Dan Uggla Surges
Dan Uggla was starting to look like a candidate for worst-acquisition-of-the-offseason. Hitting just .170/.234/.306 on June 10th, the Altanta Braves second baseman had hardly lived up to expectations. Right as it looked as if things could get no worse, Uggla began to turn things around. While he started to come around slowly toward the end of June, Uggla completely exploded in July. Though it’s early, Uggla seems to have carried that momentum into August, and currently carries a 29 game hit streak. Even though luck is often a major factor in these types of surges, Uggla has been pretty damn good the last month and a half.
Sure enough, the luck dragons have played a large role in Uggla’s current hit streak. After posting BABIPs of .195, .187, .185 the first three months of the season, Uggla finally experienced a change in luck starting in July. The hits finally started dropping for Uggla, leading to a .328 BABIP. His improvement hasn’t been all luck, however, as it appears Uggla has legitimately improved over the last month and a half.
As David Pinto explained in a recent article, Uggla appears to have adjusted to the way pitchers are attacking him this season. Instead of taking close pitches on the outside corner, Uggla started being more aggressive at the plate. Pinto concludes that Uggla has gained more plate coverage as a result of his new approach.
Looking at his monthly splits, this conclusion looks to be accurate. Instead of swinging at inside pitches and making weak contact, Uggla has hit the ball with more authority lately. His line drive rate jumped to 16.7% in July — a sign that he’s been able to make better contact with the ball over that period. While it’s extremely early, Uggla appears to have carried that success into August, spraying line drives all over the field with even more frequency. While he won’t hit line drives at a 23.8% clip all month, it’s an encouraging sign that luck is not the only factor behind Uggla’s recent surge.
Even though it appears Uggla has been more aggressive at the plate, he’s also managed to up his walk rate during that same period. Now that he’s swinging at more pitches on the outside corner, Uggla hasn’t been vulnerable to the inside fastball, and is laying off those pitches more often. This change in approach has given Uggla better plate coverage, and has helped him lay off pitches he wouldn’t normally hit well. Seems like a formula that should work going forward.
For Uggla, the streak couldn’t have come at a better time. Because Atlanta handed him a hefty contract extension before the season, Uggla was dangerously close to looking like an “Adam Dunn level” bust this season. With the recent surge, Uggla has injected some much needed offense into the Braves lineup, and shown the promise that made him a valuable offseason acquisition. For a team that may be fighting for a playoff spot down the stretch, Uggla’s resurgence might be the thing that puts the Braves over the top.
Chris is a blogger for CBSSports.com. He has also contributed to Sports on Earth, the 2013 Hard Ball Times Baseball Annual, ESPN, FanGraphs and RotoGraphs. He tries to be funny on twitter @Chris_Cwik.
“After posting BABIPs of .195, .187, .185 the first three months of the season,”
Poor guy.
That’s not just luck, his LD% was down as well for the first few months.
Because a low LD% can’t be unlucky?
I get that the difference between BABIP and xBABIP might not have been grotesquely large during those horrendously low BABIP months, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t luck involved in a batted ball profile.
Is there any way or any site that allows you to put two filters on a split, like opposite field, since July? That would be telling, I think.
I’m thinking of another word that starts and ends with S to describe Dan Uggla.
serendipitous?
Sexy? We all know you are in the closet, Jon Heyman.
I think ‘Y’ means two different things to us.
Also, you failed to mention his clothing is far looser than in the first few months of the season. I’m fairly certain his tight clothes were restricting his movement. I think you’ll see the correlation if you watch the game films.
–only about 75% serious.
how have people not figured this out? it’s a real problem.
To hit in 29 straight games and still be batting .220 is almost unbelievable! This guy will cool off back to his career numbers and drop below the Mendoza line again before the season is over, still a bust in my book.
You might have noticed by looking at his fangraphs page, that his career batting average, even with the season he’s having, is .258. But don’t let facts get in the way of your preconceived notions.
Uggla is a homerun hitting second baseman, period. That certainly has value, don’t get me wrong. But his fielding is below average, he strikes out way too much and he’s not a fast runner. Sounds like a 1-2 tool player to me.
Sometimes it’s better to have a player that excels at a few things rather than a player who is average to above in all things.
sounds like you’re just another butthurt fantasy owner
I think the whole correlation between BABIP and “luck” is way overstated by most sabermetricians. When a hitters timing and mechanics are all out of whack like Uggla’s were for the first 3 months of the season, then of course all of his pop flies and weak grounders are not going to fall for hits. I know the author said his improvement “hasn’t been all luck” because his LD% is also up, but as someone who has watched 90% of the Braves games this year, I would argue it has NOTHING to do with luck. Sure, throughout a season every hitter has his share of line drives right at people, and bad swings that fall for bloop hits, and sure sometimes they may come in groups over a small window of at bats as any statistical distribution will. But Uggla has had his fair share of these lucky hits and bad luck outs both when he was slumping and now that he’s hot. The only difference is, now he’s having way more at bats with well timed, solid contact than he was the first half of the season. That’s due to adjustments, comfort, being “locked in” or whatever you want to call it, just not luck.
For his career, Uggla’s LD rate is 16.4 % and his BABIP is .293. His monthly splits for the first half of the season were as follows:
April — 12.6 % LD rate, .195 BABIP
May — 14.3% LD rate, .187 BABIP
June — 14.3% LD rate, .185 BABIP
His IFFB rate also was a little higher than his career average but not much higher and while his line drive rates were a little low, they weren’t so low as to explain BABIPs below .200 for the first 3 months of the season. Some of it was bad hitting but there’s little doubt that there was a fair amount of bad luck as well.
Even if a low BABIP can’t completely be explained away by lower LD% and higher IFFB rates, why does everybody immediately go to luck? If I’m not mistaken, baseball info solutions or whoever tracks these things doesn’t distinguish between different types of ground balls, correct? Because there is a big difference between a well hit ground ball in the hole, and a weak ground ball right to the shortstop, but they both register as ground balls. Usually, one is the result of a good, well timed swing and the other is the result of an off balance, bad swing or trying to pull an outside pitch. I agree that a well hit, hard ground ball right at the shortstop is bad luck, but my argument is that these instances are evenly distributed across the season relative to the number of hard hit ground balls, but way more of his ground balls are well hit now that he’s out of his slump.
I understand what you’re saying, but I still don’t think numbers and stats can beat the eyeball test. In watching the majority of his at bats all season, I’ve seen no evidence of his luck changing. He just now has a better eye, hits the outside pitch better, stays balanced, and is squaring up just about everything, whereas the first half of the season he looked completely lost up there.
I agree 100% with ChipChopChip ( and as a Jim Gaffigan fan, love the name too). As a Phils fan (and Dan Uggla drafter) I watched several of the Braves games and noticed the same issues. When a guy is having timing/pitch recognition/frustrating slump issues, they materialize differently than is generally measured on this site. The quality, not only frequency of his flyballs and groundballs hit in play is a very telling feature. Can someone do a regression analysis on line drive % to BABIP?
@ DD — a rough approximation of LD rate to BABIP is that BABIP is around LD rate + .120. So an 18% LD rate should yield roughly a .300 BABIP.
Therefore, an LD rate in the 12-14% range should yield a BABIP of around .240 – .260. A BABIP of .180 – .190 is way too low to be explained away by the way he’s hitting the ball alone.
Jerry, infield pop-up. He was popping the ball up tons because his timing was off during those first few months. That is why you can have a LD rate and a lower BABIP.
So when do the Free Jason Heyward post come?
Constanza is better than Heyward.
Um ok how exactly is the 27 year old career minor leaguer better than Jason Heyward
Constanza is hitting over .400 while Heyward is warming the bench and getting Gatorade for everyone. Dang do you even watch the games guy?
I don’t believe he is your guy, friend
He’s not your friend, pal.
He’s not your pal, buddy.
He is most certainly not your buddy, chum.
You must go to the same school that Cards’ fans who think Jon Jay is better than Colby Rasmus go to.
c-c-c-combo breaker
Finish him…
would have been nice if you’d posted his triple slash after the hot streak. Oh well, I’ll look it up.
Well at least Uggla didn’t let his offensive struggles affect his defense.
Uggla was particularly unlucky in April. It seemed every line drive he hit that wasn’t a homer was caught by the left fielder. Then he went into a funk and I think at that time (roughly may and June) I’d agree that the low babip was a lot less bad luck.
I’ve had Uggla in a (deep 12 team NL only) keeper league since 2006 and Uggla has had years like this before. In 07 he had his OPS fluctuate from .772 to 1.025 only to end up at .874. This year isn’t going to look all that different than his 07′ or 09′ seasons.
Even though his HR/FB% has stayed the same, the year to year fall in his FB% and the increase in his GB% looks to make him more susceptible to BABIP fluctuations than some power hitters. If his bat speed takes a hit as he ages and the power falls he’s going to be a real albatross for the Braves.
He simply was not making enough solid contact in the first few months of the season. For a big guy he moves very fast out of the box. Now that he is actually making contact, teams are positioning farther back in the field. That allows him to get a few more bleeders and infield hits, instant help to the BABIP.
“Dan Uggla was starting to look like a candidate for worst-acquisition-of-the-offseason. ”
Adam Dunn was keeping him safe from locking up that title. Even before the surge.
I’d blame his suddenly awful walk rate before his BABIP
Its such as you read my thoughts! You appear to understand so much approximately this, such as you wrote the ebook in it or something. I believe that you can do with some percent to force the message home a bit, but instead of that, that is fantastic blog. A fantastic read. I’ll certainly be back.