Mark Teixeira Has No Use for BABIP

For hitters, luck can sometimes explain a poor batting average on balls in play (BABIP), especially in short time frames. Players generally reach the majors with an apparent skill at hitting the ball hard enough and far enough so that hits drop around 30% of the time. If a hitter coming up through the minors lacks this ability, it’s very difficult for him to receive the promotions necessary to reach the majors. There are 126 active players in the majors with at least 3,000 plate appearances and every single one has gotten a hit on at least 27% of the balls that were hit in play. Since the beginning of 2011, however, Mark Teixeira has nearly 2000 plate appearances and he’s a hit on just 23% of balls hit in play, the lowest figure among MLB hitters with at least 1500 plate appearances. He’s the rare hitter who can survive without a decent BABIP.

The bottom of this season’s leaderboard in BABIP is littered with players getting off to rough starts, hitters who have lost their ability to hit major-league pitching, and Mark Teixeira.

Marlon Byrd has hit for enough power to be roughly average, but Teixeira has walked and powered his way to be one of the best 20 hitters in the league. Only Bryce Harper and Nelson Cruz have more than Teixeira’s 14 home runs, and Teixeira is one of just six players with more walks than strikeouts this season. The very low BABIP looks unusual, but it’s the natural byproduct of hitting more home runs than singles. Teixeira is currently on pace to hit 35 more homers this season, for a hypothetical total of 49 home runs. Our Depth Chart Projections have him hitting 21 more home runs the rest of the season, however. If he’d hit at that projected pace in the early going, he’d have eight home runs so far; the six non-homers, were they converted into other sorts of hits, would place Teixeira’s BABIP at .231, right in line with his recent career numbers.

Heading into the season, Mark Teixeira’s decline seemed apparent from all angles. The wrist injury that cost him most of the 2013 season had seeped into his power numbers in 2014. He turned 35 in April, an age where few power hitters retain usefulness, with no player at least 35 years of age having hit more than 35 home runs in the last six seasons (David Ortiz hit exactly 35 last year). The shift has long been a problem for Teixeira and its increased use had robbed him of the ability to hit many singles. The FanGraphs Depth Chart projections looked for Teixeira to hit .229/.319/.422, slightly above average for a hitter, but with the positional adjustment at first base set to make him an average to slightly below-average player.

Teixeira has stubbornly refused to change his game for the shift. In 2011, he said “I would be a pretty ugly slap hitter.” His hit charts from 2012 to 2014 against right-handed pitchers shows his insistence on pulling the ball.

Source: FanGraphs

After missing most of 2013 with an injury and then struggling last year to a league-average batting in a power-hitting position, there were calls for Teixeira to change his approach, but again Teixeira refused. In the offseason, Teixeira discussed his plan to beat the shift.

“We’ve talked about it ad nauseam,” he said. “Every time I try to slap the ball the other way, it just doesn’t go well for anybody. And that’s what the other team wants. They want to take the middle-of-the-order power hitter and turn him into a slap hitter. So if I can hit more home runs, more doubles, walk more, that takes care of the shift.”

Teixeira has been hitting more home runs with a few to the opposite field and his current 15.5% walk rate is higher than any other season in his career, although not too far off from his 11.5% career number. His strikeouts are down almost 10 percentage points this season from last year when his 22% strikeout rate was the highest of his career and four points above his career average. In the offseason, Nikhil Chaturvedi authored a Community blog post hypothesizing that part of the reason for Teixeira’s decline was an inability to catch up to the fastball. Taking away the shortened 2013 season, last year was the first year that Teixeira was below average on fastballs.

From 2008 to 2012, when Teixeira swung at hard pitches, he whiffed around 10% of the time. In 2014, that number jumped to over 14%, per Brooks Baseball. Here he is whiffing on a high fastball against Jacob deGrom in May of last year.

Teixeira was late on the pitch, but given where it is on the zone, it was going to be difficult for him to do anything with it even if he had made contact. Last season, Teixeira swung at more pitches out of the zone than in any other season in his career. The number of swings outside the zone has dropped from 28% in 2014 down to 21% this year. When he swings at pitches in the zone, even if they are coming quickly, Teixeira can do some damage.

Here he is launching an upper-90s fastball this year:

The Best Shape of his Life (BSOHL) narratives run strong in winter and Teixeira’s story is no different.

“We really attacked all of the issues I’ve been having,” he said. “I got myself really strong. I was weaker than I’ve probably ever been in my entire career last year because of the [wrist] injury the year before, not being able to work out like I usually do . . . I feel like a kid again.”

Injuries take a toll on all players, especially as they age, and losing strength in the wrist can sap a player’s power. Teixeira’s lack of health likely contributed to his average season last year, and his good health coupled with a better approach has helped him this season. By laying off pitches outside the zone, Teixeira is able to take more walks and do more more damage on pitches in the zone despite seeing fewer pitches per plate appearance compared to last year. Teixeira is probably never going to get his batting average back from a half-decade ago and his BABIP is never going to approach .300, but if he can continue to take a free base when it is given and hit home runs at even half his current pace, he is going to be an above-average player for the Yankees and give hope to other aging sluggers that it’s possible to get healthy and recover some of their previous form.