The Change: V-Mart, Pablo, & Bounceback Leaderboards
As the season draws to a close, and the Red Sox try to push their record to .500, there’s plenty of blame to go around. The rotation didn’t end up working out, really, and there’s more than one high-priced acquisition that fizzled in his first year. But if you sort the leaderboards for the worst players in baseball this year, one name drifts to the top: Pablo Sandoval.
The easiest analysis is to say that he’s been better in the past and will be better again. And one-year defensive samples are certainly part of this story, so he could easily get back to being a decent defender and recover his value that way. That said, Sandoval has lost nearly forty points of adjusted offense, and that seems extreme. It’s even worse for second place on the losers list, as Victor Martinez has lost a whopping 90 points of weighted runs created plus from last season to this one.
Victor Martinez just showed us the worst single-season drop-off since free agency began.
Can we just pencil Martinez and Sandoval into their career numbers when they’re on the wrong side of this single-season dropoff leaderboard?
This isn’t a fantasy leaderboard, per se, but wRC+ correlates well with runs, RBI, batting average, and power numbers. Good batters are good batters. And these batters were good one year, and terrible the next. And Martinez did it worse than anyone has since 1974.

Name | Season 1 | S1 PA | S1 wRC+ | Season 2 | S2 PA | S2 wRC+ | diff |
Victor Martinez | 2014 | 641 | 167 | 2015 | 485 | 78 | -90 |
Scott Brosius | 1996 | 500 | 131 | 1997 | 526 | 50 | -81 |
Adam Dunn | 2010 | 648 | 136 | 2011 | 496 | 60 | -75 |
Sandy Alomar Jr. | 1997 | 480 | 131 | 1998 | 438 | 56 | -75 |
Chris Davis | 2013 | 673 | 168 | 2014 | 525 | 94 | -74 |
Jeff Burroughs | 1978 | 611 | 160 | 1979 | 475 | 87 | -73 |
John Mayberry | 1975 | 683 | 166 | 1976 | 690 | 94 | -72 |
Reggie Jackson | 1982 | 621 | 145 | 1983 | 458 | 74 | -71 |
Adrian Beltre | 2004 | 657 | 161 | 2005 | 650 | 90 | -71 |
Sixto Lezcano | 1979 | 566 | 165 | 1980 | 460 | 97 | -68 |
Juan Gonzalez | 1993 | 587 | 164 | 1994 | 463 | 96 | -68 |
Ken Singleton | 1983 | 612 | 129 | 1984 | 403 | 61 | -68 |
Dick Allen | 1974 | 525 | 163 | 1975 | 481 | 96 | -67 |
Jeff Keppinger | 2012 | 418 | 128 | 2013 | 451 | 61 | -67 |
Willie McGee | 1985 | 652 | 151 | 1986 | 539 | 85 | -66 |
Brook Jacoby | 1987 | 620 | 144 | 1988 | 606 | 78 | -66 |
Jeff Bagwell | 1994 | 479 | 205 | 1995 | 539 | 140 | -66 |
Allen Craig | 2013 | 563 | 134 | 2014 | 505 | 69 | -65 |
Cal Ripken | 1991 | 717 | 154 | 1992 | 715 | 90 | -64 |
George Foster | 1981 | 472 | 152 | 1982 | 608 | 88 | -64 |
J.T. Snow | 2004 | 417 | 153 | 2005 | 410 | 89 | -63 |
Ray Durham | 2006 | 555 | 126 | 2007 | 528 | 62 | -63 |
Mike Napoli | 2011 | 432 | 179 | 2012 | 417 | 116 | -63 |
Ted Simmons | 1983 | 650 | 122 | 1984 | 532 | 60 | -62 |
Jose Hernandez | 2002 | 582 | 119 | 2003 | 571 | 58 | -61 |
Rob Deer | 1992 | 448 | 145 | 1993 | 532 | 84 | -61 |
Mookie Wilson | 1988 | 410 | 129 | 1989 | 509 | 69 | -60 |
Howard Johnson | 1989 | 655 | 166 | 1990 | 668 | 106 | -60 |
Roberto Alomar | 2001 | 677 | 151 | 2002 | 655 | 91 | -60 |
Tony Pena | 1986 | 565 | 112 | 1987 | 425 | 53 | -60 |
You might notice that this is a list of good players, for the most part. You don’t get 400 plate appearances of terrible production without having a lot of goodwill in the bank. And so Pablo Sandoval will get another chance next year, just as many players that have come before.
What separates Sandoval and Martinez in this instance may be interesting, though. And that’s speaking beyond the difference in the magnitude of their dropoffs, since Sandoval’s drop this year was only the 339th-worst single-season drop in wRC+ since 1974. While Martinez’s numbers are so much worse compared to his excellent season last year, he has more of an excuse than Sandoval. He was dealing with an injury this year, as his knee didn’t recover from surgery as well as most people hoped. That makes Pablo Sandoval more Scott Brosius and Victor Martinez more Chris Davis (ADHD medicine) or Adam Dunn (appendix surgery).
What we are really looking for is the other side of the coin. Particularly if we are interested in investing in Martinez or Sandoval next year, we have to know how likely these sorts of bounce-backs are, and what the best bounce-backs of all time have looked like. Here’s the other side of the leaderboard from above.

Name | Season 1 | S1 PA | S1 wRC+ | Season 2 | S2 PA | S2 wRC+ | diff |
Terry Pendleton | 1990 | 484 | 60 | 1991 | 644 | 141 | 80 |
Adrian Beltre | 2003 | 608 | 86 | 2004 | 657 | 161 | 75 |
Scott Brosius | 1997 | 526 | 50 | 1998 | 603 | 123 | 73 |
Darin Erstad | 1999 | 638 | 70 | 2000 | 747 | 140 | 69 |
Aubrey Huff | 2009 | 597 | 77 | 2010 | 668 | 144 | 67 |
Sammy Sosa | 1997 | 694 | 93 | 1998 | 722 | 159 | 66 |
Alex Rios | 2011 | 570 | 60 | 2012 | 640 | 126 | 66 |
Chili Davis | 1983 | 553 | 83 | 1984 | 546 | 148 | 65 |
Mark McGwire | 1991 | 585 | 105 | 1992 | 571 | 171 | 65 |
Kevin Mitchell | 1988 | 566 | 119 | 1989 | 640 | 184 | 65 |
Mike Napoli | 2010 | 510 | 115 | 2011 | 432 | 179 | 64 |
Jose Bautista | 2009 | 404 | 102 | 2010 | 683 | 165 | 64 |
Tim Wallach | 1993 | 522 | 66 | 1994 | 466 | 129 | 64 |
Jose Canseco | 1987 | 691 | 106 | 1988 | 705 | 169 | 63 |
Matt Kemp | 2010 | 668 | 106 | 2011 | 689 | 168 | 63 |
Aubrey Huff | 2001 | 434 | 71 | 2002 | 494 | 133 | 62 |
Ryne Sandberg | 1983 | 699 | 80 | 1984 | 700 | 142 | 62 |
Jeff Bagwell | 1993 | 609 | 145 | 1994 | 479 | 205 | 61 |
Barry Bonds | 2000 | 607 | 174 | 2001 | 664 | 235 | 60 |
Lloyd Moseby | 1982 | 533 | 76 | 1983 | 604 | 135 | 59 |
Dusty Baker | 1976 | 421 | 77 | 1977 | 604 | 136 | 59 |
Adrian Beltre | 2009 | 477 | 81 | 2010 | 641 | 140 | 59 |
Carlos Beltran | 2000 | 413 | 63 | 2001 | 680 | 122 | 58 |
Kendrys Morales | 2014 | 401 | 72 | 2015 | 624 | 130 | 58 |
Sandy Alomar Jr. | 1996 | 444 | 73 | 1997 | 480 | 131 | 57 |
Paul Molitor | 1986 | 482 | 107 | 1987 | 542 | 165 | 57 |
Casey Kotchman | 2010 | 457 | 69 | 2011 | 563 | 127 | 57 |
Bret Boone | 2000 | 525 | 92 | 2001 | 690 | 149 | 57 |
Tom Paciorek | 1980 | 441 | 95 | 1981 | 452 | 152 | 57 |
Magglio Ordonez | 2006 | 646 | 113 | 2007 | 679 | 169 | 57 |
Look at that. Scott Brosius shows up on both lists. That’s probably not too surprising. If the player was good enough in his bad year to get 400 plate appearances, and then was good enough to get 400 plate appearances again in the year after his bad year, he probably rebounded back to his career levels. Scott Brosius was a career 94 wRC+ guy that had a 50 wRC+ season nestled into his peak at age 31. Pablo Sandoval is a career 116 wRC+ guy that just put up a 75 in his age-29 season. This is good news. This is a better comp for Pablo than Terry Pendleton (despite the two players’ sizes) because Pendleton went from his second-worst season in his life to a career year in order to zoom to the top of this list.
There are a lot of career years on this list. Let’s limit the list to just players that were bad the year before their comeback. Here’s the list again with only players that had worse than an 80 wRC+ in season one, with their career wRC+ added.

Name | Season 1 | S1 PA | S1 wRC+ | Season 2 | S2 PA | S2 wRC+ | diff | career wRC+ |
Terry Pendleton | 1990 | 484 | 60 | 1991 | 644 | 141 | 80 | 91 |
Scott Brosius | 1997 | 526 | 50 | 1998 | 603 | 123 | 73 | 94 |
Darin Erstad | 1999 | 638 | 70 | 2000 | 747 | 140 | 69 | 93 |
Aubrey Huff | 2009 | 597 | 77 | 2010 | 668 | 144 | 67 | 111 |
Alex Rios | 2011 | 570 | 60 | 2012 | 640 | 126 | 66 | 99 |
Tim Wallach | 1993 | 522 | 66 | 1994 | 466 | 129 | 64 | 102 |
Aubrey Huff | 2001 | 434 | 71 | 2002 | 494 | 133 | 62 | 111 |
Lloyd Moseby | 1982 | 533 | 76 | 1983 | 604 | 135 | 59 | 103 |
Dusty Baker | 1976 | 421 | 77 | 1977 | 604 | 136 | 59 | 117 |
Carlos Beltran | 2000 | 413 | 63 | 2001 | 680 | 122 | 58 | 120 |
Kendrys Morales | 2014 | 401 | 72 | 2015 | 624 | 130 | 58 | 115 |
Sandy Alomar Jr. | 1996 | 444 | 73 | 1997 | 480 | 131 | 57 | 84 |
Casey Kotchman | 2010 | 457 | 69 | 2011 | 563 | 127 | 57 | 93 |
Our comp for Victor Martinez jumps off the page at first. Martinez has a career wRC+ of 122, Beltran is at 120, and both are switch hitters. Beltran’s 2000 was worse than Martinez’s 2015, but Beltran’s recovery brought him all the way to his career levels, and there’s at least hope that Martinez can do the same. That’s the good news.
It doesn’t look good for the switch-hitting catcher to better Beltran’s recovery, though. For one, Beltran’s big recovery came when he was 24 and it was really more of a leap forward than a recovery to previous levels. Even Dusty Baker was 28. Alex Rios was 31 when he made this list. Kendrys Morales is 32 right now.
Martinez is 36, and there are only two players on this list that had a recovery after 33 years old that would bring Martinez anywhere close to his career work. One was Aubrey Huff. At 34, Huff put up his best year, one year after putting up his worst year. The other was Tim Wallach, who at 37 years old, followed his worst season with his best season.
One other best comp for Martinez doesn’t show up here, but it’s… Victor Martinez. In 2014, he added 54 points of wRC+, and if he did that again just two years later, he’d be right at his career wRC+. The problem with that comp is that Martinez was good in 2013, he was just excellent in 2014.
If you limit the pool to older recoveries off of sub-par seasons, there’s Huff and Wallach, and then there’s nobody. And Huff and Wallach followed their worst seasons with their best seasons. Don’t bet on Martinez being Huff or Wallach. Don’t bet on a recovery that will make this leaderboard.
Pablo Sandoval has plenty of comps and is a younger human being. He should be able to approximate something like he’s done before with his bat next year. Victor Martinez has two comps and is an older human being. If he does return to his career levels next year, it’ll make for a great story.
Thanks to Jeff Zimmerman for the season-to-season wRC+ query.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Great piece Eno. I was thinking through 2016 team bounce back candidates this morning and this article is a great start in that direction.
Not a perfect analogy but I think Beltre is a good bounce-back bet for 2016. He missed a few weeks and then played injured for a few more with a thumb dislocation depressing his 2015 line across the board. It’ll be tempting to look at his mediocre 2015 line and chalk it all up to aging but his strong second half looks a lot more like his 2014 line with the thumb injury presumably behind him now.