Delgado Makes Us All Look Dumb

Coming to the ballpark on April 27th, Carlos Delgado was the scorn of New York. He was hitting .186/.276/.256 with just four extra base hits in his first 98 plate appearances of 2008. Coming on the heels of his .258/.333/.448 mark last year, and in his age 36 season, the “Delgado is finished” bandwagon got full in a hurry. I even jumped on, noting that his disappearing power was a classic sign of an aging player who just didn’t have anything left to contribute.

Most people suggested that the Mets begin looking for Delgado’s replacement, because the team needed a real power hitter to keep pace in the NL East, and he just wasn’t going to be able to get the job done. We were all wrong.

Since April 27th, Delgado’s hit .276/.353/.536 with 34 extra base hits (nearly half of his 73 total hits since then), including his July surge that has him posting a 1.212 OPS since the beginning of the month. He’s absolutely torching the ball right now, and looks anything but finished.

Delgado’s resurgence is yet another data point in favor of the belief that we simply have a long way to go before we can identify a player who really has “fallen off a cliff” ahead of time. Both visual evidence and trend analysis suggested that the grim reaper may have come for his power during the off season, but it just wasn’t true. Delgado was slumping, and slumps happen regardless of how young or old a player is. However, we have pre-written narratives about what slumps mean when they happen to young players (he’s not ready for the majors, he’s getting exposed the second time around the league, etc…) and when they happen to old players (he’s done), but we need to remember that those narratives aren’t based in as much reality as we would like to believe.

I’m speaking to myself as much as I am to any of you. While the tools we have are useful in predicting the future, we have to remember their limitations and not jump to conclusions that can’t be supported by evidence.