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Just go trade for Jay Bruce or Markakis

oriolesacox

By oriolesacox
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e16bball Major Leaguer

e16bball

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[CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST]

The big issue, then, is whether the BABIP plunge from 2013 to 2015 is real and likely to continue --- or if 2015 was an outlier of fluky bad BABIP luck that only appears to be a continuation of the injury-plagued 2014.

That's tough to know for sure. But two pieces of data I personally like to look at when it comes to determining if BABIP spikes/drops are likely to continue are the hard/soft contact rates and the hit direction distribution. There are two kinds of hitters who usually seem to maintain particularly low BABIP numbers: (1) hard-hitting sluggers who tend to be very pull-heavy, like Mark Teixeira or Carlos Pena; and (2) slap-hitters who don't manage much hard contact, like Brendan Ryan or Sam Fuld. Fairly rare that you see a particularly low BABIP from a player who hits the ball hard a lot AND has the ability to go the other way.

Using this as a (rudimentary, admittedly) guide, I went ahead and compared Jay Bruce's 2015 performance in these two categories to other similar players. Bruce's hard contact rate in 2015 was 35.4% and his opposite-field rate was 22.7%. I took all the seasons over the past 3 years where a player had a hard contact rate of at least 33% AND an opposite-field rate of at least 20%. There were 145 such seasons, including Bruce's 2015.

Of those 145 seasons, the average BABIP among the group was .317 and the median was .316. The bottom quartile was .294 and the bottom decile was .274. Bruce's 2015 BABIP of .251 was the second-lowest among the entire group, and only four other seasons were even below .260.

So what about those other 4 seasons, what happened to them after posting a low BABIP despite hard contact and going the other way? Well...

Anthony Rizzo 2013: .258 BABIP; 2014: .311 BABIP; 2015: .289 BABIP

Mitch Moreland 2013: .255 BABIP; 2014: .315 BABIP; 2015: .317 BABIP

David Ortiz 2014: .256 BABIP; 2015: .264 BABIP

Chris Davis 2014: .242 BABIP; 2015: .319 BABIP

With the exception of a decrepit, 39-year-old Big Papi, these hitters all bounced back in a major way from a BABIP standpoint.

I think it's reasonable to hope that the same may happen for Bruce. He's posted a good BABIP for most of his career, his constituent hitting abilities all seem to have rebounded last year after his injury-plagued 2014, and history shows that guys with his general hitting profile tend to bounce back after abnormally poor BABIP seasons. I still don't think you trade a lot for him, given his salary, but I would certainly be willing to roll the dice on him. I think there's a very real possibility that he may be back to a 115-120 OPS+ hitter over the next two seasons.

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section18 All-Star

section18

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I think Bruce would do well in the AL and at OP. He's worth taking the chance on I would make a deal for him if there aren't too many minor leaguers involved. I would also try to get Sonny Gray. They can have Miguel Gonzalez and Bundy and Alvarez and include Josh Reddick.

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backwardsk Hangout Grand Counsel

backwardsk

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I think Bruce would do well in the AL and at OP. He's worth taking the chance on I would make a deal for him if there aren't too many minor leaguers involved. I would also try to get Sonny Gray. They can have Miguel Gonzalez and Bundy and Alvarez and include Josh Reddick.

Did you forget to include Machado for the Oakland trade?

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weams Hangout Grand Counsel

weams

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Did you forget to include Machado for the Oakland trade?

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It was Flaherty that he missed.

Seriously. What he was saying is that we are not signing 20 million dollar a year guys and we are not trading for those types of guys. We'll play a different sort of team.

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Stotle Hangout Grand Counsel

Stotle

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I would guess that Bruce out-performs Paredes. But by how much? It is worth the huge salary difference? Even if Bruce bounces back to a 1-win player wouldn't the Orioles be better served to not acquire him and independently determine if Paredes was worth retaining in a platoon or reserve role? The key question here isn't so much about the relative worth of Bruce vs. Paredes, but whether it's worth acquiring a guy who's been terrible the last two years and is making $12-13M a year. I'm not a Paredes fan. I'm intrigued by Bruce but not at all confident he'll be worth $13M plus whatever it takes to pry him loose from the Reds.

Is that the same analysis we should use for Wieters? He'll be getting +$15MM this year and produced around .8 WAR his last full season, and about the same in the two most recent partial seasons.

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scOtt Hangout Grand Counsel

scOtt

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Jay Bruce can block trades to 8 teams: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RedSox?src=hash">#RedSox</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Yankees?src=hash">#Yankees</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Twins?src=hash">#Twins</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Dbacks?src=hash">#Dbacks</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Marlins?src=hash">#Marlins</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Athletics?src=hash">#Athletics</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BlueJays?src=hash">#BlueJays</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rays?src=hash">#Rays</a>.</p>? Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) <a href="
">November 22, 2015</a></blockquote>

<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

21 to go!!

Gotta love a guy who doesn't want to play for the Skanks, Sux or Blow Jays.

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