This season there have been some players who have underperformed from their career norms. Here is a hitter and a pitcher I expect to bounce back for the final two months of the season based on batted ball data have been unlucky.
Robinson Cano
His struggles this season have been well documented, as he has not played up to his expectations. Cano’s slash line is .260/.300/.400/.700 (AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS), which is under his career slash line of .307/.355/.494/.848. As you can see his stats are not up to par with his career numbers, but a little dip in his numbers was expected because he left the Yankees to play with the Mariners who play in a pitcher’s park. His stats have dropped off much more than expected this year because last year his AVG and OBP were nearly identical to his 2013 season with only his slugging dropping due to playing 81 games at Safeco Field instead of Yankee Stadium. There were also rumors about him struggling with his health as a reason why he has not played up to his contract. Whatever it is ,he has not played well in 2015 and his disappointing season is a main reason the Mariners have struggled so much.
If you take a look into his average batted ball velocity and his BABIP (batting average on balls in play) you see a different story. You see a player who should be having a good season and not one where he is struggling to be above replacement level. Using a minimum of 120 at-bats, he ranks 33rd out of 200 in batted ball velocity with a batted ball velocity 91.32 mph (baseballsavant.com). This puts him ahead of Jason Kipnis and Joe Panik, two second basemen who both made the all-star team (baseballsavant.com). Taking a look at his BABIP shows a slightly below average BABIP of .295, but well below his career norm of .322. Accounting for regression, balls that were finding fielders in the first-half should be dropping for hits in the second-half. Cano has ran into bad luck this season because an above average batted velocity should not result in a below average BABIP. It already looks like he is regressing positively as he is hitting .339/.388/.597/.985 in his last 15 games. Expect stretches like this from Cano for the rest of the season as his BABIP normalizes to his career average and his batted ball velocity begins to show in his stats.
Collin McHugh
McHugh burst onto the scene last year with an ERA of 2.73, WHIP of 1.022, K/9 of 9.14, BB/9 of 2.39, and a HR/9 of 0.76. Those are strong numbers for any pitcher, and especially for one who was waiver claim. This season McHugh has not been as good with an ERA of 4.35, WHIP of 1.292, K/9 of 7.13, BB/9 of 2.10, and a HR/9 of 1.05. An explanation for his struggles stems from his home run rate, which is 1.4% higher than last reason. It may not seem like a lot, but it is because he has already given up more home runs than last season in 34.2 less innings. His lower strikeout rate has also contributed for a less than stellar season so far. As you can see there are valid reasons why he has not been the same pitcher as he was last year, but if you look at his batted ball profile he should be performing much better.
A main reason for his decrease in effectiveness is that his BABIP against is 51 points higher than last season, which is surprising because his groundball rate increased. The massive increase in BABIP against is unexpected because he ranks 12th out of 146 in average batted ball velocity against with an average of 86.45 mph. He ranks better than Madison Bumgarner and Scott Kazmir, who are both having much better seasons than McHugh. His line drive percentage has also decreased this season compared to last season, which is another indicator that his BABIP against is higher than it should be. He is also underperforming his FIP (fielding independent pitching) by .48 runs. This shows that his ERA is higher than it should be and that he is a prime candidate for some positive regression for the rest of the season. Even though his stats won’t reach 2014 levels, expect a strong second half for McHugh with an ERA ranging from 3.30-3.65 due to a decrease in his BABIP and an ERA falling in line with his FIP by the end of the season.
Sources
http://baseballsavant.com/apps/hit_leader.php
http://baseballsavant.com/apps/hit_leader.php?game_date=&abs=&sort=3,1&type=pitcher
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/canoro01.shtml
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mchugco01.shtml
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=3269&position=2B
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=7531&position=P
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/baseball-joe/blog/cano-playing-through-it-070815