticipating curveball, looking to stay in on the ball with his hands and drive it to right field. Bellinger manages to fight this pitch off, fouling it back, showing his adjustment helped. His follow-through is also in a significantly better position, with his head staying back looking at the ball, and his body stays in a more balanced stance. This approach, showing that he’s able to make even a small adjustment to making contact with the low and in curveball, led pitchers to start targeting the outside upper half of the zone with the fastball again.

Here we see in Game 4, Bellinger faces Astros pitcher Charlie Morton with a 1-1 count and 0 outs in the top of the 5^th. Bellinger’s body is not in an effective hitting position for hitting this outside fastball. His body is falling out away from the zone, his pivot foot is not providing any power, and his hands reach out from his body too far. Bellinger would acknowledge this issue and had this to say before Game 4:

“I hit every ball in BP today to the left side of the infield,” Bellinger said. “I’ve never done that before in my life. Usually I try to lift. I needed to make an adjustment and saw some results today. I’m pulling off everything. Usually in BP I just try to lift, have fun in BP. But today I tried to make an adjustment. I needed to make an adjustment, and so I decided I’m hitting every ball to left field today.”

This is exactly what Bellinger would do.

In the top of the 9th in Game 4 with a 1-0 count and no outs, Bellinger faces Astros closer Ken Giles with runners on. Bellinger has his eyes locked in on the ball as he’s seen this pitch before. He’s using his approach from batting practice earlier to drill this ball into the gap. He keeps his body in an athletic hitting position, keeping his hands in and generating all his power through his lower half, creating torque through his strong hands. We see him drive this ball into the left-center gap, keeping his eyes on the ball the whole way and maintaining a strong follow-through. Bellinger did exactly what he said he would do and helped his team win this game. He would then carry on this adjustment into Game 5, showing people why he will be this year’s NL RoY.

Although Bellinger would fall into his old habits in Games 6 and 7, his ability to recognize where the problem is and the ability he has to adjust is what makes him an effective hitter. Through this, Bellinger will only continue to become better and will continue to become one of the most feared hitters in the league this next season. At only 22 years old now, Bellinger will become the next big star in this great sport we call Baseball.

The Mets took a chance last year and inked Curtis Granderson, age 33, to a four-year contract worth $60 million. Granderson was just coming off an injury plagued season with the Yankees in which he fractured his right forearm, and then the pinky in his left hand, sidelining him for over 100 games. In 2013 he posted a slash line of .229/.317/.409. Prior to his 2013 season, Granderson finished 4th in MVP voting in 2011, and was an All-Star in 2011 and 2012, finishing with more than 40 HR and 100 RBI’s.

So what can we expect from Curtis Granderson for the rest of his career with the Mets? Is there hope that he will be the big clutch hitter the Mets desperately need and come close to his 2011 and 2012 seasons with the Yankees? Or will his name be forever remembered by Mets fans in the same category as Jason Bay and Chris Young, forged in the hall of ineptitude? Here is a look at Curtis Granderson’s numbers after 2010 when Granderson turned 29 and started his stint with the Yankees. Here is a look at some of his numbers from 2010-2012, before his injury-riddled 2013 campaign:

It is important to note that he is playing the majority of his games at notoriously hitter-friendly Yankees Stadium. Using a measure of the effect of Yankee Stadium called park index, it can found that Yankee Stadium has about a +3% increase on a left-hander’s average, and a +53% on a hitter’s home run total. Granderson hit 56 total homers at Yankee Stadium from 2010-2012. After the Mets reconfigured their outfield, their left-handed batters hit on average +2% more home runs. If we adjust Curtis Granderson’s home run total to playing at CitiField for these years, his adjusted home run total is somewhere between 26-27 per year.

This still is a great total, and I think any Met fan would welcome a 25+ home run season from Granderson with open arms. Right now there are 10 games left in the season and Granderson has 18 home runs. He could sit around 20 this season which would not be terrible unless we remember his atrocious .218/.320./.374 slash line. We also have to consider the unfortunate factor of Granderson’s age to this equation. Granderson has a little bit of a strange aging curve because of his incredible seasons at age 30 and 31. I decided to look at how similar players performed at ages 32, 33, 34, and 35 (no player that has a top-ten similarity score has played a season at age 36 yet). The similarity scores were calculated based on Baseball-Reference’s similarity scores equation.

All of my worst fears came true and I started having flashbacks of one of the all-time worst Mets busts as I saw the name that popped up at number 1 — Jason Bay. Here is what other similar players did at age 32, 33, 34, and 35 (I omitted information if a player played less than 70 games aside from Granderson’s season at age 32.):

This does not paint a good picture of what we hope to expect from Granderson. For a player signed to the amount of money as Granderson, I would like to see an OPS around or above .800. There are only two out of ten players — Phil Nevin and Jayson Werth, that hit decently at the advanced ages of 34 and 35 (Werth is hitting pretty well with over 80 RBI’s with an OPS above .800, Nevin hit decently with a 0.76 OPS and 22 home runs at age 35). Six out of ten players ended their careers following a tremendous decline before getting to age 34 (I included Jason Bay whose career was arguably over before age 31, a year after signing with the Mets), Edwin Encarnacion is too young to make any conclusions about, and it is looking like Jose Bautista will play well, or at least decently at ages 34 and 35.

Even though most similar players did not have good seasons, or even reach seasons at ages 34, 35, and 36, similar players like Jayson Werth, Phil Nevin, and Jose Bautista give us a glimmer of hope. Similar players in no way give us a definitive look at a player’s future, so there is also always the possibility Granderson carves himself a much different path than any of the players on this list. To determine what might be causing Granderson’s decline, I’m going to look through Granderson’s batted ball statistics along with walk rate and strikeout rate:

The most glaring discrepancy between Granderson’s time with the Mets and Yankees is his HR/FB rate. His BABIP has gone down a little, but it is not that far removed from his numbers from 2010-2012. BABIP is a good statistic to look at to determine if a player is having a relatively unlucky season by comparing it to that player’s normal BABIP. It looks like he might have been a little lucky getting hits in 2011. Other than that, BABIP does not tell the story of what has happened to Granderson in 2014.

My initial thought from watching Granderson play daily was that he is striking out at a much higher rate. In fact, his K% is lower than it was in 2011 and 2012, and on par with what it was in 2010. And here is where we come to his HR/FB. Although Granderson is hitting about the same FB%, the percent of his fly balls that are going out of the park is dismally low compared to how it was when he was hitting 40+ home runs at Yankee Stadium. Although this could partially be age-related, it could be easily argued that a huge component of this is also the change in ballpark where Granderson plays. It is hard to determine if Granderson could possibly change his approach somehow to adjust to CitiField’s landscape when he is going to be 34 years old next year. The future is looking bleak for Mets fans unless Granderson can figure out how to turn things around next season.