Teixeira’s Slow Start

Being a slugger brings with it perhaps the greatest glory a playing style can in baseball. Aces are elevated, high contact hitters occasionally revered, and lock-down relievers feared, but sluggers? Chicks have never adored the four-out save like they do the four-base hit. Being a switch-hitting slugger leads to even more hagiography. Mark Teixeira is that and fits the image of the imaginary basher.

Teixeira is tall at six-foot-three with sturdy forearms and an all-American jaw-line. His batting stance is rather simple to imitate, which cannot be said about the amount of force Teixeira’s bat strikes baseballs with. As such, the public perception of Teixeira is increasingly strong, especially when one combines the locale of Teixeira’s job – both on the field and a map – with the aforementioned style of play.

Teixeira neither is, nor will he ever be, the most prolific home run hitter — in output or length -– but thus far, launching bombs has been one of the few parts of Teixeira’s offensive game apparent in his .217/.341/.420 line. That translates to a .340 wOBA which is above the league average mark, but below the expectations from a first baseman and particularly a first baseman named Mark Teixeira. The good news for the Yankees, besides being able to whether the struggles with a strong record, is that little cause for concern exists.

Teixeira is hitting the same number of line drives, fly balls, and grounders as he always does, yet his batting average on balls in play is .223. Over the last three seasons, Teixeira’s BABIP have ranged from .302 to .342. To state the obvious: .223 is nowhere near the previous low tide. Teixiera isn’t even hitting more infield fly balls than normal; instead, he’s hitting fewer pop ups.

Literally the only conceivable explanations that do not involve a heavy dosage of bad luck is Teixeira’s amount of contact with pitches outside of the strike zone. In previous seasons, his O-Contact% bounced around between 40-60%. This year, it’s at 70%. That simply means that Teixeira is making contact with pitches that should be called balls.

That nothing short of his BABIP has changed seemingly supports the idea that this is just a dry run on good luck and should allow Teixeira to keep his slugger glory in tow.