Ok so first, sorry for the delay, I've been rather busy lately but here it is, the hitting eval for the Jays first half.
Jose Reyes: To be honest I've got nothing for Reyes, all of his stats have been rather good, he's batting a solid .318, has an OBP of .368 (the lack of walks is the only bad thing) and is slugging .447, which is actually pretty high considering some of his other years. Now when evaluating a hitter, going into the situational splits is the first thing I do after browsing their standard stats because it tells you where that batter can improve his approach or where they are lacking if their base stats don't already show that. Now in Jose's case nearly all of his splits are fairly even with his basic stats, his vs. pitcher AVG ranges from .299-.371, which is great from anyone, additionally his AVG with runners in scoring position is .313. Now the few issues he has, first off his 2 strike approach is pretty weak as his cumulative AVG with 2 strikes on the count is .149 and in the most clutch situation, runners in scoring position and 2 outs, AVG is .200. Then the last holes in his split stats are that his AVG in the first inning is .241 and finally he is only hitting .200 if the gams is close and in the last 1/3 of the innings, which a bit of a disappointment considering the team is lacking in those kind of areas. But overall Reyes has more positives than negatives.
Melky Cabrera: Melky, like Jose has been fairly consistent, he's got a .280 AVG, .325 OBP, .363 SLG. Now I should have made it clear that the reason both Melky and Jose have good batting splits against all types of pitcher situations is because they are both fairly efficient switch hitters so they are used to batting against left and right handed pitchers from both sides. In addition to these things like Jose, to a lesser extent, Melky has a low batting AVG with a 2 strike count, .232, and then again his AVG with the game late and close is a disappointing .224 and then his AVG in a tie game is .245. Now while this is bad for the team Melky is like our #1 clutch hitter as he has a batting AVG with runners in scoring position .295, and then with 2 out and runners in scoring position an AVG of .341. So in other words Melky is an overall successful clutch hitter and a good #2 hitter, when he's healthy, but again we need a change in his 2 strike approach.
Jose Bautista: Bautista is a bit of a go with the flow kind of guy, that meaning that he can have a year of AMAZING stats (see 2011 or 2010) but then it can regress a bit, so this year his stats so far are as follows: .252 AVG, .348 OBP and .501 SLG. Now the OBP is good because it means he's taking a fair amount of walks (about 10% of at bats, which is alright) and though his slugging is a bit lower than what we would like to see as he was always expected to be the team's premiere power hitter but he's taking a serious backseat to Encarnacion as he only has hit 23 home runs and theres only about 65 games left and his batting AVG could be better as .252 is pretty low when you look at the games top power hitters. Now when you look at Bautista's splits theres some different stuff, his splits with left vs. right handed pitchers are fairly similar but considering he's not a switch hitter his AVG against left handed pitchers is about 20-30 points lower, one rather disturbing thing is that his batting average when the team is winning is 70 points higher than when the team is losing, and it's only 287. In addition to this like everyone he has a very poor 2 strike approach with a batting AVG with 2 strikes of .192, his AVG with runners in scoring position is .306 and .296 with 2 out and runners in scoring position and he has an AVG when the game is late and close of .302 though his AVG with a tie game is only .192. So all of these numbers basically tells us that Bautista has a good approach at the plate but like most he has a poor approach with 2 strikes and same when the game is tied, in addition to this from what you can see from his monthly splits is a regression, going from very low AVG in April to high in May to average-mediocre in June and back to low in July so hopefully we see a turn around there. All in all it seems he needs to improve in the same area as the others.
Edwin Encarnacion: Ok so this is the 'big man' good ol' E5. So his base stats are very similar to Bautista's only a fair amount higher and with a higher total in the counting stats (HR, R, RBI). On the split stats again fairly similar but a bit higher than Bautista's and even the same problems are prevalent though again to a slightly lesser degree with Edwin (lacklustre AVG with 2 strikes). To balance this tough Edwin has an AVG with runners in scoring position of .329 and .318 with 2 out and runners in scoring position, then in addition to these great clutch stats he also has AVGs above .275 when the game is close and late or tied. Not really much for Edwin to work on, yea he does have the same 2 strike approach but his AVG is above .200 so he's not nearly as bad as the other guys on the teams offence.
Adam Lind: Man, Lind can't seem to figure out what he is, he was a power hitter in 2009/2010 and now he's a batter who hits for avg with decent power but he is performing well for us this year as he has an AVG of .300, however his OBP is .365 so he's not taking that many walks, which is a bit of an issue and we don't need that happening with the number of walks Arencibia isn't taking. Lind has also been trending down since the start of July in terms of his batting performance and his splits show a fairly poor performance in games that end with the teams loss, now on the other hand he is one of the few who don't seem to have much problem with his 2 strike approach as he is hitting .230 in that situation. As well he hits well with runners in scoring position and with 2 outs in the same situation, .321 and .333 respectively, the only down sides are that he hits poorly late/close games .217 and and then he hits below .200 in the 6th, 7th and extra innings, generally ones that matter as those innings are usually the ones where the middle relief guys are brought in and before the setup and closer are brought in, who are generally harder to hit against. So Lind seems like the most complete hitter here so far.
Colby Rasmus: Colby fits into the same kind of category as Adam Lind as he's been one of our most productive players this year, with a decent AVG of .264, OBP of .333 and SLG of .480, which is all well above his career average which, is nice because it shows that he's finally coming into his own, something we've been waiting for as a lot was expected out of him when he was with St. Louis. Now his splits for months, pitchers and win/loss situations are all fairly even so he's driven no matter what the situation, however again his 2 strike approach again is poor as he only has an AVG of .180. Now heres something strange, Colby has an AVG with runners in scoring position of .324, which is fantastic, however his AVG with 2 out and runners in scoring position (a very clutch situation) is only .182! Then his late and close game AVG is .230 and in tie games he has an AVG of .282 and like Lind he has issues in specific innings, 3rd, 5th and 6th innings. So again Colby is a very good hitter for us but again he needs work on his 2 strike approach and hopefully find a way to improve in the innings he has issues in.
J.P. Arencibia: Now this guy drives me FUCKING INSANE, and thats because of his approach at the plate and attitude towards it, before I get into the stats everyone reading this knows I hate Arencibia because he doesn't take walks and swings at everything and has one of the top 3 strikeout percentages in the MLB. But just that isn't what makes me dislike the guy it's the fact that he's talked about how he's stated on record that he has just started ignoring strikeouts and that it doesn't matter to him, he just swings at pitches he feels good about, which is not only selfish but just infuriating for a die hard fan like me, especailly when he sits right in the middle of the batting order, it just breaks up our good hitters and often gets us the last out. ANYHOW J.P. has an atrocious AVG of .225 (12th lowest in MLB), which wouldn't be such a big deal if he didn't have the lowest OBP in the game (.258) and a SLG of .425. Now Arencibia has pretty bad splits with right/ left handed pitchers (average against lefties and shit against righties) though his AVG is getting better in July so hopefully that trend continues but we'll see BUT he has a large drop off in AVG when the team is losing, .294 for winning and .163 for losing. Just like expected all of his other splits are fairly bad as well since they are all below .250 and about 80% of them are below .200, so not much out of what bad expectations we have of his stats. Overall Arencibia and he's terrible attitude toward batting is a MAJOR reason for the Blue Jays offence being the way it is right now, again he has the same problems as everyone else though his lower AVG amplifies those issues.
Brett Lawrie: Not really anything I can say about Lawrie but thats not because he's been good, in fact he's been slumping most of the season but he's only been on the field for 60 games, which I don't think I can make an accurate evaluation on. So overall give him a month then he'll likely be in more standard form since he missed so much time on the DL with the hamstring injury.
Maicer Izturis: Like most hitters at his age there isn't anything to fantastic, most if not all of his numbers are pretty average though his numbers have been trending upwards since the beginning of the season. Though again he has problems with his 2 strike approach and with runners in scoring position, though not so much with 2 outs and runners in scoring position. Again not really anything aside from the typical that Maicer needs to work on, though to be honest I was really weirded out when the Jays signed him when there were better 2nd baseman they could have tried to get via trade.
Bonifacio and DeRosa: Now I've included these guys as one because one their troubles are similar to other players and two because they aren't being played as everyday players, though if Bonifacio was hitting I guarantee he'd be in the lineup more often just for his ridiculous speed. Now Bonifacio has been a lot like Arencibia just without the power making him next to useless as a hitter since his main strength is his speed, which he can't institute unless he's on base and DeRosa has the same issues as Izturis, though he is a bit better in clutch situations.
Overall the issue for the Jays offence seems pretty clear, the main thing they need to go out and get, if their feeling up to it and think that they can afford prospect or player losses is a second or third baseman (since Lawrie can cover either position) who can hit for high average and in clutch situations. Then they should be getting on the hitting coach about his work, I do realize that the guy who is in the position now is new and was promoted from AAA but this is the time when heads start to role usually. Hell the Nationals just fired their hitting coach since their offence has been as bad as the Jays, now seeing that is a little annoying because it's kind of showing that the Jays managerial or GM staff care a little less about finding out the problem (of course I don't know who is directly in charge of the coaching staff) and it doesn't help that Gibbons is being so cloak and dagger about everything in his interviews. All in all I'm 100% sure they WILL NOT reach the playoffs, maybe next year Blue Jays. Tomorrow or Friday I will have the first eval post on the Orioles pitching up for your reading
-Eric
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