a few sobering tidbits about Jeter's clutch hitting & defense, & some encouraging tidbits about Brett Gardner's patience at the plate:
1. Derek Jeter(notes) hasn’t been clutch in four years.Nothing like taking a scythe to a sacred cow right off the bat. The same numbers that two years ago allowed us to show just how unclutch Alex Rodriguez had been prove the very same thing about Jeter.
A metric called Win Probability Added (WPA) goes plate appearance by plate appearance to see just how much a player helped or hurt his team’s chance of winning. Value is added for big plays at crucial moments. The numbers, good and bad, are added to make a composite. FanGraphs also calculates WPA/LI, which makes each plate appearance leverage neutral – meaning it puts every situation on an equal plane – and pops out a number. WPA minus WPA/LI gives you a good idea how much better a player produced in situations that added to his team’s chances of winning. The higher the number, the better.
Well, the last time Jeter’s total was in the positive was 2006. This year, he’s barely negative: minus-.09, according to FanGraphs’ Clutch score. In 2009, he was minus-.85, the year before that minus-.28 and minus-.17 prior to that.
Until this year, Jeter at least had produced in spite of his not-so-clutch hitting. This season has been a mess. And it’s easy to see why: Jeter can’t drive the ball anymore. He is hitting ground balls on 65.8 percent of his at-bats, far and away the most in the major leagues, with Elvis Andrus(notes) second at 60.4 percent. It’s the highest total in the majors since Luis Castillo(notes) slapped his way to 66.7 percent in 2007.
3. If you ever run into Austin Jackson(notes), ask him to buy you a lottery ticket.
Not since 1924 has a hitter posted a higher batting average on balls in play (BABIP) than the Detroit Tigers rookie center fielder’s .413. The league-average BABIP this year is .298, and not even Jackson’s tremendous 24.8 percent line-drive rate – second in the big leagues behind James Loney’s(notes) 26 percent – can explain the otherworldly number. A quick-and-dirty expected BABIP is calculated by adding 12 percent to the line-drive rate, putting Jackson’s around .368. Where he found the extra 45 points is anyone’s guess, and the easiest one is: pure, blind luck.
BABIP is a controversial statistic because it implies that all balls put in play which aren’t home runs have about a 30 percent chance of landing, regardless of the pitcher, the hitter or anything else. There are anomalies, of course, and perhaps Jackson turns out to be one of those. BABIP tends to fluctuate, though, and a regression – and comparative sophomore slump – is almost certain.
In 1923, Babe Ruth hit .423 on balls in play, the best single-season BABIP in history, according to the indispensable Baseball-Reference.com. Two years later, his was .297. A year after that, it was .368. Fast forward two more years and it was .301. While Ty Cobb almost certainly had skills that translated to BABIP excellence – he has five of the 23 seasons of .400-plus BABIPs – he’s a rarity.
If Jackson finishes the season at .413, he will rank seventh all-time, behind seasons from five Hall of Famers: Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, George Sisler, Cobb (twice) and Harry Heilmann. Cobb, Nap Lajoie, Hornsby and Rod Carew occupy the four spots behind him. And just when it seems there’s a common greatness comes the man in 12th place: the mediocre Jose Hernandez, with a .404 BABIP in 2002.
4. Mark Teixeira(notes) and Derek Jeter really need not win Gold Gloves this year.
Positive Yankees notes come later – promise – but in the meantime, can we please put an end to the myths that Teixeira and Jeter are great fielders?
FanGraphs uses two measures for defense: Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) and Defensive Runs Saved (DRS). They purport to do the same thing, and they agree that Teixeira and Jeter are rather awful in the field. Among qualifying first basemen, Teixeira’s UZR is better than that of Troy Glaus(notes), Paul Konerko(notes), Ryan Howard(notes) and Prince Fielder(notes), which is to say he’s a couple bad plays shy of cadaver. And for those who get so jazzed over Teixeira’s ability to pick throws to first out of the dirt, his 18 scoops are the second fewest in the major leagues – and 30 fewer than Albert Pujols(notes).
Jeter’s is simpler: His minus-11 DRS is better than only that of Yuniesky Betancourt(notes) and Hanley Ramirez(notes). His minus-6.8 UZR is better than only that of the same two players. Betancourt and Ramirez should not be playing shortstop. Use the transitive property how you will.
18. Brett Gardner(notes) must’ve learned to play baseball in a monastery.
The patience the Yankees outfielder exhibits at the plate is unparalleled over the past decade – and, almost certainly, farther back, were anyone to compile such numbers. Gardner hacks at only 30.8 percent of pitches thrown. Even more impressive: He swings at just 44.3 percent of pitches he sees in the strike zone. For some perspective: Vladimir Guerrero(notes) swings at 47.1 percent of the pitches he sees outside the zone, and the MLB average for swings inside the zone is 64.4 percent. Gardner can afford to be picky since when he does swing, he almost never misses. His 97.6 percent in-zone contact rate is the best in the major leagues.
21. Do not throw the Yankees anything but knuckleballs.
This and Gardner make up for the Jeter and Teixeira slights, right? The Yankees hit everything well. They’re the third-best fastball-hitting team, the best on sliders (and one of only two in the positive), fifth against changeups, sixth vs. curveballs and 10th with cutters and splitters. If the Red Sox can re-sign Tim Wakefield, trade for R.A. Dickey and pick up Charlie Haeger(notes), they might have a chance against the Yankees, who are 5.7 runs below average against knuckleballs.
i have no idea where this guy comes up w/the stuff about Teixeira's defense, the guy has 1 of the best gloves i've ever seen at 1B since Donnie Baseball... funny that he would title his article "Think you know baseball?"... sounds like a Met fan or a Red Sux fan wrote this article.
