from Amazon
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Adrian Beltre, Unlucky or Just Not That Good?
A second USS Mariner-inspired blog entry. Dave presents some numbers for our amusement.
http://ussmariner.com/2006/07/23/fun-with-numbers/
The interesting set of numbers are these:
XBH/FB, by year:
HR/FB, 2002 - 10%, 2B+3B/FB, 2002 - 15%, XBH/FB, 2002 - 25%
HR/FB, 2003 - 13%, 2B+3B/FB, 2003 - 19%, XBH/FB, 2003 - 32%
HR/FB, 2004 - 23%, 2B+3B/FB, 2004 - 15%, XBH/FB, 2004 - 38%
HR/FB, 2005 - 11%, 2B+3B/FB, 2005 - 21%, XBH/FB, 2005 - 32%
HR/FB, 2006 - 06%, 2B+3B/FB, 2006 - 26%, XBH/FB, 2006 - 32%
As he shows, his extra base hits per flyball this year is a match to his 2002-2005 average. What is different is the ratio of HR to doubles + triples.
MLB.com has a great set of charts. Click on the doubles and triples boxes. It’s unclear whether those represent where the ball first landed, or when it was first touched. (My guess is the latter.) In any case, at least 4 of those 10 doubles+triples at Safeco were not long doubles, in 2006. If we go back to 2005, we see that almost all the doubles+triples at Safeco were long doubles (or were picked up near the fence).
If we look at his 2006 flyouts at Safeco, they don’t look very deep. When you compare his FB pattern to what he did at Dodger Stadium in 2004, it certainly looks like he’s changed his approach.
Getting back to Dave’s original chart. Let’s say that Beltre’s “true talent” rate is to hit 45% of his XBH as HR. Is what he is doing today just luck, or just not that good? He has 39 XBH today, and we expect him to have 17.5 HR today. He has 8. One standard deviation is 3 HR. He is currently at three standard deviations from the mean, which is fairly far. It’s very possible that something has changed with Beltre. If his true talent rate was 35% of his XBH were HR, then he’d be only two standard deviations from the mean. I’d say it’s more likely that that’s his true level.
I’ve long wished MLB.com would sort those by stadium charts into aggregates of home/road. I’d love to see where his flyballs away from Safeco are going, but to piece together the hit chart from every stadium for several years is a bit tedious.
I’d definitely agree that Beltre’s true talent level for the XBH breakout would be something like 65% doubles, 2% triples, and 33% homers. ‘04 definitely stands out as an outlier in his HR/FB and XBH distribution history.
But right now, his HR/XBH rate is 16%, which is just absurdly low. I just can’t imagine any scenario, even if he’s changed his approach somewhat, where his home run rate doesn’t regress back to previously established levels.