Jason Bay's 2007 Season

by ams258 on Jan 5, 2010 12:26 PM EST

Jason Bay's career numbers are outstanding - .280 AVG, .376 OBP, .896 OPS, and .384 wOBA. Yet his 2007 season looks lousy, to the tune of a .247 AVG, .327 OBP, .746 OPS, and .326 wOBA. Although Bay rebounded over the last two years, should we be concerned that his 2010 might look like his 2007? In a word - no. Bay's line drive rate and BABIP indicate that his awful 2007 season was the product of horrible luck more than anything else.

In 2007, Bay's BABIP was .298, a big drop from his career BABIP of .332. His line drive rate, however, was 16.5% - close to his career rate of 18.3% and actually an increase from his rate of 15.6% in 2006. Since his line drive rate remained consistent, it's reasonable to conclude that Bay hit a lot of balls directly at fielders in 2007, which resulted in his poor numbers. (His walk rate dropped a little too - 9.9% as compared with his career mark of 12.9%, but a normal BABIP would have made his season look a lot better even with the lower walk rate.)

Then when Bay's numbers returned to normal in 2008 and 2009, his line drive rates remained consistent, at 16.5% and 17.7%. We can attribute his increased production then, to the end of his lousy luck, as his BABIPs (BAsBIP?) shot up to .328 and .318, respectively.

So bottom line, there's no reason to be concerned that Jason Bay's 2010 season will look anything like his 2007. Those numbers occurred because of awful luck and are unlikely to re-appear again any time soon.

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Bay battled injury during the 2007 season,

I believe.

The Mets lobby Omar for a plan, and his plan, he likes his plan. The problem is that he didn't write his plan down 'cause that makes it paperwork, and that’s false hustle... Know what I’m sayin’?

by Evan_S on Jan 5, 2010 12:30 PM EST reply actions

Yeah, his knee was banged up.

the number one issue facing the Mets is finding that one guy who’s going to say "get on my shoulders and ride me to the championship."

by Sokojoe on Jan 5, 2010 2:18 PM EST up reply actions

Didn't realize this

Still, looks like bad luck was a big factor.

by ams258 on Jan 5, 2010 4:43 PM EST up reply actions

Def had bad luck

but bad knees could also depress his BABIP due to not beating as many throws at first and such.

the number one issue facing the Mets is finding that one guy who’s going to say "get on my shoulders and ride me to the championship."

by Sokojoe on Jan 5, 2010 7:20 PM EST up reply actions

not too worried about bay

he’s as sure a thing as you can find for around 30+hrs, 30+ doubles, 100+rbis, around a .280 AVG and a .380 OBP.

i found it interesting to hear him talk today about his defense where he said he struggled w/ knee issues throughout ‘07 and the monster was strange for him the last couple years. i’m actually a little more optimistic that he can be near league average defensively which would be great if he’s hitting 35+ bombs.

to me, this move basically replaces delgado’s bat in the lineup. and on a larger scale, places us back to roughly the talent level we were at between the ’06 and ’07 seasons:

-a talented but somewhat suspect rotation (though more top heavy now)
-a capable enough closer w/ good bullpen pieces around him
-wright & reyes & beltran (obviously, health willing) w/ bay playing the role of delgado
-a serviceable RF (frenchy : church) w/ a very strong 4th OF (pagan : endy)
-we never got too much from catcher after ‘06 so that will be easy to re-create and we’ve had average production at 2B and castillo does that

leaving the only question (and IMO the question that probably defines the 2010 season) how much of an improvement will omar make to the team w/ his impending starting pitching move?

by Rob Castellano on Jan 5, 2010 2:50 PM EST reply actions

I disagree about being in the same place as 06/07

we’re pretty strongly downgraded at second, and while Bay replaces Delgado I think we got more production from the corner spots, miraculously, those years than we’re likely to get from first this year. I’d also say even though we’re more top heavy overall we’re downgraded in the rotation, El Duque, Pedro and Glavine despite /injuries/inconsistency and El Duque being near 60 combined to be pretty productive over those two years, along with Maine and Perez being much more productive than we can reasonably project from them this year. I’d say we might be close, to 07/08 but we’d have to have a couple of guys, mainly some combination of Perez/Maine/Niese, perform above expectations to reach 88-92 win area.

In other news I think we had this same conversation in another thread.

"We have a plan, and our plan, I like our plan'

it's Omar's world, we're just livin in it.

by Gina on Jan 5, 2010 4:15 PM EST up reply actions

Kind of.

What made 2006 exceptional was that (a) all of our intended starters except Floyd played both regularly and with OPS+ above 100, and Endy was league-average with the bat with more PAs than Floyd; and (b) the bullpen was unbelievable, with six guys with ERA+ of 120 or over and 45 appearances/55 IP or more. Even when we dealt XMan to Pittsburgh, everything went right, as we replaced him with league-average Shawn Green, and made up for Duaner’s injury with Roberto Hernandez and Guillermo Mota who both shone brightly — amazingly.

But the starting pitching was actually suspect. Glavine was solid with 32 starts and an ERA+ of 114, but the only other above-average pitchers, El Duque (107 ERA+), Maine (121 ERA+), and Brian Bannister (102 ERA+) totaled 41 starts. We wasted 36 starts (22% of the season) on seven different SPs who failed to crack an ERA+ of 80.

by Dan Lewis on Jan 5, 2010 5:28 PM EST up reply actions

well i meant

specifically after ‘06 going into ’07. obviously we won’t match the unlikely standout performances of valentin and loduca in ‘06 though i don’t think it’s that unlikely that murphy can’t match nady/green’s 18hrs & .260 AVG. either way, from a talent standpoint i think they look a lot like the ’07 mets w/ the potential for more.

by Rob Castellano on Jan 5, 2010 8:45 PM EST up reply actions

Oh I agree with the 07 mets

I just think there’s a big difference between looking like the 07 mets and the 06 mets.

"We have a plan, and our plan, I like our plan'

it's Omar's world, we're just livin in it.

by Gina on Jan 5, 2010 10:00 PM EST up reply actions

If Bay can be a league average fielder, anyone can.

Other than 2003 when he played 30 games, Bay only above average defensively once, in 2006. Looking at every single defensive measurement, he is below average. And players decline defensively as they age. The defensive peak is the first season.
And Church wasn’t on the team in 2006 or 2007.

by EtSuKe on Jan 5, 2010 4:54 PM EST up reply actions

but you got my point, we haven’t had anything more than a serviceable RF for a few years now between green, church, milledge and this season will be no different.

and while you’re probably right that bay won’t be league average and he’s definitely below average overall, i said he could perform NEAR league average which really isn’t too unreasonable to hope for. while he’s usually below, in half of his seasons it hasn’t been by all that much. then if you factor for the monster and seasons when he was hurt (‘07) it really isn’t crazy to think he could get back to that -5 UZR level this year.

by Rob Castellano on Jan 5, 2010 7:53 PM EST up reply actions

I'm not mad at Bay's contract. 6.5 million this year with 8.5 coming as a bonus.

I wonder if that will allow the Mets to get a couple pitchers and retain Delgado

by Major on Jan 5, 2010 4:21 PM EST reply actions

everybody can have a bad season

look all players are subject to a bad season, whether from injury or not. You have to look at his average year and assume that is what we will get if he is healthy.

by Rickfansince76 on Jan 5, 2010 5:11 PM EST reply actions