In 2008 the Yankees awarded one of the largest contracts in baseball history. At the time Tex was a power hitting, slick fielding first baseman who was coming off two consecutive .400+ wOBA seasons while being on the right side of age thirty. Tex paid dividends immediately for the Yankees, hitting 39 homers in 2009, and posting an overall wOBA of .402. Money well spent.
Then, 2010 happened. Tex posted the worst month of his career in April 2010, and had to fight his way back to a season line of .256/.365/.481. In a vacuum, it was easy to forgive 2010. Sure, Tex was indescribably awful in April, but he managed 33 homers on the year and was the heart of the offense in July and August. Had injuries not slowed him down it was easy to imagine a scenario in which he continued to rake into September.
If all those hypothetical scenarios would have been true, how should we explain Tex’s 2011? Tex is batting .246/.337/.489. His wOBA is all the way down to .357, worse than last year’s .367 mark. His wRC+ is just 123. In 2010 Tex put up his worst season since his rookie campaign. His numbers this year are even worse. Sure, he’s hit 37 homers, but no player with a .357 wOBA or a .337 OBP can be described as one of the game’s elite offensive players.
The season-by-season trend is what is most alarming for Tex. Since posting a career high .410 in 2008, Tex’s wOBA has decreased every season, to .402 in 2009, to .367 last season, to .357 this season. He’s taken his wRC+ right down along with it, which is the wrong kind of impressive when you consider the drop in offense around baseball.
The downward trend, season after season, raises the serious question if Tex is in decline? It was easy to dismiss last season as an awkward blip in an otherwise stellar career, but we now have consecutive below expectation seasons. What’s going on?
The numbers don’t look good. While many of the articles analyzing Tex recently pointed out that his BABIP of .237 this season is .059 points below his career average, two numbers jump out to me: 30 and 18. From 2007 to 2009 Tex was worth at least 32.2 runs against the fastball each year, including a career best 39.0 in 2008. He’s been around 18 since, being worth 18.8 runs against the pitch in 2010 and 16.9 runs this season. He hasn’t seen a comparable decline against any other pitch (although he has also gotten worse against the curveball, but it was never a pitch he hit well). Sudden, sharp declines against the fastball typically mean bad things for players in the near future.
None of this is to say that Tex is about to go the way of ; far from it. Tex remains a productive member of the Yankees on both sides of the ball. His success against the fastball is down, but it is still very good. The problem is that the Yankees aren’t paying Tex $23 million at a premium offensive position to be just productive or very good (that .337 OBP is unforgivable). They are paying him to be one of the best first basemen in the game. Instead, he is fifth on his own team in wRC+, among all players with at least 350 plate appearances (that cut point lets us include Alex Rodirguez, who is ahead of Tex as well). He’s eleventh among all first basemen in baseball, sixth in the American League, and far from being an elite (think top five) offensive first baseman.
Tex needs to take a page from ‘s book and work with Kevin Long to change his approach, especially left handed where he has just a .337 wOBA and a .320 OBP. While his numbers paint an undeniable picture of decline, it is hard to imagine that decline is entirely physical given his age, power (.244 ISO this year) and right handed success. Instead, the low BABIP and increased fly ball rate suggests a combination of bad luck, pitchers exploiting a weakness, and stubbornness (seriously, dude, hit the other way). Here’s hoping the Yankees can make some progress with Tex this off season, because if they don’t it is hard to imagine he’ll return to being one of the best hitters in the game in 2012.
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how is he as a RH hitter? as a lefty, his bull headedness to try and hit the ball over every bodys head all the time is killing him and his team.. he is giambi as a lefty..could not stand him in the end and tex is not a team player, he wants his stats his way..i feel this will all come out how the rest of the team feels about him..
The .337 OBP may be unforgivable, but it’s 90 points higher than his BA. It’s the BA that’s the problem, not the BBs.
Texeira has had a strange and subpar year. He’s always been a streaky hitter but this year he just hasn’t had that one month or more where’s he’d carried the team and for the last month or so he’s been awful. I don’t think there’s really a trend that you can point at though. As you said, last year while the stats weren’t as good as 2009 it was easily explained by the terrible start and the poor August/September which was due to his toe/thumb injuries. He absolutely raked though in June and July so I wouldn’t say that his skills were diminished.
Other than saying that he seems to be popping up a lot, I don’t really know what’s wrong with him. Hopefully he can work with KLong and get back to himself.
Stop with the BS OBA…he is batting on the wrong side of .250. This is bad for 23 million and even worse that the nitwit manager still bats him THIRD! Robby Cano is a 3 hitter, not protection for the shell-of-himself ARod, since your best hitter needs to be in the 3 hole. The Yankees have made bad contract decisions this plus Burnett, Jeter and Posada. At least Posada is gone after this year they are stuck with the aging Jeter and the headcase Burnett.
100% agree on all..
Great point on the drop in production on the fastball. If you can’t hit the heater in the Majors, you aren’t going to be successful. It’s that simple.
Teix is the runaway #1 candidate for the “Kevin Long Offseason Hitting Makeover” this offseason. It’s downright brutal watching him hit from the left side.
Tex is actually deadly from the right side. His numbers are right where they’ve always been. His problems are exclusively when he bats lefty, which is to say 75% of the time.
The BA is bad, but if he had the same BA, with a .390 OBP and 37 homers I wouldn’t care a lick. I focus on OBP, not BA, but that’s a preference. However method you prefer, Tex isn’t getting on base enough.
Regarding the fastball, he still hits it well. He just used to clobber it. Whatever the cause, Tex needs to change his approach. He just hasn’t been the same hitter for two seasons.
Glad everyone liked the post.
he hates to take a walk , swings at bad pitches, and looks to yank every pitch..he should bat sixth LHed and fifth RHed. cano hits third and watch his #s climb
Mark Teixeira, he of the 10.9% walk rate this year, hates to take a walk.
when he is ahead in the count .330 avg..behind .199..i have no problem RHed..lefty he swings much harder and will not try and hit where nobody is around for a hundred feet..they could put the left fielder in the infield also ,he still will try and hit it past them..
While I agree that Cano is an ideal number three hitter in this lineup, it is not true that Tex hates to walk. Tex still draws his walks. His problem this season is his low AVG. That is what is driving down his OBP.
watching his ABs every game this year, he swings 2 0 automatic.it really has to be out of the zone for him not to swing..hitting .220 says some thing about his plate coverage..
But if you’re talking about fixing his approach–well, his approach to walking is what it always is. He walks enough to get his OBP about 90 points higher than his BA. He hasn’t lost any ability to deal with the strike zone.
What he has lost is batting average. He[‘s not getting the same number of singles he used to. He IS getting the same number of walks.
Sure, if he could offset the lost singles with walks, great. But that isn’t how it works. It’s his swing that’s off, not whether he swings or doesn’t.