Checking in on Adam Eaton

<div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a lot of head scratching going on before the season started when the Arizona Diamondbacks traded two promising young players in <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=eatonad01,eatonad02&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=eatonad01,eatonad02&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Adam Eaton</a></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> (25-years-old) and </span><strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/skaggty01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/skaggty01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Tyler Skaggs</a></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> (22-years-old) for basically a lumbering power hitter and two minor league players that do not appear to be going anywhere. Sure, there is a power shortage in the Majors and Trumbo can hit homers, but many viewed this trade through squinted eyes as some sort of organizational waywardness by the Diamondbacks. After two-thirds of the season, where do we stand on Adam Easton, one-third of the big trade?</span></span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It seems the answer to that question depends on who you ask. Fangraphs.com, Baseball Prospectus and Baseball-reference.com all have different takes on what value <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=eatonad01,eatonad02&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=eatonad01,eatonad02&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Adam Eaton</a></strong> has brought to the White Sox. All agree that his defense has been quite good. All agree that his base running has been a problem, but to a varied degree.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Baseball Prospectus has him valued the lowest at 1.2 WARP. Then comes Fangraphs.com at 1.5 fWAR and finally, Baseball-reference.com doubles that to 3.0 rWAR. Well...that's confusing.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Okay, if we put that all aside, what do my non-expert eyes see in Eaton's season with the White Sox? I see a lot of positive things. Eaton has missed time at three different points in the seasons with hamstring problems with both legs and a wrist problem. But he has still managed to get into 82 of the White Sox' 104 games.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The constant starting and stopping of his season might have slowed him down at times, but, like I said, I see a lot of nice things in his season. A lead-off batter's primary responsibility is to get on base and Eaton has done that at a higher than league average rate of .355. If you compare that to the average lead-off batter in baseball, that is 25 points higher than average. So far so good.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Eaton's batting average is also higher than the league average lead-off guy and his slugging percentage is about eleven points lower. That leaves him with an OPS that is 14 points higher than league average. Not bad. His 107 OPS+ and wRC+ (depending on which system you prefer) is above league average overall as well. So for overall offense, Eaton is doing his job.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And what should be pointed out is that for the last two months, he has really been above average. Adam Eaton had a horrible May and that month colors all of his numbers. But his slash lines for the last two months look like this respectively: .309/.391/.454 and .299/.379/.403.  He has a .986 OPS in his last eight games.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What about this base running thing? Most of the problem seems to be with his stolen base attempts. Adam Eaton does not appear to be very good at stealing bases. He has attempted to steal sixteen times and has only been successful ten times. A 62.5% success rate is not going to cut it. And his success rate over his short career is worse at 60.7%.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But the good news is that he is five for his last seven attempts showing his overall boost in performance over the last two months. A 71.4% rate is a little better to deal with. The success rate might show that he has better wheels under him now that the season has gone along. Remember that I mentioned those two hamstring issues earlier in the season.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I also like some other things about him as a lead-off batter. For one, I think he is going to get better with his plate discipline. His 9% walk rate is not bad, but it is way below what he did in the minors. His O-rate, or rate of swinging at pitches out of the strike zone is 28%, which isn't bad, but could be a little better. What I like most is that he swings and misses only 4.7% of the time and his strikeout rate is an acceptable 16%. Without looking more closely, the guess would be that most of his strikeouts are looking.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As a left-handed batter, Adam Eaton handles left-handed pitching quite well. In fact, his batting average is higher against lefties. The only real loss against southpaws is that he doesn't steal any bases against them.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Eaton, at this point in his career, is a slash and dash kind of hitter. His ground ball rate is Jeter-esque, but with his speed, that's not a bad thing. In fact, it's a good thing as his BABIP on ground balls is .325, which is pretty amazing. It would be nice if Eaton hit more line drives and drove the ball a little bit more, but perhaps that will come with maturity.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Something about Adam Eaton did not click with the Diamondbacks. His Twitter handle calls himself AdamSpankyEaton. He plays with a lot of enthusiasm but perhaps is a bit of a free spirit. Who knows. And it is not fair to really judge the Diamondbacks' return right now because Trumbo got off to a great start and then had a really bad injury and has been abysmal since getting back.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What can be said is that Adam Eaton has a higher on-base and OPS than center fielders in Arizona and their lead-off batters. He could have helped them. But as it is, a few injuries and a poor May that was probably a result has held Adam Eaton's overall numbers down a little bit this season. But for a 25-year-old guy in his first full season, he's doing quite well--especially in the last two months.</span></div>

Checking in on Adam Eaton

There was a lot of head scratching going on before the season started when the Arizona Diamondbacks traded two promising young players in  A...

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Some early batted ball anomalies

<div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A month of a baseball season is still a fairly small sample size. After all, we are only nearing the 15% mark of the season. There are a lot of games left to be played. Even so, 23 to 24 games played is a pretty good chunk of games to see a few trends taking place. Whether sample size or a meaningful chunk of games is up to the eye of the beholder. However, it does allow for some weird batted ball statistics. I have compiled a few for your viewing pleasure. Just don't make too much of what is being presented. Because it IS early yet.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thirty-six qualifying players have yet to hit an infield popup. I find that figure to be pretty amazing. You would think that not many popups would lead to a pretty good average for balls in play (BABIP). But that's not the case for <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/freesda01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/freesda01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">David Freese</a></strong>. Not only has he not hit a popup, but his line drive percentage is at a healthy 25%. Those are good batted ball odds. And yet his BABIP sits at .186. It is no wonder that the guy is hitting .143 after eighteen games.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But that is a little bit misleading. Freese is striking out at a 29.6% clip, so he only has 45 balls in play altogether. Even so...</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For another extreme, we look at <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=eatonad01,eatonad02&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=eatonad01,eatonad02&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Adam Eaton</a></strong>. Eaton has brought some enthusiasm to the White Sox and that team seems far from the dead team they were last year. But Eaton's statistics are really weird. His line drive percentage of 11.1% is the fifth lowest in the Majors right now. And yet his BABIP is a healthy .313. That's kind of hard to do.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But it doesn't end there. Adam Eaton's batted ball statistics show that a full 74% of his batted balls are grounders. That gives him a ratio of ground ball to fly balls of 4 to 1. Holy cow, I have never seen those kinds of numbers put together in one batter.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lawribr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lawribr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Brett Lawrie</a></strong> of the Blue Jays is off to a slow start. He has a .151 average and a .538 OPS. Those are pretty bad numbers despite the five homers he has hit. His average makes sense because his BABIP is only .125, which is insanely low. Well...it is insanely low only if you don't see the details.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Brett Lawrie easily is last in the Majors at hitting line drives. His 8.8% line drive rate is so far off the Major League average (usually around 19.5%) that it almost seems silly. He is the only MLB player (qualified) that is under 10%. Needless to say that Mr. Lawrie is not squaring up many baseballs. Maybe he should use a fatter bat?</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/tejadru01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/tejadru01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Ruben Tejada</a></strong> of the Mets also has some mind-blowing batted ball stats. He leads the Major Leagues in line drive percentage. His rate so far in that category is almost staggering. 38.1% of his batted balls have been line drives. And he has a .688 BABIP when he hits a line drive. So why is his overall BABIP stuck at .285? That's weird isn't it?</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You don't know the half of it. Tejada has hit 16 line drives. He has also hit 16 ground balls and ten fly balls. Only one of his 26 combined ground balls and fly balls have fallen in for a hit. One! And it was on a grounder. That is amazing.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tejada, amazingly enough, is not alone. <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/casteni01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/casteni01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Nick Castellanos</a></strong> also has a similar problem. Castellanos is second in the Majors in line drive percentage at 37.7%. That's the good part. But his BABIP is only .280. Castellanos has hit 24 fly balls. Only two of them are hits and that is only because they went over the wall for homers. He only has one ground ball hit.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Royals' <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/e/escobal02.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/e/escobal02.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Alcides Escobar</a></strong> is off to a pretty good start this season and is batting .301. That is despite the fact that he leads all players in popping up to the infield. He has done so 27.8% of the time. And yet he has a healthy BABIP of .368. How does that happen? It happens when 80% of your line drives turn into hits (way over average) and 40% of your ground balls turn into hits (again, way over average). I don't think he can keep that up.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We have already seen a pretty amazing stat of Adam Eaton hitting four ground balls to every fly ball. But that is chicken feed compared to <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/reverbe01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/reverbe01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Ben Revere</a></strong>. Revere's ratio is an astounding 7.83 ground balls for every fly ball. He has only hit eight fly balls all season. And yet, Revere's BABIP is sitting at .342. Being fast helps.</span></div><div style="color: #444444; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Okay, one more. There are only three players in the Majors who have a rate of 30% or higher of their fly balls going over the fence. You could probably guess that they would be <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/trumbma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/trumbma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Mark Trumbo</a></strong>, <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pujolal01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/p/pujolal01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Albert Pujols</a></strong> and <strong style="color: black; line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=abreujo02,abreu-007jos&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=abreujo02,abreu-007jos&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.flagrantfan.com" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;" target="_blank">Jose Abreu</a></strong>. The other commonality these three share is very low BABIPs. Abreu's is the highest at .258. Trumbo's was under .200 before he got hurt. And Pujols is sitting at .240. But who cares when so many of your fly balls are sailing majestically over the fence.</span></div>

Some early batted ball anomalies

A month of a baseball season is still a fairly small sample size. After all, we are only nearing the 15% mark of the season. There are a lot...

+ Read more »