Lady Luck is a cruel mistress.
Just as easily as she can make you look good (see Juan Lagares hitting .338/.360/.507) she can make you look like a fool (see Curtis Granderson hitting .173/.281/.279). Her best and most redeeming quality (depending on how you look at it) is that no matter the upswings and downswings that she may bring, in the long run everything balances out to roughly where it should be.
In the course of a 162-game baseball season, there are going to be stretches where good players struggle, but when that happens right off the bat, it is only magnified. This often times leads to gross overreactions from disgruntled fans which can look quite comical when all the chips are settled.
Last week in this space, I wrote about how Granderson and Chris Young getting going were the keys to long-term success for the Mets. While the Mets record over the past seven days sits at 2-3, Granderson and Young’s bats seem to be awakening from their slumber.
In 23 plate appearances, Young is hitting .421/.522/.579 and perhaps most importantly has cut significantly down on strikeouts and has seen his walk rate spike to 17.4%. His overall line now sits at .273/.344/.455 through 16 games, likely a little higher than it will be at season’s end.
On the other hand, if Young proves that he can keep up these numbers throughout the course of the rest of the season, he would be an absolute steal.
Granderson has had 22 plate appearances and has performed to the tune of a .368/.455/.526 line, elevating his numbers somewhat, but they are still bad. There is, however, room for hope. Granderson’s stellar statistical performance over the past week confirms what you see when you watch the games – his approach at the plate is better, he’s making more solid contact.
In fact, as of May 3rd, he ranked 17th in all of baseball in hard-hit ball percentage – essentially the percentage of balls hit that are categorized as hard hit. Typically a player will have a batting average of about .700 on hard hit balls. As of last Monday, Granderson had been the number one underachiever as far as batting average on hard hit balls goes, according to the twitter account of Chris Walendin (@tpgMets).
Essentially what this all means is that regression to the mean is finally starting to take place for Granderson, and that means Lady Luck is back on his – and the Mets’ – side for now.
Joe Vasile is the voice of the Fayetteville SwampDogs and a play-by-play announcer for NJ.org Varsity.
Coors Field.
Anyone want to guess what their combined OPS will be in the Marlins series, starting tonight against a pitcher who’s ERA is 2.57 instead of 7.52?
Curtis Granderson and Chris Young are two established players that are coming off injury seasons. In the 33 year old Granderson’s case, the expectation should be to at least play to slightly below his career 115 OPS average this year. That would bring him in at a 3 WAR which would justify his salary. Granderson in 2012 had a 115+ OPS for the season.
Chris Young has a career 314/431/746 with 20 homerun power. That is a marked improvement over EY. The expectation should be that Chris Young put up similar numbers to his 2012 season when he put up a 2 WAR. As fans, many times our expectations are too high. I believe that both these players will meet these career based expectations and of course I hope they exceed them. As your fine article stated, Granderson and Young are in the process of regressing to the mean and let’s not have expectations that this weeks numbers are the normal for the rest of the season.
It’s a shame they are coming alive when the pitching struggled mightily, otherwise that Colorado trip would have looked a lot better.