Jeter’s Groundball Rate Off The Charts

By Moshe Mandel On April 12, 2011 · 3 Comments · In Player Analysis

Literally:

Just as a refresher on the significance of these rates, here is a quick primer from Steve Slowinski of Fangraphs Sabermetric Library:

A line drive produces 1.26 runs/out, while fly balls produce .13 R/O and groundballs produce .05 R/O. In other words, batters want to hit lots of line drives and fly balls, while pitchers want to make batters hit groundballs.

- Players that don’t hit many balls in the air (higher GB% with lower FB% and LD%) generally have higher BABIPs and batting averages, but they have limited power.

has always been in that second category, with high groundball rates, high BABIP’s, and a high batting average. That said, he tended to keep the grounders at a manageable level and hit enough balls in the air to slug over .450 and provide a balanced batting line. However, his groundball rate escalated drastically in 2010, and is literally off the charts in 2011, as you can see above. Unless he finds a way to reduce the rate at which he is hitting the ball on the ground, the best he can hope for is some better luck leading to an improved batting average, but not much else.

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3 Responses to Jeter’s Groundball Rate Off The Charts

  1. Virginia Yank says:
    April 13, 2011 at 7:08 am

    Hopefully Jeter will come around, though a full rebound seems pretty unlikely. There sure is a lot of time on his contract left.

    [Reply]

  2. Steve S. says:
    April 13, 2011 at 7:45 am

    If this continues, the Yanks and Derek will need to come to the conclusion at some point this year that he’s not an everyday player anymore. They can milk some value out of him playing against finesse pitchers, but he can’t be your starting SS past this year.

    Before they do that however, they need to sit Derek down in a room and tell him, in no uncertain terms, that he needs to fully commit to Long’s recommended changes in his stride. Ditching it after 9 games shows he was never fully sold on it. If he doesn’t make changes his results (barring a stretch of ridiculous good luck) will be the same or worse as last year, which is unacceptable for a starter who expects to bat 1 or 2 in the lineup.

    [Reply]

  3. A quick look at what A-Rod has done so far this year | New York Yankees blog, Yankees blog, A blog about the New York Yankees | The Yankee Analysts says:
    April 13, 2011 at 5:01 pm

    [...] the scenes here at TYA, Derek Jeter and his awful start have gotten a lot of attention lately. Moshe illustrated why perfectly on Tuesday. In light of this, I thought I’d take things in a more positive direction and examine the [...]

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