Carlos Quentin’s Drop Off Continues
Shortly after Arizona traded him to the White Sox before the start 2008 season, Carlos Quentin unleashed a monster season on the American League. Since then, Quentin’s performances have been disappointing to put it mildly. I endeavored to find out what’s different between the All-Star worthy Carlos Quentin of 2008 and below replacement level Carlos Quentin since.
Quentin posted a career best .278 batting average on balls in play during 2008. Coupled with a marked drop in his strikeout rate –what had been 24% the previous season fell to 17%– Quentin saw his batting average spike to up .288. Was there anything systemic that aided the rise in BABIP? It’s difficult to determine. Quentin did hit into fewer pop outs once in Chicago, a feat that dramatically helps to improve one’s BABIP, but we’re not talking about an earth shattering deviation and his other batted ball rates remained fairly consistent.
Furthermore, Quentin repeated the lower infield fly rate in 2009 but saw his BABIP sink all the way to.221. Hitting fewer ground balls in 2009 obviously has an effect but a small one, too small to account for the entire change unless you treat 2008 as an outlier.
Further worsening the drop off from 2008 is a decline in walk rate. It peaked in 2008 at 12% but fell to 8% last season and though it has rebounded to 10% in 2010, his strikeouts are up as well, wiping out the positive growth in walks. Quentin’s newfound penchant for offering more at out of zone pitches is partly a culprit as it has risen from 26% in 2008 to 29% in 2009 and now stands at 31%. It is hard to draw walks when you swing at the pitches that you do get outside the strike zone.
Despite that humongous drop in walk rate and batting average, Quentin still maintains an overall above average hitting line with wRC+s of 104 and 121 after his monstrous 154 in 2008. However his defense, which was never much to write about, has collapsed according to UZR. Without a superstar-level offensive output, the total package is quite lacking and Quentin has totaled up -0.3 WAR since that much heralded Chicago debut year.
Matthew Carruth is a software engineer who has been fascinated with baseball statistics since age five. When not dissecting baseball, he is watching hockey or playing soccer.
It’s dissipointing to see, he has the talent, he shows flashes of it throughout the season. When he gets hot, he can carry the Sox by himself. And the stats back it up, in Sox wins Carlos has an OPS over 1.000 and in Sox losses just a smidge over .560. For whatever reason, he’s just not able to sustain consistancy or stay healthy. If he could, he would be a monster, and an MVP canidate year in and out. Unfortunatly he’s not, maybe one day he finds a way, but till then he looks to be another Carlos Pena type slugger.
Baseball HQ says:
“Power skills are resurgent, featuring a career-high FB%. PX and hr/f are registering at lower levels than in 2008, but are on the rise.
While BA has lagged, xBA is solid. Both BA and xBA are rising, though h% remains depressed. While Quentin’s hit rates are typically low, the current 22% hit rate represents a career-low, and is the prime contributor to a wide BA/xBA gap. The atypically low hit rate and the BA/xBA gap indicate a potential BA surge.
Quentin has become an extreme fly-ball hitter, which could be contributing to the lower hit rate.
Quentin is in the midst of a bounceback season, though his production has not yet matched his skills, as BA is under-performing xBA by a wide margin. Hit rate normalization is likely to result in a narrowing of the BA/xBA gap, lifting BA, though the extreme FB% may limit the extent of any BA surge. Surging power appears sustainable as power skills have not yet reached 2008’s peak levels. The evidence suggests that a strong finish in which the production catches up to the skills is likely, provided health—seemingly always problematic in Quentin’s case—is maintained”
Quentin is a one year wonder and huge defensive liability. The Sox should have moved him early July for Jones and Dotel of the Pirates during his two week hot streak if possible.
Why? they’ve seen the Dotel movie before and its real bad. And I doubt Jones’s WAR would be above water in the AL.
Jones’s WAR would likely be greater than Carlos’s. Not to mention you swap righty for lefty. I believe Jones has to have a greater upside than Carlos as well.
As for Dotel, that’s a pipe dream, but I have my reasons and mostly they revolve around Sale and what his future holds.
Jones is 29. The only upside is seeing what a full season of his might look like (’10 will be his first).
Quentin has a strong pedigree traveling back to his start with Stanford. 2008 was NOT a fluke. Maybe it’s more than what we should expect in the future.
His ultimate issues deal with mental state and physical health. Let’s not forget that the season ending injury in ’08 was caused by him slapping his bat after a poor at-bat. His ability is obvious, and it is highly talented.
Injuries. He was pretty much hurt off and on all 2009 (not to mention the recovery from the broken wrist), and he’s been hurt off and on this season. He’s been in the lineup at less than 100% when he shouldn’t be. He’ll be closer to that 2008 level if he can ever stay healthy for a full season.
Except he’s been an injury prone player his entire career. They’ve rotated him at DH, but unless he’s there full-time I have no faith Quentin can play a full season.
Yeah, that’s what the “if” is for… His 08 injury was self-inflicted – so he may have gotten one full season in.
But yes, he should be DHing, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him only playing about 120 games/year and being healthy down the stretch. Of course, that will get all the fantasy folks in bunches.
He holds minor league HBP records for a reason, his stance puts him right over the plate. He’ll be getting hurt as long as he keeps that stance.
And his 2008 season was a fluke, including those power numbers. His flyballs turned into HRs at an unsustainable rate that year. No wonder he’s become a flyable hitter.
The guy has 24 HRs in354 ABs this year, and you think his power numbers in ’08 were fluke? Power is not an issue.
The interesting stats about Quentin, this year, are his massive home/road splits: .992 OPS at home, .663 on the road.
Power is not the issue – the ball jumps off his bat when he’s healthy and squaring it up. As noted above, it’s primarily injuries. If you are familiar with guys having wrist injuries and plantar fasciatis, those two both seem to produce a noticeable performance drop off until fully recovered (probably because your feet and hands are critical to hitting mechanics).
This post should have been called – “Will Carlos Quentin ever be healthy for an entire season”. The ’08 stats are anomolous because so far out of the three years selected for analysis (08-10), that was the only season he was healthy from start to finish. It’s just an article for the sake of writing an article. If you follow the White Sox, the reason for the dropoff is no mystery.
He might not get hit as much if the White Sox would pitch inside and/or drill some people, but that’s another article for another day.
I didn’t say he had no power, I said his HR rate from 2008 was a fluke and unsustainable. If his HR/FB ratio had been in line with his career averages, he would have lost 9 HR and 20 pts of BA. I.e that season would not have been so different from this year.
I always thought getting HBP was what he did best. Don’t take away his bread and butter!
Yep. Very “Jeff Bagwell” in that regard. He can never get his hands back in time, without completely conceding the inside corner. He dives out over the plate and holds his hands away from his body.
The hands are one spot that cannot take contact from a baseball without breaking bones.
There are too many “what if’s” for TCQ.
Given the Thome mistake and the curious decision to play flotsam at DH, you would think the Sox would just force Quentin to play their full time. Then again, Guillen loves to shuffle his lineups whether its necessary or not.
then again it “there” vs. “their” vs. “they’re” is the easiest mistake to make in writing, and you made it. so.
I’ll admit that I was one of the folks that didn’t think the Sox should resign Jim Thome; he was still the most feared guy in the lineup and two years ago, Carlos had Thome, Dye and Konerko all with pretty good years.
He’s been hurt for two plus years. Despite a really great arm, he’s awful defensively. Add in a consistently bad BABIP. These things negatively affect his WAR. This is a mystery to people?
If the guy ever moves to DH and posts a league average BABIP he’ll win an MVP. And he’ll deserve it.