Archive for Placido Polanco

– Huston Street will be starting the year on the DL, which isn’t a good sign for those of you who decided to select him as a keeper. He had problems with tightness in his shoulder over the past month, and had an MRI done yesterday. Street hasn’t had shoulder problems in the past, so this isn’t too much of a concern. Still, a closer with arm troubles is hard to judge, because missing a few weeks could mean losing their job. I doubt Street will lose his gig, but keep an eye on him.

– The big ball of power known as Mat Gamel has had a hard time recovering from a sore shoulder. Gamel entered spring hoping to win the third base job, but now I’d bet that Casey McGehee will start the year with the job. McGehee may not hit .300 again, but 15 homers and a .275 average are reasonable expectations. McGehee is eligible at second and third base, and is currently the 210th player off the board according to Mock Draft Central.

– A’s closer Andrew Bailey is going to sit out for a couple days due to elbow soreness. Bailey’s rookie campaign was helped by a .234 BABIP against, but his strong strikeout and walk numbers should translate over to 2010.

– Dustin McGowan pitched two innings in a simulated game this week, and the Jays still don’t have a timetable for his return. McGowan had a good 2007 and a decent 2008, but since his progress has been slow he is no longer draftable even in the deepest of leagues with a DL spot.

– Placido Polanco suffered a sprained right knee earlier in the week, and he hopes to return to action tomorrow.

– Rick Ankiel’s ankle is starting to become a legitimate concern for the Royals, and he isn’t likely to play until Sunday, at the earliest.

The sight of Detroit Tigers second baseman Placido Polanco whiffing at a pitch occurs about as often as a Halley’s Comet spotting. Since 2002, Polanco has put the bat on the ball 91.9% of the time, while the major league average has hovered around 80 percent. On pitches within the zone, Placido has connected on 96.2% of his hacks (86-88% MLB average over that time period). Not surprisingly, Polanco has just a 7.1% K rate during his major league career.

At first glance, the 34 year-old Dominican would appear to be having a typical Polanco season. He has posted the fourth-highest contact rate in the big leagues (92.9%), with the highest connect rate on pitches within the strike zone (98.1%). Polanco’s 7.9% K rate is ninth-lowest among qualified batters.

Yet, despite all of that contact, Polanco is in the midst of a lousy offensive campaign. His .308 wOBA converts to -5.7 park-adjusted Batting Runs. That places Polanco among out-machines like Seattle’s Jose Lopez and Chicago’s Chris Getz. Preseason projection systems such as ZiPS, Oliver and CHONE pegged Placido for a wOBA between .334 and .344.

So, what has caused Polanco’s forgettable 2009 season? The first thing that catches one’s eye is a .263 BABIP, leaps and bounds below his .321 mark in 2008. How much should we expect that figure to bounce back? To try and answer that question, let’s use a BABIP estimator from The Hardball Times. Derek Carty of THT developed a BABIP calculator, based on the great work that former Rotographs writer Peter Bendix (along with Chris Dutton) conducted this past winter.

In their study, Bendix and Dutton included many more variables into their BABIP estimator, going well beyond the “line drive percentage plus .120” formula that many had been using. The premise of the “LD +.120” idea is that line drives fall for hits way, way more than any other batted ball (74.1 percent of the time in the AL this year). But by including other factors such as hitter’s eye, speed score and pitches/PA, Bendix and Dutton produced a formula with a higher year-to-year correlation.

According to the BABIP estimator, Polanco “should” have a BABIP of .304 this season, compared to his actual .263 mark. If we adjust his batting line for the additional hits, Placido’s line should be closer to .297/.353/.427 than his actual .256/.312/.386 triple-slash (and that’s assuming all additional hits were singles).

Polanco is having some crummy luck on balls put in play this year, and he should bounce back close to established levels in the second half. But that’s not to say that there’s nothing to be concerned about.

Placido has seen his LD% dip from 23.9% in 2007 to 16 percent in 2009. While some of that could be scoring bias (line drives don’t exist in of themselves, and there’s a pretty sizable gap between different parks in terms of the number of line drives coded). But that is a large decrease. In place of those liners, Polanco has hit more flyballs (31.3 FB% in ’07, 38.2% this year). That’s not a particularly pleasant development for a player with limited pop. Also, Polanco has gradually expanded his zone. His Outside Swing% has climbed from 21.6% in 2006 to 26 percent this season (25% MLB average).

In all probability, Polanco will commence being the near-.300 hitter we have come to know over the years. In fact, ZiPS projects a .299/.345/.410 line for the rest of the ’09 campaign. There are some unhappy trends in his batted ball data (fewer liners, more flyballs), but it’s hard to say how much of that is Polanco and how much of that is based on the caprices of the official scorer (this is why people are so excited about Hit F/X; no more lumping batted balls into subjective categories). If you’re struggling to get production from the keystone spot, however, you could do worse than buying low on Placido.

Not all of us are looking to sell high and buy low right now. Some of us are just looking for help – any help at all – off the wire. And if you’re in an NL-only, AL-only, or even a 20-team, MI/CI, 5 OF and 2 UTIL league (yeah, that one is fun), you’re looking for any guy that might take the job and start for a while.

Let’s take a look at some of these fringe options. Every once in a while, the ‘first guy off the bench’ can really do some damage in these deeper leagues.

Edwin Maysonet – His speed is the only skill he has that registers as decent on the scouting scale, and his contact and patience are both below average. About what you’d expect from a middle infielder with a minor league career .259/.338/.384 slash line. But you know what? He’s hot. After hitting .271/.343/.379 in his second year at AAA last year, he earned seven at-bats in the majors and got one hit. Repeating seems to work for him, as he’s currently hot in his second try at the major leagues after putting up a batting-average heavy .309/.417/.395 at AAA in his third try at the level. Of course, his current BABIP (over .400) has a lot to do with it. Why not get some stats out of the young guy, though – it’s not like 33-year-olds with injury-riddled histories come back quickly from bad hammies. (Yes Kaz Matsui, I’m looking in your direction. How’s the couch feeling?)

Jonny Gomes – The good news about Gomes is that he’s actually bettered his strikeout percentage over the last three years. Of course, he started at a Russell-Branyan
-esque 36%, and he may have made some of his gains by being reduced to a part-time role (his .219/.309/.425 slash line versus righties is just ugly, and he had twice as many at-bats against lefties as righties last year). On the other hand, Ramon Hernandez
is brittle enough – why push him with more at-bats at first base? While starter Joey Votto is out with his mysterious stress-related illness, someone has to play first. When that someone is Gomes, versus a lefty, take advantage of that .271/.371/.512 slash line against southpaws.

Sean Rodriguez – Howie Kendrick is struggling. Despite being a .294 hitter in a career 300 games, the fact that he has never even put together 400 plate appearances in a single season makes everyone wary. Are his current struggles injury related? Or, as the low .262 BABIP (career .346) suggests, just luck related? He really needs to start hitting better than 12% line drives, and his upside seemingly belongs along side the other high-contact-rate low-pop second basemen like Robinson Cano and Placido Polanco. Rodriguez, on the other hand, is showing mighty power for a second baseman. His .279/.364/.637 slash line shows isolated power that is well above his career .494 slugging percentage in the minors, but right in line with his .645 slugging percentage from last year. Guess he likes Salt Lake City and its 1.16 park factor for home runs in 2008. If the team gets tired of Kendrick, or – gasp – he gets hurt again, Rodriguez is worth a long look.

Ryan Roberts – With all the first basemen in Arizona hurt (what’s in that water?), Roberts has found his way into some at-bats over the past week-plus. This former shortstop’s defense is above-average, so he probably has a chance of sticking as the corner infielder, at least until even Tony Clark is back. Roberts has always been a power-and-patience guy and his major league strikeout percentage (29.8%) is not in line with his minor league one (19.8%). This year, he’s got that number down to 23.9%, which bodes well for his offense. Unfortunately, his BABIP is .471 and ZiPS pegs him for a reasonable .256/.328/.380 finish. There’s not much to like here, since the team has decided that Mark Reynolds is a fine solution at the hot corner despite his poor defense.