Kelly Johnson: Why the Low AVG?

Kelly Johnson came into the season a fairly decent option at second base. In one keeper league I was in, him and Ben Zobrist were both available. I considered them to be at the same talent level and went with Johnson. Wrong choice. Today I will look to see why Johnson has fallen on hard times and was there any signs for the drop off in production?

First off here is a look at some of his stats over the years and his 2011 ZIPS projection:

Season	Team	G	PA	HR	R	RBI	SB	K%	BABIP	AVG	OBP	SLG
2005	Braves	87	334	9	46	40	2	25.9 %	0.295	0.241	0.334	0.397
2007	Braves	147	608	16	91	68	9	22.5 %	0.328	0.276	0.375	0.457
2008	Braves	150	614	12	86	69	11	20.7 %	0.340	0.287	0.349	0.446
2009	Braves	106	346	8	47	29	7	17.8 %	0.247	0.224	0.303	0.389
2010	Diamondbacks	154	671	26	93	71	13	25.3 %	0.339	0.284	0.370	0.496
2011	ZiPS (R)		438	14	59	44	10	23.7 %	0.306	0.260	0.334	0.450
2011	Diamondbacks	39	168	4	17	7	6	34.2 %	0.250	0.184	0.253	0.309

Kelly actually looks to produce pretty decent in a few fantasy categories if he keeps producing at his current rate. If he were to play in 120 games, thereby tripling the number of games he would be in, his SB would extract out to 18 (a career high). Also his Runs (51) and home runs (12) would be respectable. His main problem is his 0.184 AVG.

There are two main factors driving down his batting average. The first is his lower than average BABIP of 0.250. He put up a BABIP of 0.339 last season and was projected to have one around 0.306 for this season. His LD% has dropped from 20.5% to 15% this season with most of the change going to GB%. Using the common run that every 1% drop in LD%, BABIP goes down 0.010, this would explain the drop in BABIP.

In 2009, he had an even lower BABIP (0.247) than he does this season, but his AVG was 40 points higher. The main cause for this difference is that Kelly is striking out twice as much (34.2%) this season, then he did in in 2009 (17.8%). Here is a look at his plate discipline over the past few years:

Year	Team	Swing %	Contact%	O-Contact	Z-Contact	SwStr%
2005	Braves	42.3 %	79.1 %	33.0 %	87.4 %	8.8 %
2007	Braves	39.3 %	82.2 %	59.7 %	89.4 %	6.9 %
2008	Braves	46.9 %	80.8 %	59.1 %	88.9 %	8.9 %
2009	Braves	44.8 %	84.4 %	59.1 %	93.9 %	7.1 %
2010	Diamondbacks	46.2 %	76.9 %	58.5 %	86.9 %	10.4 %
2011	Diamondbacks	49.1 %	72.4 %	63.8 %	78.1 %	13.2 %

He is swinging at a few more pitches than in the last couple of years. This trend is not necessarily bad, but he is making less and less contact. His contact rate has dropped 12 percentage points (84.4% to 72.4%) over the last couple of years. The problem is not with him swinging at balls outside of the strike zone, in which his contact rate is up. Actually, he is having problems making contact with pitches in the strike zone (94% down to 78%).

Coming into the season, his AVG looked to regress some considering the high BABIP he had in 2010. His BABIP did regress, but the main cause of the lack of production is his inability to put the ball in play for the pitches he swings at. It would have been tough to predict the huge increase in strikeouts this season.

Kelly may be a buy low candidate (as he looks to still have a little power and can steal a few bases), but his average right now will drag down the rest of the team. Until he is able to start hitting line drives and putting the bat on the ball, an owner may need to look for other options.