First, I am happy and not because we played well in the first half. I am happy because our guys didn't participate in the HR derby. I only wish none of our players played in the game so we could fully rest, but one thing at a time.
As for our record and how we played, I am very happy as well.
A look at our offensive players and whether we should get more (or less) out of them in the 2nd half...
C - Sanchez/Romine - Sanchez - He will come back tonight with an OPS of .723. While he swings at awful pitches because he is in "swing no matter what" mode, he will do much better in the 2nd half. Plate discipline (particularly against righties) is huge from Gary and will decide where he can take his game, but I have confidence his 2nd half will be a lot more productive than his first half. His defense will probably always cause me discomfort, bt but if he hits like he is capable, he can be a huge asset for us. Romine has an OPS of .825 through the first half and I would be thrilled if he could keep that up. He likes to take the ball to RF and has done that better than he ever has. Keep in mind this is a guy who had an OPS of .600 over the past 2 years, so jumping to .825 is crazy. He has looked better at the plate even when making outs but he is coming back to earth. We have to expect less production from Romine, but he will be better than the .600 OPS of the past few years. I would not be surprised with him maintaining a .700 plus OPS if he plays less...which has to be our hope.
1B - Bird - He missed about half our games and his recent HR burst has brought him to respectability but not what we would like. Right now he is a legitimate 30 HR guy if he played every game and he is only 25 so there is upside. His OPS this year is .774, but he has to get it over .800 as a 1B. He has the ability to be a mid .800 OPS guy so I feel that his 2nd half will be better than his first half (better than .774). Also, just being able to play at 1B will make us better as the other people who played did not perform well. Should see more production.
2B - Torres - Outside of his injury, it is hard to assume better production or defense than he has given us. His OPS of .905 is outstanding and while he has made 10 errors (high) his range is excellent so his defense has been average overall, but I expect the error rate to drop moving forward. Based on pitchers adjusting, I think we should see a little decrease in performance.
SS - Didi - Through a great start and then an awful slump his first half has been overall solid. He has an .800 OPS and has shown some maturity at the plate walking more times in the first half then he has walked in any full year with the Yankees. His fielding has remained very solid. While continuing at an .800 OPS (which would be his career high) would be good, I think we should see a slight increase in performance.
3B - Andujar - His defense has been adequate at 3rd base. His offense has been solid at an .805 OPS. While pitchers will adjust to him just like Torres, he has shown the ability to hit bad balls (great breaking ball hitter) and we should see about the same production. Remember that his OPS of .805 is easier to maintain than a .905 OPS Torres has.
LF - Gardner - After a bad start (.601 OPS) for his first 125 Plate Appearances (PA), Gardner has been solid over his next 244 PA's with an OPS of about .810 to pull his overall OPS to .748 which is about what one would expect. he also continues to play superb defense. His SB's aren't what they once were but he still has swiped 9 while being caught only once which adds to his OPS 7 total bases or about 18 points of OPS (makes it .766 to adjust for SB's). Expect about the same level of production
CF - Hicks - Aaron was one of the big question marks on what we would get from him. As I mentioned in my preseason post, he had only had that one great stretch for us and he finished the year poorly and was awful in the postseason. His track record was one of unfulfilled promise for all the tools he has. This year, he has given us good production. His OPS of .839 is good for a CF'r. and is much better than his career numbers. The question is whether at 28 has he turned the corner into a solid/decent producer? He has continued being better against lefty pitchers, which is a shame because we could use more help against righties, but he still has an OPS of .784 against righties this year (.972 against lefties). His career OPS is about 100 points higher from the right side. I hope he has turned the corner and while he has more HR's than he has ever had in a single year already, he is only 83 AB's from the most ASB's he has had in a year. Based on his walk % the last two years and the fact he normally doesn;t swing at too many bad balls, his plate discipline is better and this is why he has seen better production. I think he will have about the same level of production.
RF - Judge - It is hard to take our best hitter and say I will expect more, but I do expect an increase in production from Judge. His OPS is an excellent .937, but I think he has left a lot of good pitches on the table. He is ultra productive even from a standpoint of making pitchers work hard with his crazy amount of full counts he sees. The problem is that I think he lets too many hittable pitchers go just to get to a 3-2 count. I think he can have a 1.000 OPS the 2nd half of the year but am confident he will be better in the 2nd half. He has been pretty equal this year against righties and lefties but has struggled on the road (.681) compared to home (1.213) which continued the trend from last year where he was .230 OPS points better at home. I do think he needs to turn on some inside pitches more as he tends to swing a little like Jeter (with a lot more power) in that he keeps his hands inside the ball and naturally has a RC field swing. But, he has to be careful not to change his swing too much because of the shorter RF porch and give up on the inside pitches. He is fun to watch!
DH - Stanton - I have never seen someone have so many awful AB's letting strikes go right down the middle and then swing at pitches that aren't even close. Through many of these head scratching AB's where it seems like he is just a stupid hitter with a terrible plan, he has managed an OPS of a very solid .864. He has tremendous power and does square up a lot of balls when he swings at good pitches. For him to be more successful, it is a mental game IMO. He needs to have a better plan and get more discipline. It is a tribute to his ability to be able to still be this productive with this approach in his game. His career OPS is .910 and there is no reason that he can't better that in the 2nd half so I expect an increase in production from Stanton.
Walker - Neil is suffering through his worst year by far. A career .768 OPS guy who has been more of an .800 OPS guy over the past bunch of years has an OPS of a putrid .563! It is hard to expect anything other than a lot more production just based on the back of his card.
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That was a great post; we'll see how good your predictions were at the end of the season! I might have differed on a few. For example, instead of Bird's "should see more production" I would have said "I have no clue whatsoever." :-) I guess you can't say that when you're making predictions, but will he stay healthy? Will he hit consistently, or will he forever be one of those hitters like Chase Headley who gets hot for a while, but then goes into legendary slumps? He's saddled with too many question marks for me to expect an increase.
ReplyDeleteI think Bird is the hardest one to call, but I haven't watched that much this year, so I really don't know what he looks like at the plate. If I was forced to make a prediction instead of my cop-out, I'd probably still cop-out by saying to expect the same production. I think for this year at least he will be a streaks and slumps hitter, and I think that it's all going to average out to that .774 OPS he currently possesses.
Speaking of not watching a player, I've barely seen any of Torres. Can he really maintain close to an OPS of .900 at 2nd base in his rookie season? You only predicted "a little decrease;" does he really look that good? No holes in his swing? Not having seen him (but looking at the boxscores and articles), the combination of pitcher adjustments, defensive shifts, and proverbial rookie wall would make me predict a bigger decrease. However, I don't know what you really meant by little decrease. I think that his OPS from here on will be no better than .850, and if I had to predict a number it would probably about .825. Again, I'm talking out my butt somewhat because I haven't seen him, so hopefully when we're revisiting these predictions, we can all laugh at me for not having faith in him.
I really like your other predictions, your rationale is solid, and I can't say I would pick otherwise. So I'm a little less bullish on a couple of players than you are. Figures, right? But I might point out that you predicted 6 players would have an increase in production and only 2 for a decrease.