One of the few positive things Sox fans will take away from the 2009 season is the meteoric rise of Gordon Beckham. He was anointed 'the Savior' and as side-kick to the mighty Q! they were going to take us all back to the promised land. We watched the rookie get a full-time job on the big league club almost a year to the day after he was drafted. We watched him rake clutch hits, we saw more power than we expected, we observed rapid improvement at the hot corner and can feel good about his campaign and his future. Those errors are going to be put-outs in 2010. All of 'em. Why not.
I wanted to look at some of the specifics of his season and break down the numbers a little bit. At the game on Tuesday, I happened to look up and see his average was down into the .260s when I thought it was still up around .275. What happened? I knew the club accidentally the whole thing, but Bacon's slide went under my radar.
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS June 23 75 11 20 3 0 2 13 9 13 1 3 .267 .353 .387 .740 July 27 97 12 32 10 0 3 18 9 14 3 1 .330 .382 .526 .908 August 28 112 17 25 10 0 3 18 12 24 2 0 .223 .313 .393 .705 September 17 66 12 16 2 1 5 7 6 10 1 0 .242 .315 .530 .845
Gordo's average was at .316 on August 4th- then it slowly rolled off the table. I'm on record as a Pods hater and I cited one good month that masked everything else early this season. I know its not all about the average, and I like those BB:K ratios by Beckham, but one could probably make the same argument here. If that one was a dumb-ass.
Here is the most shocking split stat:
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS Home 47 165 19 36 11 1 3 21 15 31 1 2 .218 .294 .352 .646 Away 48 185 33 57 14 0 10 35 21 30 6 2 .308 .383 .546 .929
So yeah, I would have guessed he was better than this at home, and with just three games left here its not going to get that much better. Im not going to try and guess why things shook out this way. On second thought I will, because the possibilities are endless and therefore un-possible to formulate. Who knows if it was the added pressure of being called 'savior', or simply the fact that last call in Chicago is about 3 hours later than the bars in Athens were. Maybe it was all the new tail he was getting after B.A. was shipped out of town(link proves anyone can blog). Perhaps its our fault as fans, giving him a big hand and making those bitch umpires like Angel Hernandez jealous which lead to more bad balls called for strikes. I dont know, but I do know you cant quantify these intangible things so math is stupid(Thanks BCB! they're still at it btw). The cell is a hitters park and I figure this is just a freak thing. All his power and steals will normalize, and if I had to guess Id say his line next year looks more like the road splits x2 than the home ones.
On to the next line of stats, lets look at some situational hitting:
G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB K SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS Bases Empty 94 200 9 49 12 1 9 9 26 37 0 0 .245 .343 .450 .793 Runners On 86 150 43 44 13 0 4 47 10 24 7 4 .293 .337 .460 .797 RISP 75 88 36 26 6 0 2 38 8 13 0 1 .295 .347 .432 .778 RISP w/2 Outs 48 42 19 14 1 0 0 15 5 9 0 0 .333 .417 .357 .774 Bases Loaded 15 8 7 3 2 0 0 7 0 1 0 0 .375 .300 .625 .925
Yeah! Now that is what I'm talkin' 'bout. I especially love how SB is listed here. He didn't attempt any SB with the bases empty. Give that a minute soak in, bask in the glorious aroma of this brain fart cloud.
Thank yahoo! for that one, seriously, thanks yahoo! for these easy to copy and paste #s are all from y!
An OPS of .925 with the bases loaded is great. I dont care if its only 8 AB and if a pitcher loaded the bases against this particular team they probably suck at baseball.
Like most of my posts, I really didn't have a major point to make with all this, just thought I'd share some of the numbers I was looking at to fill the overnight recap slot of the off-day. That home average kind of blew me away and I wanted to bring it you all of your attention.