Thursday, July 31, 2008

Why Derek Jeter will probably not break out of this slump

You keep reading everywhere, even on here recently, about how the Yankees are going to have a good second half offensively because guys like Jeter, Cano, and Cabrera are likely to improve. Well, Melky combined with bad luck and a bad approach is not improving, which is frustrating as hell. He's capable of being a lot better than this. Cano, aside from those 2 at bats against lefties getting owned on LOOGY crap, has improved. Regardless of whether he gets hits or not (3 for his last 17), he's hitting the ball hard a couple times each night (20.2% LD) and has flown out to the track in death valley or center a couple times in those 17 at bats. Jeter's performance, on the other hand, is just absolutely depressing. First, I will describe how bad he looks to the naked eye, then I will back up my observations with the relevent metrics.

Jeter is hitting like he's Placido Polanco. Poke it, inside out it, slap it, drag the wrists, hit nothing hard, instead of driving the shit out of 2-0 count meatballs, you try to take them right back up the middle and end up grounding into a double play most of the time with the occasional RBI single. He needs to watch video of himself from 1998-1999. He didn't used to poke at everything. He took real swings, kept his weight back and it still yielded a .320+ average but with much more power. He's always been a groundball/line drive type hitter but when he hit the ball in the air, it was usually hit pretty well and a lot of them would go out. Now, not so much. Balls off the bat that look good just die because of his failure to get all of his weight behind each swing. His approach this year and even in 2006 is definitely different from what it used to be. You didn't mind the past 2 seasons because in 2006 he was the true AL MVP and last year he hit .322 with an .840 OPS. Now it's just not acceptable. And particularly this year, he's hitting not to strike out, it seems. Whatever you think you're doing Derek, it's not working.

Derek Jeter LD% (2004-2007)
19.6%, 19.1%, 22.3%, 19.9%
2008
16.6%

Derek Jeter HR/FB % (2004-2007)
12.1%, 16.8%, 14.7%, 9.1%
2008
6.9%

So, as you can see, the statistics back up everything I and probably most people see when watching Derek Jeter hit. He doesn't hit the ball hard --> LD% decrease. Balls that look good off his bat just die --> HR/FB% decrease last year and again this year.

He takes a good hack every now and then giving me hope that he'll start doing it more frequently and then he goes right back to being the GIDP pokemeister. He needs to go back to his 1998-1999 style. Sure, maybe the average drops a little, but even if it did, I'd rather he hit .275 with 20+ HR and as a result, walk more because pitchers won't want to make mistakes to him then hit .285-.290 with a barely .400 SLG.

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