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Dioner Navarro's Unlucky (and Bad) 2009. Possible Rebound in 2010?

It was that kind of season from Dioner Navarro.

More photos » by Brian Blanco - AP

It was that kind of season from Dioner Navarro.

Please don't get his confused as making an excuse for Dioner Navarro's poor season. No major leaguer should accumulate 410 plate appearances and hit .218/.261/.322, but that's what Dioner Navarro did this past season. His .583 OPS was second worst amongst all Major Leaguers with at least 400 PAs. Also finishing runner up was his .261 OBP. To say his season was bad is an understatement, but, and this is a Kim Kardashian sized but(t), the man was a tad unlucky.

As mentioned, his OPS and OBP were second worst in the Majors. However, he also had the second lowest BABIP amongst big leaguers with 400 PAs. His BABIP of .233 trailed only Ken Griffey Jr.'s .222 as the lowest. A .233 is an extremely low BABIP considering his line drive percentage was a pretty normal 19.8%. It was also over .50 points lower than his career .285 BABIP coming into the 2009 season.

Star-divide

Just for comparison's sake here is how Navi's season compared with the equally slow Jack Cust.

2009

LD%

GB%

FB%

BABIP

Navarro

19.8

37.3

42.9

0.233

Cust

19.8

37.4

42.9

0.323

Of course, there are other factors in this like Cust hitting the ball a lot harder (Career .216 ISO to Navi's .111) as well as home park factors, opponents defense and so on and so forth. Nonetheless, they basically hit the same types of balls and Cust's landed nearly 10% more for a hit. Again, it's not a perfect comparison, but just goes to show there was definitely some bad mojo coming from Navarro's bat.

In somewhat of a statistically oddity, I noticed the AL East catchers were just unlucky as a group. While Navi's BABIP was the second lowest, the third and fourth lowest totals belong to fellow AL East backstops Rod Barajas(.234) and Jason Varitek(.238). I'm sure being a catcher, and therefore slow doesn't help, but it seems Jorge Posada and his .335 BABIP put a hex on them.

Bad luck may explain part of Dioner Navarro's nearly .80 point drop in batting average year over year, and of course fewer hits mean fewer times on base, but luck did not have anything to do with his poor pitch selection. He swung at a career high 28.4% of pitches out of the zone, and also walked a career low 4.6%.

At this point, we don't know if Navarro will be offered arbitration or non-tendered. At age 25, Navarro and the Rays are at a crossroad. He's probably not as bad as he was in 2009, but definitely not as good as he was in 2008. In fact, Navi's success at the plate, as well as his BABIP, has fluctuated quite a bit over the last four years ).294, .253, .321, and .233). The trend, as well as regression, suggests that he is likely to rebound in 2010, but that's a gamble in the neighborhood of $2.5 million dollars. All I know is if he does stick around maybe a lucky rabbits' foot or some horseshoes could make his 2010 a bit better than 2009.

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Just a thought on the low BABIP of C in the ALE

they don’t run well which would explain some of it

I’d be willing to bring him back on the Rays terms only

by sternfan1 on Oct 23, 2009 2:16 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

or he hit more LDs...

wasn’t it in the 22% range. I know he is slow, but with the rudimentary LD+.120 it doesn’t seem SO ridiculous.

by Navi's_Navy on Oct 23, 2009 5:38 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

can't remember who recently did a study on babip

But the correlation between the ld +12% method and actual babip wasn’t that high…if I remember correctly.

www.draysbay.com

by Tommy Rancel on Oct 23, 2009 6:30 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions   0 recs

My guess is he'll bring new energy, enthusiasm and a younger outlook

He did pretty well before the team fell apart in ’08

Funny thing is Indians and Rays are similar, they don’t hit well with runner on 3B, less than 2 out and they both K a lot

I think his input into the entire system makes this a good hire

by sternfan1 on Oct 23, 2009 3:00 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Navi's bat is slow

and he almost never hits the ball hard. That said, we shouldnt bring him back because his defense is terrible. I can live with a catcher that cant hit, but not with one who cant catch the ball. He took huge steps backwards defensively last year and I dont know why we should expect that to improve. Let him go. Between Riggans, Zaun, Hernandez and Jaso we can scrape together a serviceable option at a much lower price.

by Devil Ray on Oct 25, 2009 12:36 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

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