Much has been made about Johnny Damon’s offensive numbers being inflated by the new Yankee Stadium. Damon matched his career high of 24 homers last year at the age of 36. He also posted the highest slugging percentage of his career and with 17 of his homers coming at home he clearly benefitted from the short porch. How might the move to a much more spacious Comerica Park effect Damon’s 2010 production?

Using the ever-valuable Hit Tracker we can see exactly where each of Damon’s homers landed in 2009. But with a little image manipulation we can overlay Damon’s homer onto Comerica Park’s dimensions and get a feel for the impact of his new home park would have on his production.

Five of Damon’s homers would have come up short in Comerica Park, and two to three more would have been in jeopardy as well.

Clearly Damon benefitted from the shallow dimensions at Yankee Stadium, but did he “luck into” those homers or did he he alter his swing to make make the most of those dimensions? Scott Boras claimed that Damon tried to hook homers at Yankee Stadium while using his whole-field approach other places.

Grabbing the balls-in-play plotted data from the MLB Gameday application it is easy enough to see if Boras was correct in his assessment, or just making claims with little regard for factual accuracy.

Similar to what I did with the assessment I did of Curtis Granderson, I calculated the vector of each ball in play and then classified each as opposite field, up-the-middle, or pulled. First the table for Yankee Stadium (the new version of course in 2009 and the old version in 2007-8)

And now the road version.

Damon has begun to pull the ball more in each of the last 3 years, but that isn’t limited to Yankee Stadium. He exhibited the same tendencies on the road, and in 2009 it was even slightly more pronounced.

It doesn’t appear that Damon concocted a special swing he only used in Yankee Stadium last year. He appeared to pull the ball no matter where he was. Damon will still likely hit his share of homers, but a total in the mid teens is a more likely outcome. As is a line that is closer to his 2009 road numbers (284/349/446) than his homer inflated home line (279/382/533).

Gerald Laird was arrested Wednesday night for assaulting a security guard at a Phoneix Suns game. Here’s the blotter story:

Detroit Tigers catcher Gerald Laird, 30, was cited for assault. His brother Brandon Laird, 22, was cited for disorderly conduct, police said. The younger brother is a prospect in the New York Yankees minor league system.

Police also arrested Gregory Scott Collins, 51, on suspicion of assault after the 9 p.m. incident as the Suns wrapped their 116-98 win over the Boston Celtics.

Phoenix police Sgt. Andy Hill said a fourth man “inappropriately touched a female” at the lounge on level 3 of the arena, though he was not arrested because the female victim “did not want to get involved or provide us with any information and declined prosecution.”

Security previously contacted the group of men about their loud behavior, Hill said. Two of the men were allowed back into the lounge after a conversation with security, but a melee broke out shortly afterwards.

As security guards tried to arrest Brandon Laird, his brother and Collins “interfered and assaulted the security guards,” Hill said.

One shouldn’t rush to judgment on these matters, but Laird’s involvement in any way shape or form probably was a bad idea. Sigh. This Tigers team is getting hard to like. We’ll wait and see if Lynn Henning writes a series of columns about Laird being a distraction, dragging down the offense, and not being focused enough on baseball.

Curtis Granderson’s 2009 season has received plenty of scrutiny, and this was even before trade rumors crept up. Granderson struggled at times during the season, and had a hard time sustaining success. His .249 batting average was the lowest of his career and it was a drag on his on base percentage and slugging percentage as well. We know batting average is volatile so did Granderson just suffer from some bad luck, or did something else change? Fortunately we have hit location data to help shed some light on these questions.

Granderson’s batting average was dragged down by a .276 batting average on balls in play. That is a number that should typically be in the .320ish range, especially for someone with Granderson’s speed. A shift like that would lead people to think he was largely unlucky. A closer look would show a shift in his balls in play from the harder to field grounders to the easier to field fly balls. Ask fans what they saw and many would say it looked like Granderson got overly concerned with the homers (a new career high) and that he pulled the ball to much. But what would the data say?

Spray Charts and other data

Below are spray charts for each of Granderson’s last 3 years. These charts were assembled by using data from the MLB.com Gameday application. The hit locations are reported by the MLB.com stringer and aren’t absolute positions in the sense that Pitch f/x measures things, but this serves as a very nice proxy. The blue dots are outs, the orange dots are hits. Click on each chart to get a larger view.

One of the nice things about spray charts is that there is plenty of data and certain trends can emerge. One of the not so nice things about spray charts is that there is plenty of data and they can sometimes be overwhelming.

The pretty orange table to the right takes the above spray charts and puts them into tabular form. The vector is the direction the ball was hit. Second base is 90 degrees from home plate, the first baseline is at 135 degrees and the third baseline is at 45 degrees. The gradient shading indicates the higher percentages, the darker the field, the higher the concentration of balls in play.

While he’s been a pull hitter his whole career, it became much more pronounced in 2009 with half of his balls in play (50%)between the first baseline and the approximate spot of the second baseman. That easily topped his previous seasons where he had 42% and 46% in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

Summarizing the table into  a more compact table gives us:

Dir.	2007	2008	2009
Oppo	16.53%	21.41%	16.53%
Middle	36.23%	34.22%	29.08%
Pull	46.40%	42.60%	50.60%

Opposite is defined as vectors 50-75,  middle is defined as 80-105, and pull is defined as 110-135 (keep in mind these are actually buckets so the something like 76 would fall in the 80 bucket and 46 would fall in the 50 bucket).

Granderson went the opposite way at the exact same rate as 2007, his best season. The 2008 season was when he spread the ball around the most, but the difference between 2009 and the other season was the rate at which he took the ball up the middle.

Pulling the ball isn’t a bad thing

We hear it all the time that batters get too pull happy. Maybe Granderson falls into that category in 2009, but if you look at his overall numbers he hits MUCH better to the pull field. For his career he hits .470 on balls that he pulls versus .302 on balls up the middle and .293 on balls to the left side.

Granderson continued to thrive when pulling the ball in 2009, perhaps dismissing the notion that he was pull-happy. He posted a .457 batting average on pulled balls as opposed to hitting .241 up the middle and .221 to the opposite field.

But I won’t dismiss the notion and instead speculate that Granderson either a)tried to pull the ball too much and balls the other way were accidents or b)had a mechanical change that prevented him from driving the ball when he wasn’t pulling it. Or maybe it was some combination of both, like b) fostering a).

The air outs

The biggest change in Granderson’s batted ball distribution was the exchange of ground balls for fly balls. Granderson’s line drive rate was right in line with his career mark (21.2 % in 2009 and 20.7% overall). But Granderson for his career is a 36% ground ball hitter and a 43% fly ball hitter. In 2009 those numbers were 29% and 49%. This shift helped Granderson’s home run production, but it hurt his batting average on balls in play driving down his overall batting average.

Not all fly balls are created equal. Some fly balls have a chance to become home runs or gappers. Pop-ups have a very small chance of becoming anything other than an easy out. Unfortunately Granderson hit a ton of pop-ups in 2009. Those pop-ups also accounted for a healthy percentage of the balls that Granderson hit to the opposite field.

You’ll see that the Fly Out profile remained fairly consistent in terms of distribution across each of the last 3 years. It’s the fly balls classified as Pop Outs that rose dramatically. Also, Granderson did tend to pull everything that he hit on the ground with only 26 ground outs that weren’t pulled in 2009.

*A brief aside on classifications – These are how MLB.com classified items and they are the ones that made distinction between Pop Outs and Fly Outs. Also, these are pretty much the classifications we have to work with. I don’t have information like “Ground ball single to left” to account for hits that went to the left side on the ground.

For those who prefer the visual representation of the spray chart, the plot below has all of Granderson’s Fly Outs and Pop-Outs for the last 3 years.

Visually it’s easy to see the disproportionate number of red dots as opposed to the other colors. The other thing I think I see (haven’t quantified it) is that there are more deep blue and green dots in left field.

Putting it together

As with most things there isn’t just one answer. Because he still did well when pulling the ball, I don’t think he was necessarily pulling the ball too much. The pop-ups were a large source of the drop in batting average with infield flies having a similar negative impact as a strikeout. It almost always results in an out and almost always fails to advance runners. The difference is that a couple manage to drop (ask Gerald Laird and his love affair with the right field foul line).

Hitters do have some control over infield flies and with Granderson doubling his rate there was probably a change. The 2006 Hardball Times annual shows us that there is a .60 year to year correlation for infield fly rates for hitters so it is something that hitters do have control over.

Using the xBABIP calculator Granderson’s BABIP should have been about .301. So we can ballpark it and say half of his dip in BABIP can be attributed to bad luck, and about half can be chalked up to a change in batted ball distribution.

I don’t know that Granderson needs to use the whole field to be effective. He was very effective in 2007 without hitting a lot of balls to the opposite field. But he probably does need to use more of the field than he did in 2009 when a big chunk of opposite field balls were merely pop-ups.

References

The sites where data was drawn from were linked in the context of the article, but I also used The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2006
for data on infield fly repeatability. The spray charts and corresponding data were produced by following the examples in the uber valuable Baseball Hacks
book.

It appears that Clete Thomas has himself a cheering section.

Justin Verlander has gotten off to a rough start in 2009. People are starting to question his “ace-hood” and with an ERA of 9.00 after 4 starts it is probably justified. What makes his start so perplexing is that his “stuff” appears to be back. His fastball velocity is over 95mph and he’s fanning 10.7 batters per 9 innings. The numbers that really need a deeper examination though are those when runners are on base. Verlander is stranding only 39.6% of runners (a normal rate is 65-75%) and hitters post a 457 OBP with men on and only 296 with the bases empty. What’s up with that?

Stuff and Selection

The disparity made me wonder if there was something mechanical that changed when Verlander went into the stretch. Did he have a harder time finding the zone, was his stuff not as good, less break, less velocity? I took a look at the pitch f/x data for his first 4 games looked at stretch and wind-up situations. The pitch mix, velocity, and horizontal and vertical movement for his pitches in both scenarios are displayed below.

Verlander actually throws his fastball harder from the stretch adding a full mile per hour. The extra speed on the heater doesn’t hurt his movement at all (those are inches, so a couple tenths of an inch is insignificant.

He throws his curve ball harder in those situations also, and in this case he actually is sacrificing movement. He gets over an inch less drop on his breaking ball. With his change-up he throws it a little harder with a wind-up, but still gets more sink with the extra mile per hour making me wonder if he slows his arm more with the change-up from the stretch.

But the bigger differences aren’t in the pitch path to the plate, but the selection. Verlander throws his fastball 75% of the time with the bases empty, but he starts throwing his curve and change much more with runners on base. The fastball is Verlander’s best pitch, his signature pitch, but he goes away from it when he gets in trouble.

Strike Throwing and Command

In terms of control, he actually throws pitches in the strike zone at a better rate from the stretch. But his rate of strikes is markedly lower. The table below is a break down of his strikes by type of strike.

Verlander doesn’t get swinging strikes or called strikes at the same rate when pitching with men on. A deeper look reveals that from the wind-up, 24 of the 28 swinging strikes that Verlander has  earned this year have come on the fastball. With runners on base, he goes away from the pitch and only had 16 swinging strikes with runners on and only 7 came on the fastball.

Release Point

One last thing I wanted to look at was release point. Does something change that makes Verlander more or less deceptive? Below is the ball’s location at 50 feet from the front of home plate.

At least at the 50 foot mark things are pretty consistent between the two deliveries. There is a cluster of pitches off to the right and a little lower than the main grouping. That cluster occurred in the first 3 innings of the Blue Jays game. I don’t know if his delivery changed that much or if it was a calibration issue. At the very least I think that this portion can be deemed inconclusive.

Based on this pretty limited study it doesn’t appear that being in the stretch itself disrupts Verlander too much. His curve and change-up are altered slightly, but being a geek instead of a ballplayer I don’t know how much those changes in movement effect results. What I can see though is that he becomes much more reliant on those pitches in that situation. So if the pitches are less effective from the stretch, by throwing them more he doesn’t help his chances.

Lee Panas of Detroit Tiger Tales recently interviewed Curtis Granderson. Lee asked several thoughtful questions and Granderson responded with some pretty thoughtful answers. My favorite was an exchange about Granderson’s defense last season:

TT: In the past, you have indicated that you take pride in your defense and that you have worked hard on that part of your game. Are you happy with the progress you have made in that area?

CG: This past year’s defense, I actually took a step back, so I wasn’t happy with my play in the 2008 season. I felt that being out with the broken finger and not be able to run while injured put me a step behind once I returned to the lineup and I never fully got back to where I wanted to be. So this 2009 season, I must get myself two steps ahead of where I want to be, and get back to playing the defense that I want to play.

It’s nice to hear a player admit when there was a shortcoming in his game. After each season Granderson has had one major area where he needed to improve. After 2006 it was cutting down on strikeouts. After 2007 it was hitting lefties. This year’s task is defense. His success on the other fronts and the recognition about his own performance is what makes me think 2008 will just be a blip.

It’s really not all that surprising, but Todd Jones has announced his retirement. This was likely to be Jones last season regardless, but the injury and resulting ineffectiveness likely sealed the deal.

Jones is the Tigers all time saves leader and his 319 career saves places him 14th in the history of the game.

I’m hoping that he joins the team this weekend and that he can be honored in some way. He deserves to go out to cheers instead of the cavalcade of boos he was serenaded with his last time on the mound.

Congrats on a great career Jonesy.

Sporting News Today – September 24, 2008

The Tigers are going to be mixing and matching down the stretch it appears. Kenny Rogers will miss his next start. This is due to hip pain that is believed to be rendering him completely ineffective. (Yes, the old guy has a bad hip. The jokes seem to easy to make, but too easy to ignore also.)

In his place will likely be Nate Robertson. I think it’s a safe assumption that this has more to do with needing a starter than Robertson pushing his way back.

Also, it looks like Dontrelle Willis may get a start. Willis and Freddy Garcia will pitch against each other in another simulated game on Tuesday, and the decision will probably be made at that point.

If Willis is healthy and the mechanical tweaks are in place, then by all means start him. I know it would be nice to wait until everything is perfect, but Willis needs to be in game situations, and at this point it won’t cost the Tigers anything. But the key is if he’s healthy.

Between the knee and more recently the forearm, you have to question if Willis has been healthy at any point this year. Sending an injured pitcher out there to see what you’ve got doesn’t help anyone.

It is looking more and more like Todd Jones has thrown his last pitch. He was with the team the past couple days, but the shoulder isn’t getting better and he is headed home to Alabama.

Jones called a team meeting before the Tigers went out on the field for batting practice and, with hugs, was saying good-bye to his teammates when the clubhouse doors re-opened to the media.

Jones said he’d continue rehabbing and will try to be back, but it doesn’t sound promising.

I know it’s hokey, but I was really hoping that Jones could come back and make an appearance at the end of the season. Just come in and record an out (yeah it might take a couple batters) in a low pressure situation so he could walk off the field to cheers. His last outings at home were atrocious, and he was booed off the field. For a guy that truly loved being a Tiger, and is the team’s all time save leader, you’d hope he could at least go off on a high note.

Jones made me nuts some times, or maybe even frequently. And when he’d blow up he’d face the music. My favorite quote the day after an awful 2006 performance in Toronto came when he was asked how he slept the night before. Jonesy’s response…

I slept like a baby. I woke up every 2 hours crying.

Baseball Prospectus just released what they call “The Ultimate Fantasy Draft.” Essentially they throw contract status out the window and rank the 50 players that teams should build around. Curtis Granderson earned a ranking of 16, right between Ryan Braun and Tim Lincecum (and two spots behind Miguel Cabrera).

Nate Silver had this to say in the Curtis blurb:

Somewhere around Webb or Braun, we really turned a corner into the next tier of talent. Granderson is just a superlative ballplayer, excelling in every phase of the game, and his work ethic is so strong that he could wind up getting even better.

Now what does this have to do with Matt Joyce? The Spot Starters recently looked at Granderson’s first extended opportunity at playing time, and Matt Joyce’s first extended opportunity. Both seasons occurred when the players were the same age (23). Here’s the kicker, Joyce’s debut has been more impressive than Granderson’s, and its not that close. Joyce hit for a slightly better average, substantially more power, gets on base better, is striking out less…

A pretty interesting and surprising comparison. It’s not a suggestion that Joyce follows the same development path and becomes an elite player, but the skill sets aren’t that different. Both are left handed. Both hit for power. Both walk at an acceptable rate. Both have some speed. Both strike out a little too much (though Granderson has since cut his down).

What separated the two going into their debut seasons was the minor league pedigree. Granderson worked his way up the ladder making progress with each stop and posting impressive seasons. Joyce had a nice debut in short season ball, but his follow up year was simply okay (753 OPS). And he struggled when promoted to AA the following year, nearly getting demoted before heating up.

One other similarity between the two. After their impressive debut seasons, Jim Leyland wasn’t willing to hand a starting spot to either of them going into the next season. Granderson had to “battle” Nook Logan for a spot in spring training. And Leyland would merely say that Joyce is in the mix. Hopefully the similarities continue.

Gary Sheffield still isn’t happy with his DH role. In a Boston Globe article Sheffield was his typically candid self.

“I can be in the outfield and play every day. I don’t want to DH. I don’t feel like a baseball player when I DH. I don’t know how to be the leader that I am from the bench. I can’t be a vocal leader. I can’t talk to guys from the bench because I don’t feel right about it.

“I’m in a role now where I don’t know what to do, really. The guys are out there busting their butt for nine innings, they come in and they hit and they grind. I just sit down and hit. That’s all I do, so I can’t be in a leadership role from that position.”

Sheffield has drawn a lot of ire this year for his lack of production. But he has been uncharacteristically quiet – by his standards anyways.

We all remember the left field experiment earlier in the year that didn’t go well when Sheffield couldn’t actually throw the ball. Supposedly he is healthier now, and the production has been increasing. Since the All Star break he’s hitting 247/333/493 (not including today’s suck-fest).

And I can’t be upset with a guy who wants to play more, and do more, and contribute more. But he’s not the same hitter he once was. He goes on to talk about how tough pitchers are pitching him:

“I don’t get pitched the same like everybody else. I get pitched very carefully. Now that I’m a lot better physically, I can handle tough pitching. I can be the player that I know I am.”

…

“They work it down and away or up and in, and it’s always on the edges,” Sheffield said. “That’s how I’m getting pitched, but I can handle that.”

But he isn’t handling it. For the season he’s striking out in 22% of his at-bats. That is well beyond his career 12.5% average. And it isn’t just a product of his injury early on. Even since the All Star break when he’s been moderately productive, he’s still fanning at a 20% rate. As for pitcher’s pitching him tough, they can’t be pitching him any tougher than they had in past.

I’m not going to say that Sheffield sucks. Hi skills are fading, but if he can maintain his post All Star pace I have no problem with an average OBP and a solid slugging percentage. He came back too quickly, and he should have gone on the DL.

But in terms of being a vocal leader? Maybe it’s best not to lament not playing for a different team:

“The Yankees knew I wanted to go to Boston,” Sheffield said. “They picked up my option so I wouldn’t wind up there. I would have loved it because I love that atmosphere. It means something.

“At this stage of my career, I want to feel that again. That’s what I play for. That’s what gets me revved up.”

Yes the Tigers are a long shot for the playoffs at this point. But there still is a shot. And baseball is a big deal here in Detroit. The Tigers will shatter their attendance record and night in and night out in Detroit Sheffield is playing in front of sell out crowds. And the boos that Sheffield received from the home crowd today are indicative of the fact that the fans are “revved up.” I know the atmosphere in Detroit doesn’t rival Fenway, but it’s not like he’s playing in front of a bunch of empty seats.

I’m sure clarifying remarks will be coming out in the next day or so, and Sheffield will talk about how happy he is in Detroit. But this doesn’t play well, especially from a guy who’s lack of production this season has been a part of the problem.

Some stats and such that may or may not be interesting:

Edgar Renteria might not totally suck

Edgar Renteria is hitting 288/351/404 since the All Star Break. He is a career 290/347/404 hitter. He also has only 4 strike outs in his last 57 plate appearances (and 4 GIDP – eek). A return to normalcy or a blip in a crappy season?

Defensively he looked the best he has all season in the Indians series and +/- still has him at 0, meaning he is quite average. In RZR there are 9 qualified shortstops in the AL and Renteria is tied for 4th meaning he is kind of average.

Guillen can pick it

It turns out that Carlos Guillen can play defense. He isn’t stellar, but his .716 RZR is 6th out of 11 qualified shortstops. He rates as -1 in +/- which is 14th among MLB third baseman. Not stellar, but not bad for a guy on his 3rd position in the last calendar year. Considering that AL third sackers are hitting 266/339/428 and Guillen is hitting 286/374/437 that’s not a bad situation.

On kind of a downer note, Guillen hit 318 – 320 – 320 from 2004 to 2006. He dropped to 296 last year and 286 this year. And his slugging percentage is the lowest it’s been since his hamstring plagued 2005 season. His OBP is still solid, and there is a league widde dip in slugging so his OPS+ is still at 116. But is this the first step in what may be a rapid decline? It’s certainly possible for a player on the wrong side of 30.

Plunkocity

Clay Rapada drilled Grady Sizemore yesterday with the bases loaded driving in a run. It was the 5th time this season that a Tigers pitcher has plunked in a run. Also of note, Tigers pitchers have plunked 13 Indians batters this season. That is more than double the next closest team, the White Sox who have received 6 bruises from Tigers pitchers. A complete plunkocity report is available for your perusal.

When I was driving home last night shortly after the trade came down, I was listening to WDFN. I was more than a little taken aback by the number of callers saying good-riddance to Ivan Rodriguez. While there may be something to that in terms of evaluating the trade, there also seemed to be a glaring lack of recognition for what Tigers fans had the last 4.5 years. They had the pleasure to watch one of the best in the history of the game day in day out and he was wearing the English D.

For the last half decade Tigers fans have had a sure thing first ballot hall of famer playing for their team. This is a good thing. It’s a rare thing. It’s something that needs to be appreciated.

Not everything was pretty with Pudge. He had his superstar foibles. The absolute refusal to take a walk in 2005 and 2007 was maddening. His pouting and petulance likely played a role in dividing the clubhouse in Alan Trammell’s last year and shouldn’t be excused or forgotten. But greatness doesn’t come around that often, and it is even rarer that it comes to teams who threaten the all time loss record.

I know that Pudge came where the money was, so I don’t know how much credit he deserves for coming here. But he did come here and that is pretty special regardless of the circumstances. He also probably gets more credit than he deserves for leadership and handling of a pitching staff. After all, he didn’t even warm-up the starter in the bullpen before games leaving that to the bullpen catcher.

We didn’t see Pudge at his peak, but we did see him when he was still pretty good. He had a phenomenal 2004 season including the month of June when he hit .500. There was the big walk-off homer against the Indians in 2006. There was the extra-inning walk off hit against the Red Sox in 2007. And there were all the baserunners cut down and even more that didn’t try. We saw a guy with over 2000 games caught who can still hit nearly .300 and run the bases like a 28 year old second baseman.

I make a point to keep a mental checklist of all the great players I’ve seen in person. I know the times that I saw Roger Clemens start (steroids or not he’s phenomenal). I remember the time I saw Barry Bonds in person, and the games where Ken Griffey Jr. came to Comerica. And I appreciate every time the Yankees come to town because Alex Rodriguez is a remarkably rare talent. Pudge Rodriguez is in that class. There were problems for sure.  However, he’s the best catcher by far in my lifetime* and I got to see him play for MY team wearing the home whites. And that’s pretty special.

*Okay, Johnny Bench played in my lifetime but he was at the end of his career when I was old enough to discover baseball.

Edgar Renteria has had a half season that everybody would probably like to forget. The.259 batting average looks great compared to the .301 OBP and .326 slugging percentage. Couple this with the fact that Jair Jurrjens is pitching well and the Tigers are a long shot for the playoffs at this point, and the trade that brought Renteria here looks awful. Given all that, is there any hope left for Renteria? There may be.

One thing going for Renteria is that he has a 22.4% line drive rate. That’s right in line with his career number of 22.8%. The Hardball Times has a measure called PrOPS which is a predicted value for OPS based on batted ball characteristics and other offensive measures. JC Bradbury recently posted the top 3 PrOPS leaders for the first half by position. Renteria actually ranks third among AL shortstops (it’s a really bad year) with a PrOPS of .751. Even if he achieved that number it’s not All Star caliber, but it would qualify as productive.

The difference between Renteria’s actual OPS and PrOPS is the 5th greatest negative difference meaning he’s probably hitting into some bad luck.

So there is hope that Renteria is better in the second half, but what is a reasonable expectation for his final line even if he gets some breaks and manages to maintain his line drive rate? THT put together a spreadsheet that combines Marcel projections with season to date performance to project a final line. Luckily for me, someone else has already run Renteria’s numbers.

His projection for the remainder of the season is 282/342/402 which would be a pretty dramatic improvement. But his horrendous start means that if he achieves that line over the balance of the season, that still leaves him with a .680 OPS when all is said and done.

In addition, despite the career level line drive rate, there are some other red flags (as if we needed more). His walk rate of 6.7% is his lowest since the 6.2% he posted in 2004 and significantly below his 8.2% career rate. The drop in walks is probably in part due to a tendency to chase more pitches. He’s swinging at 27.86% of pitches outside the strike zone. In past years his number has been closer to 20%.

Renteria should be better in the second half. He was pretty awful in the first half. He chased too many pitches, and it was probably compounded by some bad luck. It’s hard to imagine Renteria or the trade looking much worse in the second half. Of course a nice little surge by Edgar and the team that leaves them in the playoffs and everyone feels a little better.

In the wake of Miguel Cabrera’s 2 homer performance on Tuesday, we learned a little bit about what Cabrera keeps in his locker and it seems to be an eclectic mix.

• He has 3 unopened candy bars. (yeah, yeah, weight jokes, yeah) We don’t know the brands, and I think this is pretty important information.
• Voodoo dolls. This was reported by Curtis Granderson. Not sure if the voodoo dolls are of particular people, or if maybe they are generic and wear certain uniforms on certain days. But I do feel somewhat comforted that Cabrera is channeling his inner Pedro Cerrano.
• And spotted tonight in his postgame interview, there was a bobblehead that I believe to be Curtis Granderson. It’s unclear if this is in fact one of the voodoo dolls.