Baseball Advice Disguised as a Fat Joke: Dioner Navarro Needs to Take More Walks

Whiff% by pitch for each Rays' batter
So about a month back I pulled this data with the idea to do a long, drawn-out series with it, perhaps culminating with a larger annual piece. Needless to say, that didn't happen. Rather than waste the chart (and yes, it still includes Gross, deal with it) I want to post truncated bullet points of what the series would've included.
- Carlos Pena and Kelly Shoppach are the only players with orange/red (a.k.a. poor) whiff rates at every major pitch type. When the Rays acquired Shoppach, I asked an Indians' fan who knows a bit about baseball about Shoppach's contact issues. His response: "Can't hit anything with a wrinkle." My lame response: "Cougars don't like him?" He stopped taking my calls at this point and I don't blame him.
- Really though, Shoppach has issues hitting everything. In some ways, this is reassuring, because it means teams can't hone in on a central weakness and continually explot it (like they do with B.J. Upton and fastballs or Dioner Navarro and curves) but it also means he's pretty much liable to hurt himself with a swing rivaling Marc Normandin's fiercest Wii-mote hack.
- The only Ray with all green is Ben Zobrist. Performance-Enhancing Deities doing work.
- Upton is an interesting case because it's hard to tell whether he gets caught looking change-up in fastball counts or if his swing is more suited for change-ups than fastballs due to his shoulder. Nobody really knows the answer and despite what some would lead you to believe, B.J. Upton is not a Neanderthal who communicates through grunts.
- Navarro makes contact. He also thinks too highly of his ability to turn balls into base hits. A bad hitter, or even an average hitter, can help to raise his ability level through taking as many bad pitches as possible. Consider this: Navarro walked 18 times last season; B.J Upton walked at least 12 times in three consecutive months.
- Carlos Pena walked at least 16 times in two months, 13 and 11 in two others, and 27 times in May. Yes, Pena walked nine more times than Navarro all season within a single month.
- I'd like to beat that factoid into the ground once more. Zobrist's walk totals by month: 5, 18, 19, 12, 21, and 16. Navarro's walks by month: 1, 2, 3, 2, 4, and 6.
- While we're on the subject, Carl Crawford's walk totals by month: 9, 10, 7, 10, 4, and 11. He set a career high in walks; such a career high that you can take out the highest and lowest month totals and only miss a career high by two walks. I don't know if this is legitimate or not, but I'm prone to saying he should retain some of this. How much? Beats me.
- Jason Bartlett and Gabe Gross were relatively close in making contact across the board. I don't know what to make of this.
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Okay
I thoght the “cougar” line was funny.
by Blue or CONKZILLA on Jan 25, 2010 9:27 AM EST reply actions
Just playing around with Lefkowitz's PItch F(x) tool
Navi’s BABIP on in play contact out of the zone was .333 16-48.
When you factor in his 28 Ks swinging outside the zone that brings his actual BA on AB ending outside the Zone to .211.
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Contact in zone
8/47 for a BABIP of .170 with 10 Ks as well.
Now these numbers don’t not make sense with his seasonal #’s so I must be doing something wrong.
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BenZo talks to God too much to worry about striking out
2010 Rays Baseball: Shut up, Mr. Rosenthal. We're not giving up.
2009 FSU Football: Thanks for the memories, Bobby Bowden
Ack! So we've got a catcher who can't walk a dog, and another who strikes out more than the H.S. dating scene.
We’re in trouble.
"...also I'll brush my teeth and remember to turn off the stars at night and put the hyena out." ERNEST HEMINGWAY
This team is full of windmills. The Rays could save money on power if they just hooked all these guys together on a power grid.
I miss George Steinbrenner. He was the man responsible for keeping the Yankees competitive.
Speak for yourself, HS chicks find me irresistable.
I’m thinking we approach 1500 K’s this year.
Also, in honor of Saturday’s big win:

I'm a writer.
by Andy Hellicksonstine on Jan 25, 2010 12:57 PM EST up reply actions
Uh oh...another Orangeman...er...person...er... :) Guilty on this end ('98, for undergrad)
"...also I'll brush my teeth and remember to turn off the stars at night and put the hyena out." ERNEST HEMINGWAY
On CC
I’ve been wondering if he might have the ability to buck the typical bat-production fall-off normally seen by players once they get on the wrong side of 30. Ever since his rookie year, he’s constantly trended up in batting average and OBP incramentally on a yearly basis, while trending down his last 3 years in slugging % slightly. One of CC’s criticisms is that he tries to swing for the fences far too much; I’m wondering if he realized that he’d be much more consistent offensively trying to be a singles/doubles hitter and a threat on the basepaths instead of trying to crush a homer every time up to the plate.
I miss George Steinbrenner. He was the man responsible for keeping the Yankees competitive.
Whiffs per swing seems better to me
if you are looking at how well a hitter makes contact or a pitcher misses bats.
Well...
Any hitter’s contact numbers would improve if they got to be platooned. That being said, he doesn’t strike me as the type of person that’d whiff too much even against lefties, as he’s a contact hitter through and through, and well aware of it.
by benderbrodriguez on Jan 25, 2010 8:32 PM EST up reply actions
This isn't necessarly true; some outliers respond poorly to platoon work. Jonny Gomes is a good example of this.
In his 2 years of Platoon work, he played ‘bad’ and ‘worse then that.’
I miss George Steinbrenner. He was the man responsible for keeping the Yankees competitive.

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