Archive for Ryan Braun

According to a baseball source, Major League Baseball has dropped the 100-game suspension levied against Eliezer Alfonzo last season due to the same procedural issues that surfaced during the Ryan Braun case over the offseason.

The specific procedural issues were yet again not specifically outlined in this report, but the important aspect to note is that this was not an appeal case that Alfonzo and his team won. This suspension was not brought before an arbitrator. Instead, Major League Baseball re-examined the procedural facts of the sample collection and simply dropped the suspension.

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A few weeks ago, I took Ryan Braun with the 10th pick in FanGraphs franchise player draft. Truth be told, I was set to pick Miguel Cabrera before Niv Shah grabbed him with the pick right before mine. I briefly considered an ace like Felix Hernandez or a top prospect, but “settled” on one of the best hitters in baseball who also runs the bases well despite his defense being an all-around negative.

In addition to his durability (150-plus games in each of the past three seasons) and past production (.307/.364/.554 from 2007-2010 with an average of over 70 extra-base hits), I also considered Braun’s improvements at the plate in 2011. His current .417 wOBA is the fourth-best in the National League and would be the highest-single season mark for him since his smashing 2007 debut (.422 wOBA in 113 games).

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As a 26-year-old slugger signed through the 2015 season for a total of $40 million, Milwaukee Brewers left fielder Ryan Braun is one of the most valuable assets in the game. The former Miami Hurricane recently placed twelfth on Dave Cameron’s Top 50 Trade Value list. But, while noting Braun’s bargain contract and history of crushing the ball, Cameron pointed out a downward trend in Braun’s power output:

Braun was a monster in his rookie 2007 season, but he has never been able to repeat those kinds of power numbers. In fact, his isolated slugging has declined in each of the four years he has been in the big leagues, moving in tandem with his strikeout rate, which has also fallen each year. Braun has apparently made the opposite choice that [Colby] Rasmus made, and unfortunately, it hasn’t helped Braun. The skills are still there for him to be a star, but Braun is going the wrong way.

While Braun’s pop remains well above the major league average, his Isolated Power has declined considerably since his rookie year:

The fifth overall pick in the 2005 draft has seen his ISO dip from .310 in 2007 to .268 in 2008, .231 in 2009 and .186 this season. Prior to 2010, both CHONE and ZiPS projected a .259 ISO from Braun.

As Cameron noted, Braun’s making more contact, perhaps at the expense of hitting with as much authority. His overall contact rate has increased each season — 76.3% in ’07, 79.2% in ’08, 80.8% in ’09 and 81.9% in 2010 (81% MLB average). Braun’s K rate has gone from 24.8% in ’07 to 21.1% in ’08, 19.1% in ’09 and 17.3% this year.

Braun’s also hitting more ground balls and fewer fly balls:

He hit a ground ball 38.8% of the time as a rookie and 38.7% as a sophomore. But in 2009, that ground ball rate rose to 46.5%, and this season, it sits at 48.2%. Braun’s fly ball rate was 44.9% in 2007 and 44.1% in 2008. In 2009, his FB% fell to 34.1%, and it’s 36.7% in 2010.

So, Braun has been putting the ball in play more, but that extra contact hasn’t been forceful. Has anything changed in terms of where he’s hitting the ball? Not really. Braun’s spray numbers are right in line with his previous seasons:

His performance on those balls put in play, however, has certainly changed. In particular, he’s not pulling the ball with near the same might as in years past:

Braun displayed jaw-dropping power to the pull side in 2007 and 2008, and remained well above-average last season despite a sharp increase in ground balls hit. This season, Braun has actually been worse than the average righty batter on pitches hit to left field.

On pitches hit to the middle field, Braun is still a beast:

When punching pitches to the opposite field, Braun has typically displayed excellent pop. In 2010, he’s not faring near as well:

Though he’s bashing fewer homers this year, Braun is hitting tape-measure shots when he does go yard. Hit Tracker Online shows the average “Standard Distance” on home runs hit. Stand Distance homers are defined as:

The estimated distance in feet the home run would have traveled if it flew uninterrupted all the way down to field level, and if the home run had been hit with no wind, in 70 degree air at sea level. Standard distance factors out the influence of wind, temperature and altitude, and is thus the best way of comparing home runs hit under a variety of different conditions.

Here are Braun’s average standard Distance numbers over the years, as well as the 2010 MLB average:

Whether it’s a conscious decision or not, Ryan Braun is putting the bat on the ball more often while splitting the gaps and clearing the fence less frequently, a combination that has led to a career-worst .362 wOBA — still a quality mark, but well below his pre-season projections of .393 from ZiPS and .404 from CHONE. Braun seems plenty capable of once again hitting for prodigious power, with both ZiPS (.243 rest-of-season ISO) and CHONE (.238) predicting more slides for Bernie Brewer from here on out. To recapture his previous form, Braun might want to let ‘er rip at the plate more often — the extra thump would be well worth a few additional whiffs.

After receiving a late May call to the bigs last year, Brewers 3B Ryan Braun went on an absolute tear, taking home Rookie of the Year hardware in the process. 112 games into his second season it does not appear that he has fallen victim to the ever heralded “sophomore slump.” In fact, take a look at his two seasons, side by side (or on top of one another) as he has had virtually the same amount of opportunities:

2007: 113 GP, 146-451, 26 2B, 6 3B, 34 HR, 29 BB, 112 K, .324/.370/.634
2008: 112 GP, 138-460, 31 2B, 6 3B, 30 HR, 26 BB, 99 K, .300/.339/.589

With roughly two months remaining he should easily surpass his counting stats from the tremendous rookie campaign. Interestingly enough, due to the season-long success of the Cubs, the early struggles of the Brewers, and outside factors such as acquiring CC Sabathia, there are plenty of knowledgable baseball fans out there unaware that Braun is having this good of a season. His 30 home runs ranks third in baseball behind just Ryan Howard and Adam Dunn, and his WPA/LI of 2.74 checks in ninth in the senior circuit.

He didn’t walk much last year and is doing so even less this year—seventh lowest BB-rate at 5.3%—but at least his frequency of strikeouts has decreased a bit. Due to his lack of free passes, his OBP is not very high relative to his batting average; doubly so it means his slugging percentage would need to be very high to result in the ninth best OPS in the national league. Sure enough, his slugging percentage ranks sixth best and his isolated power of .289 ranks fifth best.

Using the in-season Marcel, he is projected to finish the season hitting .310/.368/.572, with 11 doubles and 12 home runs. The reliability or accuracy of his projection is not going to be as high as others, however, given that this is his second year. Regardless, this would put him at .303/.358/.584 in his sophomore season. Stack up his first two years:

2007: 113 GP, .324/.370/.634, 1.004 OPS, 26 2B, 34 HR
2008: 156 GP, .303/.348/.584, .932 OPS, 42 2B, 42 HR

Not too shabby for his first two years in the major leagues. He doesn’t walk much and is not a tremendous fielder, but the Hebrew Hammer can flat out rake.

With Corey Koskie suffering from post-concussion syndrome, and the platoon of Craig Counsell/Tony Graffanino not producing, the Brewers brought up Ryan Braun last May hoping he could quell any or all of their hot corner problems. The prospect with the nickname “The Hebrew Hammer”—odd, that’s Gabe Kapler’s nickname as well—did not disappoint, posting incredibly gaudy numbers in just 113 games. He would win the Rookie of the Year award and, by all accounts, had one of the best offensive rookie seasons in the history of the game.

In it, he posted a slash line of .324/.370/.634, with an 153 OPS+, 26 doubles, 6 triples, and 34 home runs. Remember, too, that his season did not begin until May 24th.

He has gotten off to a slow start this year, hitting .275/.306/.463, with an OPS+ of just 99, 13 doubles, and 5 home runs. Coming into the season the projection systems did not have much to work with, as he only played most of one season, but all saw him finishing the season with an OPS of at least .829; it is currently .769. Those with OPS counts in a similar range: Jeff Keppinger (.770), Ian Kinsler (.773).

***Actually, and I only leave this in because it helps prove a small sample size point, but this article was written seemingly before Braun’s stats from yesterday updated; with his game yesterday, some of the numbers change. Due to his two home run performance, his OPS jumped from .769 to .814. And, for anyone wondering, Kinsler went up to .793 while Keppinger skyrocketed to .800.***

MGL recently posted a study that takes a look at what hot or cold April’s tell us about hitters. He finds that those who started off slow essentially finished the year with their projected OPS; while this does not necessarily relate to Braun in the sense that those used in the study had OPS counts under .500, I think the above mention of his OPS jump illustrates how hot or cold starts can be very deceiving and not necessarily indicative at all of what to expect. His numbers still aren’t where they were last year but that does not mean they will not be by the end of the year.

Using the stats we have for this season, let’s try to deduce what Braun is doing differently this year, if anything, or if this is all just the work of evil small sample sizes.

Looking at his swing data, he is making contact much more than he did last year. Despite swinging at about five percent less pitches in the strike zone he is making contact over six percent more often. Additionally, he is swinging at over four percent more pitches outside of the strike zone but making contact three percent more often. As we would intuitively expect following such a tremendous season, he is seeing less pitches in the strike zone. While I will need to do a full Pitch F/X study on him to see what he’s doing with these pitches outside of the zone, one possibility is that he simply isn’t connecting as well to them.

Another area to explore involves his BABIP and rates of balls in play. He is hitting more line drives this year, going from 16% to 18%; his grounders have gone from 38.8% to 32.8%; and his flyballs have jumped from 44.9% to 49.2%. Last year, his xBABIP would have been somewhere in the .280-.286 range; it ended up at .367. This year, though, they are within reason; his current BABIP of .313 comes pretty darn close to his expected .306 clip.

Another interesting aspect of the Hebrew Hammer (Braun, not Kapler) is his walks deficiency. He walked just 6% of the time last year, resulting in a BB/K of 0.26; that 0.26 would have been the seventh worst had he garnered enough plate appearances to truly qualify. This year he is walking just 4.4% of the time and, despite reducing his K-rate by about four percent, his BB/K of 0.23 currently ranks as the eighth worst.

This is essentially just a recap of what he has been doing this year as compared to last, and it seems that a few of the aforementioned factors are contributing to his “slow” start. Then again, as MGL and Braun’s performance yesterday showed, things can quickly change. For the sake of Braun and Brewers fans everywhere, I hope in August, when Braun smacks dingers #42-43 we can revisit this article and go “Jeez, what the heck was Seidman talking about!?”