Yesterday, went 1-4 with a walk. His season line now reads as .239/.348/.500. Objectively, that’s not all that bad. The IsoD (.109) and IsoP (.261) are actually pretty damn fantastic. If we were to apply those numbers to a .300 hitter, his line would be .300/.409/.561, which would be MVP caliber, even if the guy played first base or a corner outfield spot.
Going into yesterday, Mark Teixeira’s season obviously didn’t look like we wanted it to, given the lower average that’s dragging down his raw OBP and raw SLG, even if the peripherals match up. But if we were to take a closer look at Tex and his numbers this year, we see a bit of a different picture.
Before yesterday’s win over the Jays, Tex was sporting a .369 wOBA. That’s a fine mark for anyone, but when your career wOBA is .386, it’s a little different. .369 would be just the sixth highest in Teixeira’s career. But in this relatively depressed offensive climate, a .369 wOBA buys you a lot more than it used to. His wRC+ was 132 during yesterday’s game. Just two seasons ago in 2009, a .369 wOBA meant a wRC+ of “only” 120. On the surface it appears that Tex isn’t having all that great of a season, but compared to the rest of the league, he’s doing alright.
Other things worth noting are that Tex has improved on his power from last year (via IsoP) and has also dropped his strikeout rate quite a bit. We would assume that increased power and lowered strikeouts would lead to a big-time season in terms of production, but there just seems to be something missing when we watch him play. Think of it like that Dali painting: up close, it looks like a bunch of cubes (and a naked woman), but when you pull back, it’s freakin’ Abe Lincoln. Oh the micro level, it just looks odd; on the macro level, though, it looks like it’s doing alright.
So what is that’s giving us agita about Tex? Look no further than his batted ball profile. Here we can see that Tex’s line drive percentage is on pace to be the lowest in his career while his fly ball percentage (steadily increasing since joining the Yankees) will also be the highest it’s ever been. His infield fly ball percentage would be lower than only one mark which occurred in his first season. On the bright side, though, his HR/FB% is right around his career average. All of this has led to a BABIP–going into yesterday–of .218. That…is not good. Punching his numbers into the simple xBABIP calculator shows us that Tex should have a BABIP of .292. If we assume a .292 BABIP for Tex, that would mean about 76 non-home run hits instead of the total of 56 (81 H – 25 HR) that Teixeira has now. Add the HRs and strikeouts back, while subtracting the sac flies, would give us a .299 average for Tex which would look MUCH, much better. There’s about a 20 hit difference in there.
First, let’s assume all those hits are singles. That gives us 20 extra total bases for Tex and puts him on base 20 more times. His line would be .299/.400/.562. If we distribute those 20 hits more evenly, considering what Tex does in terms of doubles, triples, and homers, his numbers could look even better.
Since I don’t want to let this year influence the following calculations, I’m going to use Tex’s career rates, which are more reliable than this year’s sample. In his career, Tex has 1402 hits. 316 have been doubles, 16 have been triples, 300 have been home runs and the rest (770), have been singles. As percentages, they break down like this:
Singles: 55%
Doubles: 23%
Triples: 1%
Home Runs: 21%
If we distribute those to the extra 20 hits that Tex’s xBABIP give him, we would have 11 more singles (11 more TB), 5 more doubles (10 more TB), 0 triples (.2 to be exact), and 4 homers (20 extra TB). That would push his line to .299/.400/.624. If we add these “expected numbers” into the wOBA formula from The Book, Tex’s already strong .369 wOBA would be even better. In fact, it would be a ridiculous .426, which would be the second best wOBA in the American League behind Jose Bautista.
EDIT: So, while driving to work, I realized that I included home runs in Tex’s 20 extra hits, which I can’t do. We’re talking about BABIP and xBABIP, which obviously don’t include home runs. Instead, we’ll keep the 55% singles and 23% doubles. The triples will probably still remain at zero. So, we have 11 more singles and 5 (4.6) more doubles. I’ll be generous to Tex and split the remaining hits evenly, so we’ll get 13 more singles (13 more TB) and seven more doubles (14 more TB). Then our line would be .299/.400/.582. If we plug those numbers into the wOBA calculation, we would end up with a wOBA of .4176, which would still tie him for second with and for second to Jose Bautista and his ridiculous .478 wOBA.
The moral of the story is that Tex’s batted ball profile is all out of whack for whatever reason. Given what he’s done, though, he should be doing a lot better than he is. Even with all these calculations of what SHOULD be happening, Mark Teixeira is still having a pretty damn good season, especially given the “new” offensive climate. Still, wouldn’t it be nice for things to start trending towards where they should be?
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I just realized I made a big flub with my calculations at the end of the post. Ill correct it when I get home from work.
I think we can all agree with Alex out for significant time Cano, and especially Teixeira are going to be more important than ever. We can only hope his BABIP does correct itself for the stretch run, as the offense simply isn’t the same when he isn’t on top of his game.
Teixeira’s BABIP over the last 4 years:
2007 .342
2008 .316
2009 .302
2010 .268
2011 .219
Before that it was consistently between .288 and .315.
What are the odds that it isn’t random, but that something is causing it to trend downwards?
His FB% has been creeping up since he joined the Yankees, which won’t help anyone’s BABIP.
I was going to touch on what the deal is with Teix and his batted ball numbers today too, but you already beat me to it and laid it out far better than I could ever hope to.
Well done, Matt. And yes, it would be nice to see things start trending back to where they should be and usually are with Teix. I’ve been waiting for that to happen since early June.
Could we attribute any of his drop in babip to the fact that more and more teams are using the shift against him?
That’s a possibility, though it would be really time consuming to test. My gut reaction is that there’s some effect, but not a huge one. If we saw Tex sporting a crazy-high ground ball rate and a low BABIP, I think we could support that notion. But, considering his increasing fly-ball rates and the dropping BABIPs, I don’t think it’s having a huge effect.
The only thing I would add to that is that it probably has a bigger mental effect on him than anything else. I’m not sure how, or if, you could prove it though. From a common sense perspective though, I imagine that seeing that many infielders on one side of the field would cause your mental approach going into the at bat to change some.
I wonder what kind of effect the short porch has on his fly ball rate though. He wouldn’t be the first guy to try and change his approach because of something like that.
This has been obvious for a long time yet no one has the #alls to make the change. Tex IS NOT a 3 slot batter, period; at best he should be in the 5 slot with 3 to Cano and 4 to ARod. Since time began the 3 slot was the best overall hitter (BA), with power and hopefully some speed. Tex cannot hit to the left when batting LH and can’t resist swinging at ankle-high pitches. Apparently their is an unwritten code that the highest paid must bat 3rd or 4th regardless of their numbers…. Sad!!!!
At best? So he should be 6 or lower? I’m not against Teixeira moving to the 5th hole at some point if and when it helps the team. But saying he is at best a 5 is selling him way short.
[...] exactly one month ago, I wrote a piece asking what was going on with Mark Teixeira. In it, I concluded that while Tex was having a pretty unlucky season. The moral [...]