Jay Bruce, how good will be be?

[SteelSD]

Originally Posted by Dan

Given your caveats, my guess is he will pan out to be like Geoff Jenkins. Solid, but never quite hitting his potential ceiling because his selective aggressiveness isn't there.

I wouldn't go as far as a Jenkins comp for Bruce considering Bruce's minor league IsoP advantage. But it's interesting that Jenkins MiLB BB rate was actually higher than Bruce's has been. Some of that might be attributed to advancing at a younger age for Bruce, but we can't simply discount Bruce's below-average IsoD as being a non-issue at this point. Very few MLB hitters are able to produce consistent seasons of the kind of "ceiling" performance that some are expecting for Bruce with that kind of IsoD.

Aramis Ramirez is possibly the best example of someone who produces consistent low-.900 OPS numbers while also producing a lower-than-average IsoD. Now, K rates don't matter when it comes to overall performance, but as it relates soley to Batting Average, there is some effect. Therefore we should note that Aramis Ramirez is currently producing much lower K rates than we can reasonably expect from Jay Bruce. That may suppress the possibility that we'll see multiple .300 BA/.360 OBP/.560 SLG type seasons. And I'd suggest that's not even close to what some are expecting of Bruce. In fact, if Jay Bruce is producing those numbers while striking out 150 times a year, I have a feeling that a lot of folks will be very disappointed. Of course, expecting ridiculous ceilings often results in disappointment.

To come close to meeting "ceiling" expectations, Bruce is likely going to have to be hitting 45-50 Home Runs on a regular basis in order to enhance his Batting Average should he not be able to significantly enhance his BB rate on his own. Is that power output possible? Yeah, but I don't like the odds. If it did happen, we would then see pitchers "helping" Bruce with his BB rates; resulting in a higher IsoD regardless of further work in that area by Bruce himself.

Geoff Jenkins? Nah. Aramis Ramirez? Maybe. Ken Griffey Jr.? Ehhh....

[princeton]

Originally Posted by Cyclone792

I saw him in Dayton, and I was very impressed. He was a very polished fielder, good jumps, good reads, good routes.

Maybe he's rangy enough to play CF in some OFs. But frankly, unless he's Cesar Geronimo and Eric Davis and Mike Cameron -- and Jr, many years ago-- then he won't have the range to make a Dunn/Jr (many years later) OF work.

Pitchers will need to strike everyone out. Everyone.

[dougdirt]

I never understood the thinking that a Centerfielder can make up for bad corner outfielders. Even the best centerfielders aren't going to make the plays that are 5 feet out of the reach of bad corner outfielders. Even the worst corner outfielders, like Adam Dunn, are about 1 or 2 plays worse than the best corner outfielders per week. The next time I see a center fielder make a catch on a hard hit ball into left field or right field, will be the first time.

[Mario-Rijo]

Originally Posted by RedsManRick

Well, Deer and Kingman had problem chasing balls out of the zone as well. But they had really bad contact rates when they swung at good pitches. During his best years, Sosa got his contact rate up as well as increasing his discipline.

With Dunn, there's a few things going on. Certainly his contact rate when he chooses to swing isn't superb. However, the bigger problem is that Dunn is among the worst in baseball at taking strikes. You could say he's too selective for his own good. It's not that he's losing hits by watching the ball on the corner. It's that he's getting himself in to two strikes counts so often that his poor contact rate gets translated in to strikeouts. It hurts a lot more to whiff on a 2-2 pitch than on a 1-1 pitch.

I would argue that this is why Dunn's batting average is so low as well. If you could put the ball in play in every at bat and get a standard distribution of batted ball types, you'd hit roughly .300 every year, depending on your luck with fielders. But if when you swing, you have a tendency to miss instead of put the ball in play, the BABCM (Batting average on Balls in the Catcher's Mitt) is .000, thus dropping your average. And if you tend to wait until you have two strikes to swing, you're not going to get as many swings as other guys.

Now, because Dunn is so utterly productive when he manages to get the ball play, and because he's often walking when he doesn't put the ball in play, he's still very valuable. But his low average is directly attributed to his perhaps too disciplined approach and his poor contact rate when he does swing.

Consider that when Sammy hit .300, either his power was off the charts or his strikeout rate was a good deal lower than we see with Dunn. However, we can look at Dunn's monthly splits to get a good glimpse of this.

	BA	K/PA	ISO	
Apr	.261	.314	.250
May	.252	.339	.321
June	.287	.238	.330
July	.239	.257	.216
Aug	.276	.200	.345
Sept	.274	.200	.258

K/PA has a somewhat strong negative correlation with BA (r = -.56). That is, within this tiny data set, as Dunn struck out more, he hit for a lower average.

ISO has a somewhat strong positive correlation with BA (r = .63). That is, within this tiny data set, as Dunn hit for more power, he also hit for more average.

His worst BA month, July, was one in which he hit for little power and had a medium K/rate (for Dunn). For fun, I created a single variable by taking each of the average K/PA minus the observed (so that positive values are good) and the observed ISO minus the average. This gets you a single number combing the two. If you regress that against batting average, you find that those two things combined have an r-squared of .6229 (r = .79). I did the same thing simply ranking the months on each variable and taking the average rank versus the batting average rank and you get basically the same thing.

So simply put, most of the month to month (or year to year) variation in batting average can be attributed to strikeout rate and power fluctuations when you do make contact. This is why Albert Pujols hits .330 regularly and Bonds hit .340 plus during his roided phase.

Well put, even though that 2nd to last paragraph left me scratching my head. This is exactly the point I have been trying to make with Dunn over the last 2 years (although admittedly he done better last year) albeit not as elequently. He doesn't have a very good contact rate which is due IMO to poor bat control, which I also wonder if Stubbs doesn't suffer from the very same thing.

Stubbs showed much better contact rates once he choked up on the bat and thus produced much better #'s accross the board including a much decreased K rate. Dunn's #'s also improved after shortening his swing a tad (getting his hands further down away from behind his ear) which would lend itself to better contact by simply being quicker to the ball. I still feel Dunn could do better but I'm sure he is satisfied with his own #'s and won't feel like he needs to improve anything else.

[princeton]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

I never understood the thinking that a Centerfielder can make up for bad corner outfielders.

it's pretty simple: a lot of runs score against teams that are willing to surrender 28 or 29 outs a game. So if you've got players that concede outs, you're well-served to balance them with players that take outs away: strikeout pitchers, rangy defenders

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by princeton

it's pretty simple: a lot of runs score against teams that are willing to surrender 28 or 29 outs a game. So if you've got players that concede outs, you're well-served to balance them with players that take outs away: strikeout pitchers, rangy defenders

I think you missed my point. No matter how good a defender is, he isn't going to make Griffey or Dunn any better. He may be better in CF than your previous guy, but he isn't going to somehow make either of those guys better. You put Willie Mays out there at age 27 and he still isn't going to make Griffey or Dunn better at their position. They are still going to suck defensively.

[Redsland]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

You put Willie Mays out there at age 27 and he still isn't going to make Griffey or Dunn better at their position. They are still going to suck defensively.

But your team's outfield defense overall would improve.

It's not about making Dunn better. It's about helping your team reduce the other teams' base runners.

[camisadelgolf]

Not to sound like Dusty Baker, but in my opinion, going one-for-two with a double is more valuable than going zero-for-zero with two walks. I think Jay Bruce has some improvements to make, but he'll be fine.

[Redsland]

If everyone on your team goes zero-for-zero with two walks, then you score infinity runs, whereas if everyone goes one-for-two with a double, you only score half that.

Or something.

[camisadelgolf]

Originally Posted by Redsland

If everyone on your team goes zero-for-zero with two walks, then you score infinity runs, whereas if everyone goes one-for-two with a double, you only score half that.

Or something.

That's a good point, but if that were to happen, the games would never end, and you would never have any wins.

[Redsland]

So...it would always be Opening Day?

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by Redsland

But your team's outfield defense overall would improve.

It's not about making Dunn better. It's about helping your team reduce the other teams' base runners.

Yes, but its still about overall runs. Having the best defensive centerfielder in baseball is only going to help so much if he can't hit a lick. Maybe having an average centerfielder with a real good bat actually makes him more valuable to your team.

[Redsland]

Sure, but that doesn't change my response to your quote, which was:

Originally Posted by dougdirt

You put Willie Mays out there at age 27 and he still isn't going to make Griffey or Dunn better at their position. They are still going to suck defensively.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by Redsland

Sure, but that doesn't change my response to your quote, which was:

Which doesn't change the point that I was trying to make.

[princeton]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

Which doesn't change the point that I was trying to make.

try to make better points