Okay, wait...come back.
($5 says he's back up to 260 by season's end)
Ahem.
His offense is what I speak of. While it's obvious any and all projections are educated guesses at best, not being able to take into account things like a player's feelings (nothing more than), injuries that affect performance, or a player's conditioning habits -- what they are based on is really all one has to go by: age, statistical history, and the migration habits of dandelions.
Okay, not really...I mean, what's statistical history gonna tell you? Psh, absolute balderdash.
Anyhow, our leaner, meaner, Panda machine...r has got to be a very hard player to project. Why?
- He doesn't have years and years worth of major league plate appearances to reference
- He followed a season and change of very, very good hitting with a season of very, very mediocre hitting.
Looking at his splits and comparing them with 2009 are like staring into the eyes of a fly, looking for a reaction -- impossible with all those eyes, and plus...ew, who would do that, anyway? Not me, and especially not when...
Does anybody know where I was even going with that comparison? E-mail me if you do, so I'll know you're a liar. Anyhow, here are numbers:
- Sandoval hit significantly better as a right-handed hitter in 2009: 1.028 OPS as a righty, vs. .914 as a lefty. In 2010, however: .589 OPS as a righty, .779 as a lefty
- He had torrid hitting months in April and August last year (1.008 and .908 OPS, respectively), but was below .650 in all other months, two of them below .600
- He was a productive hitter on the road in 2009 (.877 OPS), but stunk like a scared skunk rolling in rotten eggs on the road in 2010 (.565 OPS)
Okay, so we've at least identified two problem areas; a stupidly massive drop-off from the right side of the plate and just a regularly massive drop-off hitting on the road. Let's compare a couple of other metrics which can sometimes paint a picture:
- p/pa (2009/2010): 3.44/3.43
- g/f ratio (2009/2010): 0.82/0.81
- bb/k ratio (2009/2010): 0.63/0.58
That...didn't help at all. Panda saw almost exactly the same number of pitches per plate appearance from 2009 to 2010, had the same ratio of ground balls to fly balls, and his walks vs. strikeouts were nearly identical, too. His walk rate was about the same, too. It was like looking into a mirror.
Then, I looked at his numbers in certain counts, and found something there (last round of bullet points, I swear...well, at least before the round after that):
- Pablo in an 0-1 count (2009/2010): 1.037 in 60 pa's/.560 in 75 pa's
- Pablo in a 1-1 count (2009/2010): 1.123 in 49 pa's/.450 in 53 pa's
In 2009, Pablo essentially torched opposing pitchers early in his plate appearances in non two-strike counts. In 2010, the torch he used in 2009 to burn opposing pitchers instead was the opposite burn in 2010, burning his opposing self of 2009 in a blaze of...
I've really got to stop letting these metaphors get away from me. Look, it was the opposite in 2010. He sucked in those counts, and since about 21% of his plate appearances were decided in those counts, that essentially was the difference in 2009 Panda vs. 2010 Panda.
Now, without further research, using only the power of memory, I will hypothesize that opposing teams knew about the 2009 numbers last season, and had a conversation like this:
Opposing manager: "Hey. You know, giving Sandoval something to hit early in the count? Don't do that."
Opposing pitcher: "Hey. You know, I just might do that...or, not do that. What you said. Um, not to do. Not that I'd do anything different than what you said. You're my manager, and I respect you, totally. Wow, this is much more awkward than most pitching conversations, I bet."
So really, what it'll likely come down to for Panda, all weight-loss aside, is his adjustment to the adjustment that the opposing teams adjusted to after his initial non-adjustment. Can he lay off the elevator-fastballs and breaking junk down/away in the zone early on? Can he figure out what he's doing wrong from the right side of the plate? Can he figure out what he's doing wrong on the road?
Can I just make a freaking guess, already?
.298/.348/.490
Cecil Fielder.
ReplyDeleteJohn Kruk.
Mo Vaughn.
Carlos Lee.
Jus' sayin' ...
What are, players who were good hitters for many years despite being tubby?
ReplyDeleteThe weight loss, I think, will help the most defensively and on the basepaths. I doubt his hitting will improve because of the weight loss, although there's probably an extra point or two on his batting average from an extra couple of infield hits he wouldn't have otherwise had.