Archive for Josh Hamilton

After an arbitrator ruled ten days ago that Josh Hamilton had not violated his drug treatment program following an alleged drug relapse, it looked like the Angels would be forced to pay him the rest of the roughly $83 million he is owed over the last three years of his contract. Now, however, it appears that the Angels are determined to do whatever they can to try to escape from the rest of Hamilton’s contract.

Before the Angels’ home opener on Friday evening, the team’s owner, Arte Moreno, spoke with the media. As one might expect, the discussion eventually turned to Hamilton, with a reporter asking Moreno whether the Angels would welcome Hamilton back to the team when he had recovered from his shoulder injury. Somewhat surprisingly, Moreno responded, “I will not say that.”

Instead, Moreno suggested that the team was exploring the possibility of cancelling the rest of Hamilton’s contract. As Moreno explained to reporters, “We have a contract with Hamilton and that contract has specific language, that he signed and that was approved, that said he could not drink or use drugs.”

The Major League Baseball Players Association quickly responded to Moreno’s comments on Friday evening:

“The MLBPA emphatically denies Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno’s assertions from earlier today that the Angels had requested and received the approval of the Union to insert language into Josh Hamilton’s contract that would supersede the provisions of the Joint Drug Agreement and/or the Basic Agreement. To the contrary, the collectively bargained provisions of the JDA and the Basic Agreement supersede all other player contract provisions and explicitly prevent Clubs from exactly the type of action Mr. Moreno alluded to in his press comments today.”

So who is right? And what are the odds that the Angels could terminate the rest of Hamilton’s contract?

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Nine months ago, Marlon Byrd could not secure a major league deal from any team leading him to sign a minor league deal with an invite to camp with the New York Mets. Two days ago, he parlayed a 136 wRC+ into a guaranteed two-year deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. As Dave Cameron pointed out, Byrd reinvented himself in 2013 at age-35 by swapping contact for power. The result of of this change was a .220 ISO, which was both a career-high and the first time he eclipsed the .200 plateau for his isolated power. After seasons of a relatively firm baseline for Contact% and Z-Contact%, Byrd changed his ways and made himself more attractive on the free agent market. 30 clubs were not willing to guarantee him money as a high contact batter with a good batting average, but one was quick to give him a guaranteed contract after one season of a grip it and rip it approach.

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Let’s all go ahead and agree right now that the worst day of Josh Hamilton’s life probably had nothing to do with baseball. I’m not going to go into any detail, and you shouldn’t need for me to go into any detail. Who knows where Hamilton would even be were it not for having baseball in his life? Baseball, for Josh Hamilton, is a blessing, that which helps to save him from what he could otherwise become.

But in terms of just on-field baseball performance, Josh Hamilton on Wednesday might have had the worst day of his career. Hamilton, of course, has been through more devastating games, such as the last two in last year’s World Series, but those were devastating on a team level. On Wednesday, individually, Hamilton sucked, and as such he’s one of the players responsible for the Rangers still having to win another game before they can think about the ALDS.

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Sort among batters for swinging strike rate over the past three years, and (unsurprisingly) you’ll get a list that features most of the strikeout kings at the plate. Mark Reynolds (17.5% swinging strikes) and Ryan Howard (15.3%) obviously belong based on their respective career strikeout rates (38.7% and 32% respectively). But track a little further down the list and you’ll notice that a high swinging strike rate is not always a harbinger of a high strikeout rate.

You won’t have to go far. Even third place on the list, Josh Hamilton, has a decent strikeout rate (20.6%) despite his high swinging strike rate (13.7%). Delmon Young even pairs a better-than-average strikeout rate (18.6% career) with a top-ten worst swinging strike percentage (12.7%) over the last three years. Clearly, the tendency to swing and miss at offerings is not the sole determinant of a batter’s strikeout rate.

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One of my favorite moments in baseball this decade occurred when Bobby Abreu broke all home run derby records in Detroit, garnering thunderous applause from hordes of fans who, quite honestly, had probably never heard of him before. Watching Josh Hamilton’s performance in the 2008 derby, however, seemed to dwarf that moment. Putting on that display at Yankee Stadium, complete with his overly discussed past personal issues, was definitely a highlighted moment of this past season. About a week prior to the derby, Hamilton put that beautiful swing to use to deliver the seventh biggest swing in win expectancy from an offensive standpoint.

As you can see, the game took place on July 9, against the Angels. In case this moment has yet to click for you, this was the highly publicized game during which Josh Hamilton hit the walkoff home run against Francisco Rodriguez. Without exaggerating, I probably saw the highlight fifteen times from July 9 until the end of the month. Granted, the play itself was pretty amazing to watch develop.

The game was knotted at 2-2 until Juan Rivera hit a two run home run in the seventh inning. This put the Halos up 4-2, and the score would remain the same until the bottom of the ninth. Rodriguez entered the game and, at that juncture of the season, had posted a 1.88 ERA and .538 OPS against in 41 appearances. He had also recorded 35 saves out of his record-breaking saves total.

At the start of the frame, the Rangers had a 13.3% probability of winning. Ramon Vazquez led off with a walk, increasing the expectancy to 23.7%. K-Rod promptly fanned Ian Kinsler to bring it back down to 14.4%. Frank Catalanotto then grounded out, advancing Vazquez to second base. Despite having a runner in scoring position, in trailing by two runs, with two outs, the Rangers had a 6.4% probability of winning the game. Had Hamilton’s big play come next, it would have been, by far, the top play of the year. What actually followed was an RBI single to leftfield off the bat of Michael Young, increasing their chances to 12.6%.

Young then stole second base with Hamilton at the dish, which resulted in a jump to 17.1%. Then, on a 3-1 count, Hamilton demolished the ball, hitting a walkoff two-run homer. The play, which saw a swing in win expectancy of 82.9%, was the seventh biggest of the season. K-Rod didn’t necessarily have a breakdown afterwards, preventing a run from scoring in each of his next seven outings, but Hamilton’s home run definitely helped cap off an extremely impressive first half for a player with an extremely interesting story.