Comments on: Sabermetric Outlook: Derek Jeter

By: MHunterYGY

MHunterYGY — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 05:06:30 +0000

@jkra0512_SK Thanks!

By: MHunterYGY

MHunterYGY — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 03:45:00 +0000

@jkra0512_SK One other thing is that months are completely arbitrary endpoints, so I’m not sure when these changes actually happened. It might be that the first half of May was like April, and the second half was like June.

By: MHunterYGY

MHunterYGY — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 03:41:02 +0000

@jkra0512_SK I think it was probably more of a really lucky April than an unlucky May. His .324 BABIP was probably about right given his declining speed. He may have gotten a little unlucky with the home runs, as his HR/FB% was very low at 7.7% in May. So yeah, he probably should have had a slightly better May, but he should have had a much worse April than he did. All in all, it definitely seems like his April and May performances weren’t that different. The other thing is that although the line drive rates can tell us some of the story, they don’t tell it all. Jeter might have just been making weaker contact on those non-line drive balls. And even on the line drives, there’s a difference between a screaming line drive into the gap and a weak liner to second.

Unfortunately Fangraphs doesn’t have the splits for plate discipline, but I would guess that in May and especially in June, Jeter swung at a ton more pitches outside the zone and made contact with more of those pitches than in April, which would partly explain the low BABIP.

By: jkra0512_SK

jkra0512_SK — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 02:36:42 +0000

MHunterYGY BTW, GREAT article! I love these types of stories.

By: jkra0512_SK

jkra0512_SK — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 02:35:37 +0000

MHunterYGY
I think most of this is just regression toward the mean. His line drive rate in April, May, and June were 19.3%, 26.3%(!), 19.1%, respectively. He struck out fewer times in May (10.5% compared to 11.4%). However, the biggest tell is the .413 BABIP in April compared to a .324 BABIP in May and .261 in June. He’s now hitting more balls into the ground, like you alluded to (71.3% in June compared to 65.1% in April and 60.6% in May).

Just looking at the stats, he should have had a better May than what is shown. Statistical speaking, he had a better chance at raising all of his numbers, but someone saw an almost .100 point drop in average from April (.389) to May (.293). How do we make sense of this, Matt? What number(s) am I not looking at that would help make better sense of this, if any?