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Pat Burrell's ISO and History

Good news: Pat Burrell is no longer on pace to produce the worst ISO drop since the 1950s.

Bad news: He's still on pace to drop .118 points.

Double-edged sword news: He's likely to improve next year, but it may not be by much. Also: a sword with two edges, how nifty.

I took everyone since 1950 with ISO drops within 0.005 points of Burrell's either way (meaning .113-.123) and input their ISO from the year of the drop and the year afterwards. Somehow, it worked out to 30 cases exactly. The average ISO of those players in the down year is .139 which amusingly mimics Burrell's current power production. Two players retired following the down year (Steve Boros and Greg Luzinski) but the other 28 who moved on averaged a bounce back with an average ISO of .185.

To put faces on those numbers, they went from this to this.

That seems like a fair swap. The disappointing aspect is that if Burrell follows suite, then we won't be getting the guy we signed up for. The positive is Burrell may finish with an ISO way higher than .139. HitTracker has his average home run distance further than last year and average speed off bat essentially equal. His HR/FB is down, BABIP is static, and LD% is down, which makes you question whether his ability to drive the ball has dissipated, but baseball players generally don't lose this much skill this quickly which leaves me unconvinced that Burrell is toast.

(Full llist of players used in this piece after the jump)

 

N Age Player ISO Drop N ISO N+1 ISO
2002 26 J.D. Drew -0.114 0.177 0.223
1973 30 Mike Epstein -0.114 0.142 0.226
1997 28 Gary Sheffield -0.114 0.196 0.222
2005 37 Vinny Castilla -0.114 0.15 0.091
2007 33 Nomar Garciaparra -0.114 0.088 0.202
1980 28 Butch Hobson -0.114 0.121 0.101
1954 31 Gus Zernial -0.115 0.161 0.254
1964 27 Steve Boros -0.115 0.065 DNP
2000 32 Vinny Castilla -0.116 0.087 0.207
1978 28 Mike Schmidt -0.116 0.184 0.311
1992 30 Kevin Mitchell -0.117 0.142 0.26
1974 40 Hank Aaron -0.118 0.223 0.121
1988 32 Jack Clark -0.119 0.191 0.217
1988 26 Wally Joyner -0.119 0.124 0.138
1988 28 George Bell -0.119 0.177 0.161
1971 33 Willie McCovey -0.12 0.203 0.19
1971 29 Jimmy Wynn -0.12 0.092 0.197
1952 31 Wally Westlake -0.12 0.076 0.165
1962 28 Jim Gentile -0.12 0.224 0.181
2007 35 Ray Durham -0.12 0.125 0.143
1958 33 Del Ennis -0.12 0.089 0.112
1976 30 Bobby Bonds -0.12 0.049 0.256
1958 31 Duke Snider -0.12 0.193 0.227
1984 33 Greg Luzinski -0.121 0.126 DNP
1986 26 Mike Young -0.121 0.119 0.165
1971 23 Bernie Carbo -0.122 0.12 0.111
1962 27 Roger Maris -0.122 0.229 0.273
2002 36 Ruben Sierra -0.122 0.099 0.15
1965 30 Felix Mantilla -0.123 0.141 0.152
2001 32 Travis Fryman -0.123 0.072 0.133