Kuzul

Since the Jeet man is chasing Gehrig’s sacred numbers I thought I would compare the two…something Jeter himself would never admit doing.

They both had the basic same legnth careers, G-man 16 years and Jeet-man 15. Gehrig had three seasons of 15 or fewer games, two in the beginning and one at the end. Jeter had one season where he played 15 games…his first. Jeter will play for at least two more years.

Lou Gehrig: 2,164 games/8,001 AB/ 1888 runs/2,721 hits/ 534 doubles/163 triples/493 HR/1,995 RBI/1,508 walks/790 strikeouts/.340 AVG./.447 OBP

Derek Jeter: 2,190 games/8,887 AB/1,608 runs/2,816 hits/450 doubles/59 triples/229 HR/1,099 RBI/899 walks/1,497 strikeouts/.317 AVG./.387 OBP

Jeter has more hits and RBI, whereas Gehrig has more runs, doubles, triples, and homers. Jeter has also basically half as many walks and twice as many strikeouts, a lower career average and a lower on base percentage.

So now Jeter will play a few more years and his avg and on base percentage will most likely decrease. He could catch Gehrig on runs and doubles, but not on anything else. Gehrig was a machine. With 886 fewer at bats, he hit 84 more doubles, 104 more triples, and 264 more home runs—with 707 fewer strikeouts and 609 more walks than Derek Jeter.

Let me get this straight, Jeter is amazing…possibly the best shortstop ever to play the game. A Hall of Fame first ballot lock. But Gehrig is a hero of a bit more insane kind. He was practically unstoppable, and when it is all boiled down…Gehrig was a better player.

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About a month ago, I wrote an unintentionally controversial article about some puzzling patterns in Derek Jeter’s early season numbers.

There were two main contradictions within his statistics: that he was on pace for the best power numbers of his career while posting his highest ground ball rate ever, and that he was posting a career-low strikeout rate while swinging at a dramatically larger proportion of pitches thrown outside of the strike zone.

My critics claimed that I was reading too much into the stats too early in the season. Under normal circumstances I would have agreed, but it was more than the numbers themselves that were puzzling. When a person hits more home runs on fewer fly balls and makes better contact with worse pitch selectiveness, the results contradict the logic, no matter how small the sample size.

Four weeks later, I think it’s appropriate to revisit the situation and see how things are shaping up.

Overall, the discrepancies have become less dramatic, but the contradictory trends are still in place.

As I predicted, his power numbers have come back down to earth. He’s now on pace for 16 homers (down from 26 at last writing) and 98 RBI (down from 130). Neither would be a career high, but both would be above his norm.

But Jeter’s unprecedented groundball tendencies haven’t abated. Over two-thirds of balls off his bat (67 percent) have been on the ground—by far the highest such figure in the American League. While that’s a slight decline from the 71 percent mark he posted last month, it’s by far the highest of his career and a full 10 points above what he posted from 2002-09.

Meanwhile, his 16 percent HR/FB rate is the highest it’s been since 2005. Coincidentally, the 2005 season was the only other time in his career that his groundball rate hit 60 percent. So basically, the more he puts the ball on the ground, the more likely it is that each fly ball he hits will clear the fences. I’m not sure if that’s really a contradiction, but it’s certainly an odd correlation.

One thing is clear: this isn’t a common trend. This year, Jeter is the only player in the AL who has both a groundball rate over 50 percent and a HR/FB rate over nine percent.

But the more dramatic (and interesting) statistical oddity stems from the collapse of Jeter’s plate discipline.

Over his career, Jeter has been one of the most selective hitters in baseball, hacking at less than 20 percent of balls out of the strike zone. This year, that number has ballooned to 31.3 percent. Simply put, he’s chasing bad pitches. That’s not an insult or a criticism—that’s an indisputable, objective fact.

The sample size isn’t too small to start drawing conclusions. Jeter has seen 288 pitches outside the zone and swung at 90 of them.

As one might expect, this trigger-happy approach has had a negative effect on his walk rate, which, at five percent, is a career low. It’s less than half of the walk rate he posted last year.

Similarly, you’d expect his strikeout rate to shoot up into the stratosphere, right?

Wrong.

While Jeter’s 14 percent whiff rate is a sizable increase from last month’s nine percent figure, it’s still inexplicably lower than it ought to be, given Jeter’s history and his newfound aggressiveness.  How is that possible?

My first thought upon revisiting these numbers was that, in addition to swinging at more pitches off the plate, Jeter was starting to be less discriminatory with pitches thrown in the zone. That made sense, and I was embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of it a month ago.

But it turns out that’s not right either—in fact, it’s actually the opposite. This year, Jeter has chased a career-low 69 percent of balls in the zone, compared to 74 percent for his career. Simply put, Jeter is swinging at more bad pitches and fewer good ones.

I plugged in the numbers and found that, while 80 percent of the pitches he’s swung at since 2002 were good, just 69 percent of balls he’s chased in 2010 would have been called strikes.

And yet, Jeter’s 86 percent contact rate is the best of his career.

This doesn’t make sense.

I’m not insulting Jeter, I’m not criticizing Jeter, and I’m definitely not suggesting that Jeter is using steroids, as I was somehow accused of doing last month. I am merely a fan of baseball statistics who was drawn in by this series of internally inconsistent abnormalities.

Derek Jeter is making the best contact of his career. That’s a fact.

Derek Jeter is swinging at the worst pitches of his career. That’s a fact.

But that Derek Jeter is making the best contact of his career while swinging at the worst pitches of his career—that’s not just a fact, that’s a mystery.

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At the start of the 2010 MLB season, the Toronto Blue Jays were not in high hopes of their many often disappointed, but loyal, Canadian fans.

The Jays lost their beloved ace, pitcher Roy “Doc” Halladay . Halladay went to the Philadelphia Phillies for a bigger paycheck and a greater opportunity for finally getting his well-deserved Major League Baseball’s World Series Championship.

Halladay was the rock of the team.  Surely, the Jays would fall apart, and quickly at that, without him…or would they?

While the Blue Jays aren’t at the top of the league in terms of standings (which isn’t surprising), they still have found a way to add some victories to their win column.

The way Toronto is solidifying their victories, including some incredible comebacks, is by home runs.

At this point of the season, the Jays have already reached the 50-home run mark.  This is something they needed all of last season to accomplish and they are only two months into the season.  Who is leading the Blue Jays in the home run department? Vernon Wells , of course.

Speaking of home runs, Toronto has been able to accomplish another incredible feat.  Thanks to the likes of Wells, the Blue Jays have had now multiple games with multiple home runs.  In fact, they have had games where they only runs they score in a game have been via home runs.

If the Toronto Blue Jays could find a way to still improve in their typical team flaw, which is having more than one solid closing pitcher, we could see them make the post-season.

My fingers are crossed…are yours?

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Has anyone seen that panic button anywhere?

After Thursday night’s shutout, the Philadelphia Phillies leave New York having not scored a single run in their three-game set there, and having been shut out four times in the last five games.

Charlie, we have a major problem: there is no good precedent for the Phillies being shut out for an entire series.

The last time the Phllies were shutout for an entire three game set was—strangely enough—also during the last week of May, back in 1979.  There, the Phillies were shutout by the Chicago Cubs on May 25, followed by a scoreless three game set against the Montreal Expos from May 29 to May 30.

It gets crazier: the Phillies record going into that game against the Cubs was 26-14, and once the Expos were done with them their record had fallen to 27-20.  Meanwhile, the current Phillies squad went into last Saturday’s shutout loss against the Boston Red Sox with a 26-15 record, and they are now 26-20.

The bad news, Phillies fans, is this: that was just the beginning of a bad run that eventually got manager Danny Ozark fired, and the 1979 Phillies team was the only squad out of five straight teams from 1976 to 1981 to not go to the playoffs.

Yikes.

There is good news, though: Cole Hamels pitched effectively against the Mets on Thursday.  Hamels pitching well at this point in the season is far more important to the Phillies ultimate goals than the Phillies offense scoring runs at this point in the season, so this is good news.

Still, it would also be nice to score some runs.

Meanwhile, the Phillies head to Florida for a three-game set starting tonight, and for the first time in a while the Phillies enter a series in a position to lose first place by the end of the series.

Worse yet, with all five teams in the NL East within three games of each other, the Phillies could, quite literally, be in last place by the end of this Marlins series.

Better keep that panic button at the ready.

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With the roller coaster ride that the San Francisco Giants pitching staff has taken fans on this year, it’s hard to tell if they are heroes or villains.

Here’s a rundown as of May 27th, 2010.

Note: this slide show was supposed to feature pictures of the actual comparisons, but those pictures, while widely available on the Internet, are not available for publication here on Bleacher Report.

Use your imagination.

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Coming into the 2009 season, the Atlanta Braves’ Tommy Hanson was one of the most hyped prospects in baseball, even ranked by some above Jason Heyward.

Despite being seemingly ready for the major leagues, the Braves opted to give Hanson a taste of AAA, and left Jo-Jo Reyes in the rotation.

Instead of getting a full year of Hanson’s 2.89 ERA and 8.18 K/9, the Braves were treated to five starts of 7.00 ERA from Jo-Jo Reyes (Kris Medlen also made a couple starts, not faring much better than Reyes).

While the Braves finished six games out of the wild card race, they were in it to the end (when they lost their last six games of the year). With Hanson in the rotation all year, things could have turned out differently.

Going into 2010, the Braves faced a similar choice with Jason Heyward, who many named the top prospect in all of baseball.

Whether it was the realization of a past mistake, the need to win in Bobby Cox’s final year, to fill the stands more or because Heyward was simply the best option, the Braves decided that baseball’s hottest commodity could start the year in the MLB.

So far, it’s safe to say that Heyward has lived up to the hype. He’s got a .290/9/35 line and already has a couple walk-off hits in the bag. His on-base percentage, which stands at .414, is among the league leaders, and Heyward has shown an incredible eye at the plate.

Through 42 games, Heyward has a WAR (wins above replacement) of 1.6. This means with a replacement level player instead of Heyward, the Braves would have 1.6 less wins on the season.

But I think that it would actually be a larger difference. The two players that would have been getting more play time without Heyward around, Matt Diaz and Melky Cabrera, have a combined WAR that is less than 0 (-0.8 to be exact). That’s right; Melky and Matt Diaz have been so bad this year that they have actually cost the Braves wins.

Heyward currently leads all major league players in Win Probability Added at 3.29. That number alone makes me think Heyward should be a strong MVP candidate, not just the leader in Rookie of the Year voting.

Going further, this Atlanta Braves team feels different. With Heyward in the lineup, they are a much better team and more feared opponent. In fact, when Heyward doesn’t play the majority of the game (i.e. pinch hitting or two inning appearances as well as off days) the Braves are just 3-5, compared to 21-17 when does.

Throw in the fact that a large portion of the attendance increase at Turner Field is likely due to Heyward, and he is helping the organization on and off the field.

All in all, I think that the Braves decision to start Heyward in the majors has been huge. I would give the Braves a record of 21-25 (as supposed to 24-22) without Heyward on the team. If the Braves called Heyward up at the same time as Tommy Hanson, I think the Braves team is worse by at least 4 games, which likely determines whether the Braves will play or watch in October.

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By now, everyone knows the 2010 Padres are very well so far in 2010. Currently at 26-18 and in first place in the NL West, they are this author’s biggest surprise of the first two months of the 2010 season, second to only the AL East’s amazing Blue Jays.

The Padres’ five-man rotation has been phenomal, and is making a COMBINED $9.5 million salaries for the 2010 season. Three of its five members are making under $500,000. By comparison, the Chicago White Sox are paying former Padre Jack Peavy $15 million this year.

Here’s a synopsis of the Padres 2010 rotation, complete with their salaries and also their individual statistics at pitcher-friendly Petco Park.

Can these Padres continue to compete?

In the sad-sack national league, anything is possible.

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Paul Konerko and Jose Bautista are outslugging several of the most prominent sluggers in major league baseball this season, with 14 home runs each entering Monday night’s game between the White Sox and the Indians.

Alex Rodriguez (6), Chipper Jones (2), Todd Helton (1), Manny Ramirez (2) and Ken Griffey Jr. (0) have combined to hit only 11 home runs between them this season. It is strange that Rodriguez and Ramirez both were found to have used steroids during 2009 and now all of a sudden they are not hitting home runs, with Rodriguez having 6 in 192 plate appearances and Ramirez having 2 in 100 plate appearances.

This was going to be the year Rodriguez passed Sammy Sosa who has 609 home runs,but instead he still needs 20 more with the season being a third over next week.

Just When You Think You Have Seen It All Department

I thought there is no possible way anyone could come up with a new stat (new to me at least) and that stat is the time it takes for a player to run the bases after hitting a home run.

There is a chart keeping track of the slowest and fastest home run trots of the season. It is called the Tater Trot Tracker.

David Ortiz has the slowest home run trot of the season, timing out at 29.81 seconds and the fastest home run trot was by Angel Pagan when he hit an inside the park home run on May 19.

Adam Rosales has rounded the bases faster on a non-inside park home run than four of the players who hit inside the park home runs.

Around the Infield

Carlos Silva of the Chicago Cubs is the favorite to be the NL Comeback Player of the Year.  He is the only pitcher in the majors with at least six wins who has not lost a game.

Albert Pujols has hit only one home run in May after going deep seven times in April. He slugged .655 in April but is slugging only .385 in May. He started the month of May hitting .345 but his average is down to .303 after going hitless against the Los Angeles Dodgers over the weekend.

The Philadelphia Phillies were the first team to draw 1 million fans in 2010 with a total of 1,037,638 fans while the Cleveland Indians have drawn the least fans with 299,722 fans this season.

Rafael Soriano with 13 saves and Matt Lindstrom with 10 saves are the only closers with at least 10 saves to not have blown a save in 2010.

Carlos Marmol of the Cubs has struck out an amazing 17.5 batters per 9 innings. The most strikeouts per 9 innings by a starter is Randy Johnson when he struck out 13.4 batters per 9 innings in 2001.

Kelly Johnson has matched his entire home run output of 2008 when he hit his 12th home run of the 2010 season. It took only 152 at bats this season while it took 547 at bats in 2008. He hit a home run every 45.6 at bats in 2008 and homered every 12.7 at bats in 2010.

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On May 23, 2010 against the Minnesota Twins, Trevor Hoffman pitched game No. 1,000 for his career, coming on during the eighth inning in a 4-3 victory. He became the 14th player in major league history to accomplish this.

We then went back to our daily routines.

For a sport so focused on the milestone stats, it’s interesting to see this one completely slip by. We have 500 home runs, 3,000 hits, 300 wins, and others. Yet, any milestone for games played is not really looked at as any accomplishment. It’s a testament to little more than longevity, right?

Well, let’s take a look.

Of the previous 13 to play in 1,000 games, three are in the Hall of Fame: Dennis Eckersley, Hoyt Wilhelm, and Goose Gossage. The other 10 feature names you’d expect and names you likely have forgotten.

Topping the list is, of course, Jesse Orosco with 1,252. Following are Mike Stanton (1,178), John Franco (1,119), Eckersley (1,071), Wilhelm (1,070), Dan Plesac (1,064), Mike Timlin (1,058), Kent Tekulve (1,050), Jose Mesa and Lee Smith (1,022), Roberto Hernandez (1,010), Michael Jackson (1,005), Gossage (1,002), and now Hoffman.

The list is a tangled web of obvious hall of famers, those that have gotten close (Smith), those who did not get close (Plesac and others), and those who won’t have a chance at it (Mesa).

However, the Hall of Fame has already established how valuable this stat is: it isn’t. Just recently, Orosco, Plesac, and Jackson could not crack the 5 percent threshold. Neither could Tekulve despite a sub-3.00 ERA.

Interestingly enough though, many on this list are recent additions, and have just recently retired. Is this looking to be a continuing development? Will there be more pitchers crossing the mark who aren’t necessarily good, just reliable?

Looking beyond the hall of fame, and instead just looking at the number, it’s certainly possible. After all, Orosco pitched in 65 games in his final major league season despite an ERA over 7.50. So perhaps Hoffman’s games pitched isn’t a symbol of anything but luck and health.

Just about all of those pitchers above were still pitching 60 games when they hit 40, so maybe it means nothing. At the same time, maybe it’s an under-appriciated number, one that shows consistency and reliability, something that is needed more than anything in a bullpen, especially with how dynamic they are.

So, what does the mark mean to you? Sheer luck? Solid pitching? Nothing at all?

In my case, I think it shows a model of consistently good, though not necessarily great, pitching. It’s not a number on the same caliber as the others I noted earlier, far from it, but it can be a second-tier stat that is nice to achieve. After all, everyone but Mesa has a career sub-4.00 ERA, and all pitched until at least 39, so there is some health and luck involved as well.

What does it mean to you though? Something to think about. There won’t be 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, or 300 wins for a while, so let’s enjoy this accomplishment by Trevor Hoffman, even if it means little.

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Ivan Rodriguez, in what can only be described as a renaissance season, currently leads the National League in Double Plays Grounded Into.

But does that really matter?

The Double Plays Grounded Into statistic has been kept in the National League since 1933, and in the American League since 1939.

Obviously, double plays can hurt a team, because it involves going from at least one runner on base, with less than two outs to eliminating, the runner. They often end the inning. Double Plays are almost always rally killers.

While a double play is always bad, and any player who hits into one should hang his head on the way back to the dugout, I am still skeptical.

Does tallying the number of double plays a player hits into necessarily tells us something about that player?

Or, does it tell us something about his team?

It seems easier for teams to avoid hitting into double plays by stealing bases. Starting the runners with a hitter’s count, executing hit-and-runs, bunting guys over, or even balancing the lineup so that a lefty comes up behind a guy who gets on base frequently could impact the statistics.

The 1983 Red Sox provided the best example of double plays being attributed to a team, not a player.

On Sept. 28 of that year, Tony Armas grounded into his 31st double play of the season, which at the time was tied with Bobby Doerr for the second worst total ever. Jackie Jenson hit into 32 in 1954.

Four days later, on Oct. 2, Jim Rice matched Armas’ feat by grounding into his 31st double play.

So, who should be blamed for Armas and Rice’s astronomical double play numbers, in the same season no less. The players, or the team?

After all, double plays are a team effort, right?

A little investigation sheds more light on the issue. The ’83 Red Sox featured a 43-year-old Carl Yastrzemski, who could barely run, a 31-year-old Dwight Evans, who was hardly fleet-footed, Rice, never accused of being fast, and a 25-year-old Wade Boggs, who posted a .444 on-base percentage, comprised largely of walks and singles.

This Red Sox team was probably one of the most double-play-prone teams of all time. Of course, Armas and Rice hit into tons of them.

To be sure, let’s not give too much credit to either player—particularly Armas, who hit 36 home runs, but had a .707 OPS and a .254 on-base percentage.

At the same time, doesn’t this lineup explain more about why Rice and Armas were two of the worst double play batters of all time?

 Jim Rice’s career provides further information.

Prior to Boggs’s arrival in 1982, Rice’s career high for double plays was 21. He hit into 20 or more only once.

But, Boggs’ combination of high on-base percentage and no power made him the perfect lead-off guy in Boston, despite his lack of speed.

Suddenly, Rice had four of the worst double play seasons of all time, hitting into 29 in 1982, 31 in 1983, breaking the record with 36 in 1984, and narrowly missing the record again with 35 in 1985, despite missing 22 games.

The Red Sox were penciling a slow singles hitter in the lead-off position in the 1980s. That move was reflected in Jim Rice’s double play totals.

It is not like Jim Rice and Wade Boggs are the only example of a guy suffering a high double play number because of the player hitting in front of him.

We noted above that, after 1983, Armas and Rice were two of the four worst double play batters of all time, along with Bobby Doerr and Jackie Jenson.

Guess what those two guys had in common?

In 1949, Bobby Doerr set the then-major league record by grounding into 31 double plays while playing for the Boston Red Sox. In 1954, Jackie Jensen broke Doerr’s record by grounding into 32 double plays, also while playing for the Boston Red Sox.

Each of those players set the record for double plays grounded into while hitting behind Ted Williams, perhaps the best combination of on-base percentage and slow base-running.

Should Doerr’s and Jensen performances be considered a reflection upon them, or a reflection upon Ted Williams?

Williams and Boggs aren’t the only guys who indirectly created high double play totals for their teammates.

In fact, of the 59 different seasons in which a player has hit into 27 or more doubles, the vast majority of them came on teams that featured players with tremendously high on-base percentages.

Just take a look at the names of the guys who were teammates of the “27 or more double plays club.” Most of these guys are on the Who’s Who of great on-base machines:

There is some really fun stuff here. For example:

– Elmer Valo and Ferris Fain of the Philadelphia Athletics combined to put two different guys on the list, Billy Hitchcock with 30 in 1950 and Dave Philley with 29 in 1952.

– Larry Walker and Todd Helton also combined to put two different guys on here, Todd Zeile with 27 in 2002 and Jay Payton with 27 in 2003.

– Rafael Palmeiro was a teammate to three of these guys: Ivan Rodriguez (31) in 1999, Cal Ripken, Jr. (28) in 1996, and Julio Franco (27) in 1989.

– Frank Thomas also appears to have put three players on the list: George Bell in 1992, Magglio Ordonez in 2000, and Paul Konerko in 2002.

– Lance Berkman put Brad Ausmus (2002), Carlos Lee (2007), and Miguel Tejada (2008) on the list.

– Keep in mind, my point is that a high-OBP teammate is often to blame; sometimes, like when Vlad Guerrero played on a team whose OBP leader was Chone Figgins with a .367, the batter has only himself to blame.

– Yaz hit into 30 double plays when the team-leading OBP was Eddie Broussard with .372.

– Ernie Lombardi’s 30 double plays in 1938 seem solely attributable to himself, as the team leader in OBP that year was Ival Goodman at .368.

There is, of course, a reason this is all important.

The value, or should we say damage, caused by a double play can be hugely different, depending on how we look at the double play.

If I tell you that Player A hit into 30 double plays, you might be inclined to think Player A isn’t a good player. You might be right, but you might be wrong.

If I then tell you that Player B has a .400 on-base percentage, but doesn’t run very fast, and hit ahead of Player A, and as a result Player A also had 130 RBI, you might say that the difference between the average number of double plays hit into and the number Player A hit into is the cost of doing business with a guy who gets on base 40 percent of the time—and I think you’d be right.

I think it might be a more telling statistic if we counted the number of times a player hit into a double play, but also the number of time a guy was the other out for another player’s double play. That way, we’d know whether a high number of double plays reflects the player or reflects the team.

Or perhaps there is a simpler explanation—the total number of double plays doesn’t tell us nearly as much as the number of double plays divided by the number of double play opportunities would. If Jim Rice hit into 31 double plays but came to bat with a runner on first base 300 times in a season, I think we wouldn’t condemn him as much as a guy who hit into 25 double plays while batting third behind Juan Pierre and Neifi Perez.

Perhaps we’re looking at double plays as a counting stat when we should be converting it into a rate stat. That might be a bit more illuminating.

Asher lives in Philadelphia, PA and is the co-founder of BaseballEvolution.com .

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