Early season swings hurt Granderson’s numbers
ByLast night the Yankees returned home from a 12-game, three-city road trip that Curtis Granderson would probably like to forget as quickly as possible. After picking up a hit in the first game, he went 0 for his next 17, though he did walk four times in that span. On Wednesday night he went 2 for 5, but then last night he put up a zero, capping a 3 for 29 road trip.
Yes, Curtis has been pretty awesome on defense this year | Photo credit: Gail Burton/AP
This came as quite a disappointment, considering how hot Granderson started the season. In fact, he might have warded off criticism for a bit after his first at-bat home run, and then game-winning home run, in Boston. He cruised after that, too, and through the first 12 games he was 14 for 45 with two doubles, two triples, two homers, and five walks to just nine strikeouts.
It is difficult, at this point in the season, to draw any conclusions from a player’s performance, even if he has appeared in every game. As we’ve seen from a number of Yankees hitters, slumps show up in the numbers a bit more emphatically than later in the season. What we can examine is what the player has done so far, with the knowledge that it doesn’t necessarily mean that he’ll continue these trends.
For Granderson there are both positives and negatives. The biggest negative, as many of us feared, is his production against lefties. He has appeared 30 times against a left-handed pitcher, and has struck out a third of the time. That’s significantly worse than his career mark, a 25 percent strikeout rate against lefties. He has drawn one walk, so has put the ball in play 19 times. Five have dropped for hits, a .278 BABIP, which is actually a bit higher than his career BABIP against lefties.
Those poor numbers against lefties, though, mean that he’s been hitting righties just fine. Yet he has still been a relative disappointment there. His .368 wOBA against righties looks good, but ranks below any mark he has produced since 2006. Again, this is likely to change. His BABIP against righties is just .263, and even in his younger years he produced far, far better marks. I expect that, along with his power, will increase as he gets more at-bats against opposite handed pitchers.
Another encouraging sign: he’s putting the ball on the ground a bit more frequently than he did last season. In 2009 he produced a career-low 29.5 percent ground ball rate. This went along with a career-high fly-ball rate, though a career-high infield fly ball rate also tagged along. To put it in perspective, last year Granderson hit 21.2 percent line drives, 29.5 percent ground balls, 42.9 percent outfield fly balls, and 6.4 percent infield flies. This year he has hit 22.4 percent line drives, 37.9 percent ground balls, 36.2 percent outfield flies, and 3.4 percent infield flies. In his best year, 2007, he hit 21 percent line drives, 34.2 percent ground balls, 41.6 percent outfield flies, and 3.2 percent infield flies. I think he’s well on his way to a season perhaps not as good as 2007, but certainly better than 2009.
It’s easy to get discourage by early season numbers. Slumps bring them down, and Granderson’s numbers certainly don’t look pretty right now. I do think, though, that there are enough positive signs of a turnaround. He’ll hit righties better, and while he might not hit lefties better I think his numbers, especially his strikeout numbers, will move towards his career totals. Again, the Red Sox series has kept him shielded from most criticism, so I hope that he gets things started during this home stand to keep the critics at bay.
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The Mason Williams Watch
wouldn’t you want granderson to start hitting so the yankees have a better chance of winning rather than to just shut the critics up?
Yes. Clearly only one of those options may be chosen.
I want him to hit well only for his own personal glory and not to help out the team (and if all possible hamper the team).
I like my Yankees like I like my women: overpaid, disinterested, aloof, golddigging, self-obsessed, medically-enhanced, only-in-it-for-the-money diva megastar celebutante slut skanks.
http://riveraveblues.com/2010/.....ent-755643
Amen tommie.
Lol, in all seriousness, it won’t be long before all the homers start screaming about how the Yanks should have kept A-Jax! Personally, it’s hard for me to not like Curtis. The dude is just an all around good guy and works hard on the field.
…it won’t be long before all the homers start screaming about how the Yanks should have kept A-Jax!
Oh, come now, that’s already started.
I enjoy the people who say they want Jackson back because Granderson strikes out too much…while Jackson leads the majors in Ks.
Can you blame them? He’s been awesome so far. But I mean, I don’t think the Yankees would have promoted AJax this year let alone let him leadoff so I’m glad Cashman traded him to the Tigers
OTH, AJax has struggled against lefties just as bad if not worse than Grandy. At the end of the day, it may be a wash but AJax would have been a much cheaper option for a CF’er who can’t hit lefties
If Grandy had the same BABIP luck as A-Jax, he’d be hitting .391. If A-Jax had the same BABIP as Grandy, he’d be hitting .181.
Mind = exploded.
I agree but I don’t think it’s too soon to say the Yankees misjudged AJax’s readiness to play at the ML level.
I don’t know about that. Even if A-Jax’s BABIp was a robust .328, his batting average would be .223. He is on pace to shatter the all-time k record, with no power. Not quite sure he’s ready for a full season in the bigs.
Seriously, these people are now everywhere. As are the “should’ve resigned Damon!” people, because he’s on a tear right now, when they were nowhere to be found for the first week or two when Damon wasn’t doing very well.
(not to mention it’s probably more Damon/Boras’ fault that he’s not here rather than the Yankees’. So, whatever.)
/Arod’d
14-7?
Just imagine how good we would be with Austin Jackson, Johnny Damon, and Hideki Matsui still on our team!
/Bill R’d
Imagine if NJ, Tex, A-Rod and Grandy were hitting. The Yanks would be dangerous.
That’s a huge chunk not being that productive too…
They better hurry their asses up before Cano and Posada start burping and flutter back down to earth…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulxMNlZ8WFw (SAFE)
Why does everyone keep suggesting Cano will flame out? We always knew this was in him and now that he is producing we all expecting him to fail. I am not saying that he is going to keep this level of play up but what if he now he has reached another dimension as a player?
He’s certainly due for a slowdown though. He’s not going to hit .400 with 50 HR’s.
.335 with 35 HR’s is possible, but I’m still not planning for it.
Well, he’s already put up a .342 season, so I could definitely see him improving on that, maybe .350 – .360?
He hit .342 with a .359 BABIP. His career BABIP, including that year is only .321. To get any higher than .342 he’s going to have to maintain a ton of luck.
What are the BABIP’s for like a Tony Gywnn or Wade Boggs? Did they have a lot of luck on their side or did they naturally hit it where people weren’t constantly?
Gwynn, career: .341
Boggs, career: .344
Just for two other good examples -
Ichiro, career: .357
Jeter, career: .359
Clearly, with these guys, it wasn’t and isn’t just luck. For whatever reason, they are very good at getting the ball to drop in for hits. But Austin Jackson’s BABIP is damn near .500. Unless he has perhaps the luckiest season of all time, that will not continue.
Boggs career: .344
Gwynn: .341
They didn’t have any extra luck, but it’s more the type of hitters they were. If Gwynn’s career babip is .341, then the luck comes in if he’s well above that. See his .394 year in 1994. Not surprisingly, his BABIP that year was a career high .389. That .394 average was a result of extra luck for Gwynn that season. Of Gwynn’s 8 batting titles, 6 of them coincided with the 6 highest BABIP’s of his career.
And, Boggs won 5 batting titles. Those were the 5 highest BABIP’s of his career.
Also, Boggs BABIP is inflated tremendously by Fenway. During his best years, Boggs had BABIP of over .400 at Fenway (including a .460+ year), while often only having a .350 BABIP on the road (of course .350 is still excellent).
Imagine if NJ, Tex, A-Rod and Grandy were hitting. The Yanks would be even more dangerous.
/fix’d
Yep. That was the joke.
Some of the balls he’s hit against lefties have been hard though, including one last night. I don’t think he’s looked that bad overall against lefties. I wish he’d k less, but I’ll take the k’s if he gets better luck and a few more balls drop in.
Robinson Cano: 226 wRC+
The real early success for Granderson has definitely helped from getting any negative media attention, that and Tex, A-Rod, NJ, and Vazquez all starting slow to deflect some attention.
The expected positive home game differential for Grandy between Comerica and YS will become much more apparent shortly as the Yanks start to play more home games over the next few weeks.
Now that Robbie credited K-Long and called him the best batting coach in the game, it is time to start seeing results with Grandy. Also, having 4 starters hitting poorly and being where we are makes me feel berry berry good.
Want to know something funny? Austin Jackson has struck out twice as much as Granderson, and has actually been worse against LHP. He has a 35.7% line drive rate, that is impossible to keep up. A .500 BABIP also spells bad news. He may be the hot topic, but he will come back down, fast and hard.
He will come down for sure but come down hard? Time will tell. Everyone knows Austin will be a good outfielder someday. I don’t think Cashman or many people in the Yankees organization expected him to be a good outfielder at the ML level this soon.
“He will come down for sure but come down hard?”
His BABIP is going to drop from .500 to ATLEAST .350 (if not lower). So yes, “come down hard” is correct
I don’t care if he strikes out every other atbat. As long as he keeps hitting and getting walks, he’s awesome for my fantasy team
I like Jackson, but I meant what I said. He will need to make adjustments to counteract that, but as it stands now his success is not sustainable. A hot April does not means he is a good major leaguer right now, he will be, but this does not prove it. He is producing way over his head right now and will come back down.
Also, I am not saying that as a fan upset that he is gone. I want him to succeed, I want him to make the Yankees think they made a mistake, I just think it is obvious this April does not show that yet. Fangraphs has a good read on what I am trying to say.
I don’t disagree with you. It just seems like folks are all too willing to write off his early success as luck. We always knew the kid could hit. I like Granderson but I wouldn’t have given up Austin, Coke, AND Ian Kennedy for him. Granderson’s slow start hasn’t helped matters.
Look at the lefties he’s faced: Jon Lester, Scott Kazmir David Price, and Brian Matusz along with several lefty specialists. I would expect those guys to rack up ks against pretty much any lefty, I’m not concerned yet…he’s drawing a lot of big counts against them and at least making them work for the out, I’ll take it as of now.
Small sample sizes probably don’t warrant such doom and gloom regarding Granderson. Earlier than early…