Austin Jackson: Breakout Candidate?
In Tuesday night’s After Dark chat, several people wanted to know if Austin Jackson is having a breakout season. A triple slash line of 0.500/0.583/0.850 definitely looks impressive, but those numbers are just not sustainable. With such a small sample, I will look to see if he is showing any signs of real improvement.
The most important note to remember is that Austin has only had 24 PAs this season. That number is just too few a number of at bats to draw any definite conclusions. In past seasons, he has reached similar numbers in other 6 game spans:
Apr 28th to May 3rd 2010: 0.571/0586/0.750
Jul 20th to Jul 25th 2010: 0.500/0.500/0.692
Jun 3rd to Jun 8th 2011: 0.400/0.438/0.533
Aug 30th to Sep 4th 2011: 0.552/0.567/1.069
Almost all players will get on an extreme hot hitting streak at some time. Jackson just seems to be the player starting the season on one.
The main cause of Austin’s improved performance is his unsustainable 0.643 BABIP. His career BABIP (0.374) has always been high, but not in the 0.643 range. Last season, Adrian Gonzalez led the league with a 0.380 BABIP. Using my xBABIP Spreadsheet, which uses batted ball data, his xBABIP projects a BABIP of just 0.428. A main contributor for the difference between his expected and actual BAPIP values is a 25% infield hit percentage (IFH%). Normally, a player’s IFH% maxes out around 14% in a season. For example, here are the 2011 and 2009 to 2011 IFH% leaders:
IFH%
2011: Cameron Maybin: 14.2%
2009-2011: Ichiro Suzuki: 13.8%
While Jackson has always had a decent BABIP, his 2012 value will eventually come down. People should expect Austin to max out with a BABIP south of 0.400.
The other factor for the increase in production is a drop in his strikeout rate from his previous average of 26% to 20% this season. The drop in K% is supported by his Swing % dropping from 46% to 42% and his contact % going from 63% to 75%. In his few PAs, he seems to be a little more selective with his swings and when he does swing, he is making more contact.
Of the higher BABIP or lower K%, I would track the K% to see if it stabilizes at a new level. With a lower K%, he will see a nice bump in AVG. Here is a what his AVG will look like with a 20% and 25% K% assuming a 0.380 BABIP:
25% K%: 0.285 AVG
20% K%: 0.304 AVG
It is way too early to draw any real conclusions from Austin Jackson’s start to the season. Most of his production has come from a completely unsustainable BABIP. Besides the high BABIP, he is also showing improved plate discipline. While the sample size is way too small right now, I would continue to track his K% and see if he has better control over the strike zone as the season goes on. Any chance for a breakout will be tied to lowering his strikeout numbers.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
Austin’s biggest improvement so far in 2012 is his jump to 17.9% BB%, up from 7.9% career. Disappointing that it wasn’t mentioned.
Doesn’t everyone with a crazy-high average early on have an unsustainable BABIP? And doesn’t every pitcher getting lit up have a hot mess in the luck stats? That’s kinda standard.
I also like how Jackson’s simplified his stance at the plate, eliminated the leg kick. Quieter is often better.
Agreed. Anyone who expects Jackson to breakout is not likely basing his/her belief on these first 24 PA’s, but rather on the adjusted, shortened stance/approach at the plate. I was quite surprised that this wasn’t mentioned in the article.
No offense, but the entire section on BABIP is quite unnecessary. Yes, we know that a BABIP north of .600 is unsustainable, and that someone hitting for such a high average so early means that their BABIP is too high. It did not warrant mentioning at all.
But the IFH stuff and K% are much more relevant and interesting.
Thanks for pointing out that his .500 batting average is unsustainable. I hadn’t realized that. Also, the fact that his .500 averages aided by a high babip was really sharp insight.
What do you expect these writers to do? We are 5 games in and their job is to write about fantasy baseball.
*If he doesn’t spell out the babip fueled, unsustainable production, you guys will roast him for making declarations regarding a small sample.
*If he does spell it out the unsustainable rate for you (as he did here), you guys throw a fit because he’s stating the obvious
I think the author is merely saying that we’re 5 games in, we certainly can’t draw any concrete conclusions but jackson’s performance has been interesting for a few reasons.
what’s wrong with that?
The content of the article was fine – the history of hot five game stretches, infield hits and K% were all great discussion points. It just didn’t have to be prefaced with a proclamation that his 643 babip over five games is unsustainable.
I thought at least it’d be interesting to see what he’d be doing with a .375 BABIP or something instead of just saying, “He’s been lucky.”
I’m so glad fangraphs has such dedicated police officers. Please, continue pointing out articles you don’t like.
Or, better yet, write your own.
Sincerely,
A Fan of Fangraphs/Rotographs
I guess you’d be the civilian board with oversight over police.
To me, Fangraphs is as much about the exchange as the original articles and I generally enjoy both. When I wrote for HBT I found as much insight in the comments as in the original content. I think the better and more self-confident writers engage those who respond.
All that said, there was precious little content in the article and not much to respond to, assuming one understands the vagaries of small sample sizes.
The same guys complaining at BABIP being in this article would be the ones complaining about the lack of BABIP if it were left out. “I can’t believe you wrote an article on Jackson’s potential breakout without mentioning his unsustainably high BABIP. Isn’t this Fangraphs?”
I’m guessing Dandy and Chummy weren’t in the group of people who wanted to know if AJ was having a breakout season.
Yeah, it’s fairly rudimentary, but just because you already knew the explanation doesn’t mean the article was a waste for everyone.
Who is your audience?
I think it was a waste for the average fangraphs reader.
Even a .380 BABIP probably is unsustainable. I’d guess his “true talent” BABIP should be estimated to be no higher than about .360 based on the highest modern BABIP for players with long careers.
The change in stance is a real difference maker imo.
Check out his change in 2-strike counts. SSS perhaps, but at this point that’s all we have to discuss eh.
I get SO angry when Roger Ebert names the actors in the film he is reviewing. Its like duh I already know that why don’t you write something of substance? I register my displeasure with sarcasm in the comments section.
Let’s not forget though that he has Miggy AND Fielder batting behind him. Even if he bats .260 for the year, I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to score 110 runs, hit maybe 5-10 HR, and possibly steal 15-20. Still quite useful.