Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Consistency meter: Adrian Beltre
Posted by Paul Singman at 1:38amI am not going to pretend this time that you do not who the article is about because, well, it says so in the title. Adrian Beltre gets talked of solely in terms of his contract and not much is discussed about his future.
Beltre has been extremely consistent the past three years:
+------+-----+----------+-----+-------+----+-----+-----+----+ | YEAR | AGE | TEAM | AB | BA | HR | RBI | R | SB | +------+-----+----------+-----+-------+----+-----+-----+----+ | 2004 | 24 | Dodgers | 657 | 0.334 | 48 | 121 | 104 | 7 | | 2005 | 25 | Mariners | 650 | 0.255 | 19 | 87 | 69 | 3 | | 2006 | 26 | Mariners | 620 | 0.268 | 25 | 89 | 88 | 11 | | 2007 | 27 | Mariners | 595 | 0.276 | 26 | 99 | 87 | 14 | | 2008 | 28 | Mariners | 556 | 0.266 | 25 | 77 | 74 | 8 | +------+-----+----------+-----+-------+----+-----+-----+----+
Before those three years, we see the downer season Beltre had in his first year of the new contract that spurned much criticism of the Mariners front office and a lot of "I told ya so." And we see the career year Beltre experienced in 2004 that led to that five-year, $64 million contract.
So now that we know what Beltre is capable of, let's look at what we can expect of him in 2009, the final year of his contract.
Power ability
If you're new to THT Fantasy Focus and are unfamiliar with True Home Runs (tHR) or any of the other stats I'm using, check out our quick reference guide. These stats provide a much clearer picture of a player's talent, so it's well worth taking a couple of minutes to learn them.
+------+-----+----------+-----+----+-----+-------+--------+--------+-----+--------+ | YEAR | AGE | TEAM | AB | HR | tHR | HR_FB | tHR_FB | nHR_FB | RAW | OF_FB_ | +------+-----+----------+-----+----+-----+-------+--------+--------+-----+--------+ | 2006 | 26 | Mariners | 620 | 25 | 14 | 14 | 8 | 8 | 3.3 | 36 | | 2007 | 27 | Mariners | 595 | 26 | 24 | 15 | 13 | 16 | 3.9 | 36 | | 2008 | 28 | Mariners | 556 | 25 | 7 | 15 | 5 | 8 | 0.0 | 34 | +------+-----+----------+-----+----+-----+-------+--------+--------+-----+--------+
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| Unlike last time Beltre was negotiating a contract, do not expect him to be coming off a career year. (Icon/SMI) |
Anything catch your eye? I hope you answered yes, because that is a tremendous drop in True Home Runs (tHR)! Before we place the toe tag on Beltre, though, let's examine why his tHR figure dropped so much in 2008, and why he still was able to hit 25 homers. To do that, we first have to understand how the True Home Runs system works.
True Home Runs likes players who hit the ball far. I would not consider it a bad thing; players who can hit the ball really far can also hit home runs for shorter distances even when they do not make optimal contact. Meanwhile, a player who cannot hit the ball as far must make perfect contact to hit a home run; if something is a little bit off, the ball will fall short of the fence as an out.
So tHR does a good job of taking into account how far a ball is hit, but does not attempt to determine how often a player reaches his maximum fly ball distance (if that is even possible to determine). Perhaps there is a player who has the ability to only squeak the ball over the wall, but does a great job of reaching his max distance often. True Home Runs would most likely underrate that player.
What I am saying is that while Beltre did see his average home run distance fall by 13 feet, which is concerning, there are ways for him to overcome his loss in power ability and still blast 25 home runs. Obviously Beltre has the potential to do that because that is exactly what he did in 2008!
Beltre's home run total in 2009 is going to be tough to predict so we will revisit the home run issue after looking at his contact skills.
Contact ability
+------+-----+----------+-----+-----+------------+------+-------------+----------+ | YEAR | AGE | TEAM | AB | CT% | JUDGMENT X | A/P | BAT CONTROL | BAD BALL | +------+-----+----------+-----+-----+------------+------+-------------+----------+ | 2006 | 26 | Mariners | 620 | 81 | 89 | 0.52 | 87 | 58 | | 2007 | 27 | Mariners | 595 | 83 | 85 | 0.57 | 85 | 63 | | 2008 | 28 | Mariners | 556 | 84 | 101 | 0.49 | 88 | 68 | +------+-----+----------+-----+-----+------------+------+-------------+----------+
From the chart, we see Beltre showed tremendous improvement in his plate discipline in 2008. In past years, he had poor judgment of pitches (Judgment X) and in 2008 he bumped that up to league average. Beltre is also league average at handling pitches inside the strike zone (Bat Control) and has become above average with pitches outside the zone (Bad Ball).
This improvement in his discipline—if sustained—figures to have a positive impact on his batting average in 2009. Speaking of which:
+------+-----+----------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+--------+-----+--------+---------+ | YEAR | AGE | TEAM | AB | BA | tBA | CT% | BABIP | mBABIP | LD% | BIP/HR | BIP/tHR | +------+-----+----------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+--------+-----+--------+---------+ | 2006 | 26 | Mariners | 620 | 0.268 | 0.258 | 81 | 0.296 | 0.306 | 21 | 20 | 36 | | 2007 | 27 | Mariners | 595 | 0.276 | 0.273 | 83 | 0.297 | 0.298 | 17 | 19 | 20 | | 2008 | 28 | Mariners | 556 | 0.266 | 0.239 | 84 | 0.279 | 0.288 | 22 | 19 | 78 | +------+-----+----------+-----+-------+-------+-----+-------+--------+-----+--------+---------+
Before you begin to place that toe tag on Beltre again, know that True Batting Average takes into account his expected power output, or in other words his tHR totals. So, if Beltre hit only seven home runs in 2008 (as tHR expected), he would have posted a 0.239 average. If we take out the home run factor, Beltre's tBA would be 0.271.
Everything seems to be hinging on what I decide Beltre's home run total to be, so I am going to refrain from throwing an expected average out there until I make that decision.
Concluding thoughts
One thing I can say for certain is that Beltre's power skills have worsened while his contact skills have increased. I do not believe Beltre will hit 25 home runs next year; I am not sure he will hit even 20—15 is what I would expect. By what means he was able to sustain his power totals in 2008 is a mystery. I believe is was more luck than anything else and his diminished power ability will show in 2009. I am not predicting the complete collapse tHR does because I believe partially in the optimal contact theory I mentioned before, but I do not think Beltre will continue to "beat the system."
If Beltre's power totals were to have remained the same, I would have expected a slight rise in his batting average because of his improved plate discipline and slightly unlucky BABIP. However, because of the predicted home run drop, his batting average figures to take a hit, although not as bad a hit as tBA expects because we are expecting a less dramatic drop in home run totals. Somewhere around .255 seems about right.
Expect Beltre's runs and RBI totals to decline in 2009 too, as a result of the home run and batting average drops. Overall, I would expect his 2009 season line to look like this: .258 average, 15 home runs, 70 RBI, 65 runs, and five steals. Like Aramis Ramirez, it is a good thing we checked up on this "consistent producer."
Paul has been managing fantasy baseball teams for many seasons and writing for THT Fantasy over the past three years. He is currently a student at UPenn welcomes readers' thoughts at his email here or in the comments below.
Nice article, Paul. Just to chime in on the tHR issue, I agree that Beltre should bounce back some simply as a matter of regression and the need to look at more than one year’s worth of data.
Beltre did get a little lucky, it seems, though, in terms of the weather. Under average weather conditions for Safeco Park, Beltre would have hit just one ball over the wall with the roof up (of the “Just Enough” variety) and one ball over the wall with the roof down (of the “Plenty” variety).
Since these denominations deal with the precise point at which the ball crosses the fence, though, Beltre could have gotten a bit “unlucky” in terms of where that point was. Although as Paul noted, he wasn’t hitting the ball as far either, so it wasn’t all bad luck.