This past weekend’s four-game series in San Francisco between the Giants and Washington Nationals may be remembered as an important point in the playoff race for the teams fighting for the NL East crown. By getting swept for their sixth consecutive loss, the Nationals now find themselves reeling, four and a half games behind the Mets. Victims of their own sweep at the hands of the Pirates, New York can now look forward to better times, as they play no other NL teams with a winning percentage over .500 for the remainder of the season.

The Mets currently have an almost 70% chance of winning the division per our playoff odds; we predicted them to have a 7% chance at the beginning of the year. Crazy things happen during baseball seasons, and projections are made with the information on hand at the time — teams over or underperform; players get traded; young stars get called up early. The Mets now find themselves in a position that was viewed as extremely unlikely at the beginning of the race, and for the first time in what seems like a long time, they’re now favorites.

Adding to the unlikeliness is the fact that New York’s offense has been powered in large part by a resurgent former 40 home run threat who now finds himself toward the later stages of his career. Quite simply, Curtis Granderson is having a great season, and he’s turning back the clock in some rare ways by doing so.

We know who Granderson was during his prime: an elite power-hitting outfielder with great speed on the base paths. An injury-marred 2013 season with the Yankees seemed to mark a steep downturn, as he was able to perform just 7% better than league average on offense during his first season with the Mets in 2014. Though passable, it probably wasn’t the kind of production New York had in mind when they agreed to terms on his four-year, $60 million deal in the winter of 2013.

This year, however, we’re seeing glimmers of the Granderson of old. Already matching his 20 home run output from last year, the left-hander’s overall offensive performance is at its highest level since 2011: he’s now performed 22% better than the league average offensive player, good for the 17th-best offensive outfielder in the major leagues as measured by wRC+.

Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.

The Yankees have acquired Ichiro Suzuki from the Mariners in exchange for pitching prospects D.J. Mitchell and Danny Farquhar. The Mariners are also paying approximately $4.5 million of the $6.7 million remaining on Ichiro’s contract, leaving the Yankees responsible for a fairly modest $2.25 million.

According to Mariners CEO Howard Lincoln, Ichiro had approached the club requesting a trade, reasoning that the Mariners are building for the future and it was best for the team if younger players were given more playing time.

Ichiro has also become a shell of his former self, posting a .289 wOBA last season and a .281 wOBA this year, both of which rank near the league’s bottom. Since the start of last season, only Cliff Pennington, Casey McGehee and Gordon Beckham have produced lower wOBAs. Trading him must have been very difficult, but it was much easier to justify, and downright responsible, from a production standpoint.

While Safeco Field clearly has a hand in his decline, he is simply nowhere near the same player fans are accustomed to seeing. He isn’t an everyday player anymore, but it would have been tough for the Mariners to play him sporadically given his importance to the team and the community. The Yankees don’t need him to be anything more than a part-time platoon player to make this deal work out, and for Ichiro, the realization that his days as a full-time starter are done is likely easier to stomach on a playoff contender.

While it’s somewhat shocking that the Mariners dealt their franchise player — especially since most signs pointed towards his retention next season — what he could potentially provide his new club is rather intriguing. In the appropriate role and under the right circumstances, he could really benefit the Yankees down the stretch.

Simply by not playing the majority of his games at Safeco Field, which has absolutely crushed BABIP and offense in general this season, Ichiro figures to improve his seasonal line. If his numbers at the plate with the Yankees resemble his current road numbers, and his terrific fielding persists, the Yankees won’t think twice about the money they’ll spend or the prospects they dealt. If they just acquired “Road” Ichiro, this is a darned good deal that bolsters depth in an important area.

Read the rest of this entry »

Many fans in New York are probably still in shock over the Yankees’ early expulsion from the 2011 playoffs. The truth is, though, that the dynasty is waning. That’s not to say that it’s over, by any means, but the unstoppable juggernaut of years past has been affected by Father Time.

The majority of the players that make up the team’s core are over 30 years old, including C.C. Sabathia, Mariano Rivera, A.J. Burnett, Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, and Nick Swisher. Even Curtis Granderson, a breakout 2011 player, is already 30. Although it’s hard to fathom, within a few years Rivera, Posada, Jeter, and even Rodriguez will be retired from the game.

What does this mean for the Yankees? Is there an existing core of somewhat youthful players that the organization can use to rebuild – or perhaps renovate is a better word – its dynasty.

Read the rest of this entry »

Almost three months into the season, more statistics are beginning to stabilize, and certain stars are emerging. It has become clear that some players, whose success was initially thought to be the byproduct of small sample trickery, are legitimately on their way to an All-Star caliber season. Some of these players are in the process of establishing new levels of performance. Some are merely reverting to a previously established high level of productivity that was thought to be long gone. Others are living up to their billings as prospects worth monitoring, perhaps reaching that destination sooner than was originally thought.

And in the cases of the players highlighted in this post, some are unexpectedly leading their teams in wOBA. Here are five players having fantastic seasons, but whose names are surprising to see atop their team wOBA leaderboard.

Read the rest of this entry »

New York Yankees center fielder Curtis Granderson is in the midst of his fifth full season in the major leagues. After performing at roughly a league-average clip at the plate in 2006 (.333 wOBA), Granderson went on to crush the ball in 2007 and 2008. The former third-round pick in the 2002 draft posted a .395 wOBA in ’07 and a .374 wOBA in ’08. Granderson’s bat, worth +1.2 runs above average during his first full season, jumped to +35.7 in 2007 and +23 in 2008.

Since then, however, Granderson’s lumber has been merely decent. He turned in a .340 wOBA last season (+6 runs above average), and he has a mild .318 wOBA (-1 run) during his first year in the Bronx. Granderson still possesses an above-average walk rate and good pop…

..but his BABIP has taken a big tumble. The lefty batter had a .333 BABIP in 2006, a .360 BABIP in 2007, and a .316 BABIP in 2008. His BABIP dipped to .275 last year, and it sits at .265 in 2010. Here are Granderson’s batted ball percentages over the years:

He’s hitting fewer grounders, and more balls classified as fly balls and liners. Fly balls have a lower BABIP than ground balls, but line drives fall for hits 72 to 73 percent of the time on average.

What are Granderson’s expected BABIP totals over the years? To help answer that, we can use this expected BABIP tool from The Hardball Times, based off the research of Peter Bendix and Chris Dutton. Dutton and Bendix found that hitter’s eye (BB rate/SO rate), line drive rate, Speed Score, pitches per PA and power all have a positive relationship with BABIP. The simple xBABIP tool uses a batter’s rate of home runs, stolen bases, line drives, fly balls, ground balls and pop ups to estimate BABIP. Here are Granderson’s actual BABIP and xBABIP totals since ’06:

While Granderson’s actual BABIP has been all over the place, his xBABIP has been fairly consistent. The exception is 2009, when his xBABIP was low due to a high rate of pop ups hit (13%, compared to a 7.6% career average and the 7-8% MLB average). His xBABIP is .310 this season, yet his BABIP is just .265. What gives? To shed further light on Granderson’s BABIP decline, here are his numbers by batted ball type over the years:

I highlighted the two biggest changes — Granderson’s BABIP on fly balls has gone from way, way above average to well below average. Further, his BABIP on liners is low this season. Here’s a graph that shows Granderson’s BABIP by batted ball type since 2006, compared to the AL average. The FB line falls off a cliff:

Granderson should show improvement in the second half of the season — his rest-of-season ZiPS calls for a .346 wOBA, with his BABIP climbing to .286. But I’m curious what you readers think, particularly Tigers and Yankees fans. Is Granderson doing something noticeably different at the plate over the past two years? Could it be related to his percentage of lefties faced, which is quite high this season (37 percent, compared to 28 percent in ’09, 25.3 in ’08, 19.7 in ’07, and 24.2 in ’06)? Do you buy the rest-of-season ZiPS BABIP, or do you expect something different?

Remember at the beginning of the season when, for whatever reason, some ESPN analysts seemed programmed to think that the Detroit Tigers were seriously capable of scoring 1,000 runs this year? Of course, it was a euphemism for how potent their offense might be rather than a serious prediction (I hope). Curtis Granderson was expected to leadoff for this offense and help propel them into a landslide division victory in the AL Central.

Well, the Tigers aren’t scoring or on pace to score 6.17 r/g—what it would take to score 1,000+ runs—and Granderson’s early season absence is generally attributed as a major cause. It’s kind of odd to say that the team vastly underperformed because of him; after all, in 2006, he was a contender for the Oddibe Award (the award I give out to the player with the most average slash line). Sure, he had a great year in 2007 but to say a team “expected” to win at an alarming rate isn’t doing so because of one player means that his replacement would have to have been monumentally awful so as to make up for the difference.

Since his return he has essentially picked up where he left off. He wasn’t going to OPS .920+ realistically as it took one of those 20-20-20-20 seasons to get a .913, but that does not mean he couldn’t be a very productive player. In 105 games, he is hitting .302/.374/.502, an .876 OPS. 44 of his hits are of the extra-base variety, consisting of 20 doubles, 9 triples, and 15 home runs. With only a month and a half left, needing both 11 steals and 11 triples, it isn’t likely he can repeat the 2007 magic, but given the time he missed his stat-line is still very impressive.

His OBP was thirteen points lower last year, at .361, but his SLG was up fifty points at .552. He doesn’t seem like a power-hitter because triples aren’t necessarily held to the same power esteem as home runs or doubles; triples are thought of more as hits based on speed. Despite his slugging percentage is much lower than last year, it is still the same or in the same vicinity as Vladimir Guerrero, Jason Giambi, Nate McLouth, and Aramis Ramirez.

He has contributed 1.72 wins in a context-neutral environment, and 1.44 based on shifts in run expectancy. For the sake of context, Vladimir Guerrero is one full WPA/LI win below Grandy. He may have missed time early in the season and his absence may have hurt the Tigers get off to the start they desired, but any struggles since his return can hardly be attributed to his performance.