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March 15, 2008
Non-Slugging Productive Yankees
Recent talk here about Brett Gardner's lack of batting power got me wondering about Yankees who were also not great sluugers - but who were also productive big league batters. So, I turned to the Complete Baseball Encyclopedia and asked it to give me Yankees with at least 1,000 PA (with the team) where their SLG% was at least 20 points below the league average - and where their Runs Created Above Average was positive. Here's what I got:
SLG SLG PA SLG SEC RCAA 1 Wade Boggs .407 2600 -.021 .240 74 2 Chuck Knoblauch .402 2478 -.034 .306 27 3 Chad Curtis .400 1162 -.033 .338 11 4 Luis Polonia .389 1019 -.030 .234 0 5 Lyn Lary .388 2010 -.030 .277 5 6 Joe Sewell .367 1754 -.044 .212 0 7 Butch Wynegar .363 1712 -.040 .280 12 8 Willie Randolph .357 7465 -.041 .282 115
To me, when you look at Boggs, Knoblauch and Randolph on this list, it suggests that a player with little pop can a productive big league player if he:
1. Hits for a pretty decent batting average, and
2. Walks a lot, and
3. Is a good base-stealer.
How would this list look if you moved the bar to 5,000+ career PA and included all teams? Here's the answer:
SLG SLG PA SLG SEC RCAA 1 Darin Erstad .411 6123 -.021 .239 2 2 Rafael Furcal .407 5027 -.028 .278 12 3 Mark Loretta .399 6057 -.036 .204 10 4 Jason Kendall .394 7098 -.038 .217 58 5 Bill Bruton .393 6668 -.021 .234 3 6 Tony Phillips .389 9110 -.022 .320 146 7 Richie Ashburn .382 9736 -.031 .246 282 8 Delino DeShields .377 6652 -.039 .320 36 9 Pee Wee Reese .377 9470 -.024 .287 13 10 Brett Butler .376 9545 -.024 .292 215 11 Willie Wilson .376 8317 -.023 .232 52 12 Jim Landis .375 5025 -.023 .297 35 13 Eddie Yost .371 9175 -.025 .347 162 14 Max Bishop .366 5776 -.049 .362 53 15 George Case .358 5516 -.033 .231 16 16 Mike Scioscia .356 5056 -.033 .234 4 17 Willie Randolph .351 9462 -.044 .265 131 18 Dave Collins .351 5507 -.042 .255 6 19 Eddie Stanky .348 5435 -.043 .322 122 20 Ron Hunt .347 6158 -.037 .192 58 21 Jimmy Slagle .317 5770 -.030 .227 21 22 Miller Huggins .314 6799 -.029 .288 83
Interesting list there. And, getting back to Brett Gardner, it leads to this question: Will he be more like Darin Erstad/Dave Collins or more like Brett Butler/Richie Ashburn as a player?
If it's the former, yes, then people being concerned about his lack of power have a point. But, if it's the latter, then the Yankees have a very useful player on their hands here.
Posted by Steve Lombardi at March 15, 2008 12:53 PM
Comments
First of all, as your 1st chart shows, there were only 6 (not 8 as you say) Yankees with 1000+ career PA, with a SLG .020+ worse than the league average and a positive RCAA.
But, what you leave out is there were 39 with a negative RCAA.
Your second list, by listing 22 players, you give the appearance that there are a bunch of players who fit that criteria.
What you leave it out is the 168 players with a negative RCAA.
But, more importantly what you leave out is the 119 with a triple digit negative career RCAA.
A player with 5000+ career PA and a SLG .020+ worse than the league average is almost 5 1/2 times as likely to have a triple digit negative career RCAA as he is of having even a single positive career RCAA.
And, the problem with these "exciting" players like Gardner is managers tend to like them and they have a tendency to get far more playing time than they should.
Posted by: Lee Sinins ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.waswatching.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 15, 2008 04:35 PM
Additionally,
The average negative RCAA for the 83% of the Yankees who had a negative RCAA was -51.
The average positive RCAA for the 13% who had a positive figure was 41.
But, the average positive figure was inflated by just 2 players, who were the only 2 whose positive figure exceeded the average negative figure.
The medians show a very different picture of the negative/positive gap--
for negative RCAA players: -42 RCAA
for positive RCAA players: 19.5 RSAA
So, the typical negative player is more than twice as bad as a typical positive player was good.
And, for the majors as a whole--
The average RCAA for the 88% who had a negative career RCAA was -146.
The average RCAA for the 12% who had a positive career RCAA was 69.
The average bad player was more than twice as bad as the average good player was good.
The median RCAA for the bad players was -136.
The median RCAA for the good players was 44.
The median bad player was more than 3 times as bad as the median good player was good.
Posted by: Lee Sinins at March 15, 2008 04:51 PM
I'll have you know that I downloaded Mozilla Firefox just so that I could leave this comment! (Yes, IE and TypeKey are not friends for me, again, yet, at home.)
First, I consider zero to be a positive number, but, that's just me.
Second, hey, I never said that low SLG% are not often terrible hitters - because they are terrible, most of the time. I just wanted to see which low SLG% guys were not terrible - just to see if there was some skill, like batting eye and speed, that could make up for the lack of pop.
Posted by: Steve Lombardi at March 15, 2008 07:17 PM
Good post Steve and very relevant.
However, I still think Melky is a borderline Yankee starter, and (at this point) Gardner might be slightly behind Melky.
Posted by: singledd at March 15, 2008 08:06 PM
I think you also have to sort by position. In other words, you can more easily accept a below average SLG% from a middle INFer more than an OFer.
Posted by: Rich at March 15, 2008 08:23 PM
Also, on what basis do you believe that Gardner is capable of having a SLG that is even close to being only .020 worse than the league average?
He's been in the minors since 2005 and has a career SLG of .374. The AL average SLG since 2005 is .429.
He's have to be a much better slugger (or more accurately, a much less bad slugger) in the majors just to get into striking distance of only .020 worse than average.
Posted by: Lee Sinins at March 15, 2008 08:37 PM
Even if we were to assume that Gardner is capable of a .374 SLG, so he has no drop in production moving up to the majors, the only player in the entire AL with a SLG even 40 points better than that figure who has had a positive RCAA over the past 3 years has been Chone Figgins. That's 14 out of 15 who had never figures. And, nobody with any figure that was any level worse than that had a positive RCAA. (min: 1000 PA).
Posted by: Lee Sinins at March 15, 2008 08:46 PM
Excellent posts by Lee Sinnis.
Posted by: Mike NYY at March 15, 2008 08:53 PM
I realize this post focuses on being a productive hitter without having any power, but don't forget about defense. A 0 RCAA hitter playing shortstop 20 runs better than average is a more valuable player than a +30 RCAA hitter playing league-average first base.
Posted by: Sky at March 19, 2008 11:40 AM