Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Stealthily, Melky

An under-the-radar player to this point in the Royals season has been Melky Cabrera.

I mean, people talk about him -- he's played almost every game and he's done stuff, good and bad (more bad than good). But since he hasn't been abysmally bad (yet), he isn't exactly a hot topic. He's having a bit of a weird season in the early going, and I'm wondering where he'll end up.

He's 26, which is at the latter end of "young", but has a pretty large number of plate appearances to figure out what kind of player he is. The thing is, in the small number of pa's he's had this year, he's a very different hitter -- not better, just different.

Here's some of the different things I noticed in taking a quick peek at his stat page:
  • BB/PA - 2011 (.029)/career (.079)
  • P/PA - 2011 (4.03)/career (3.73)
  • G/F Ratio - 2011 (0.69)/career (1.01)
  • isoP - 2011 (.142)/career (.113)
  • BABIP - 2011 (.329)/career (.292)
I'll also throw in he's striking out a bit more often, once every 6 plate appearances in 2011 as opposed to about once every 7.5 for his career.

When compared to his entire career prior to this season of just under 2300 times at the plate, the 103 this season isn't much, but it's enough to make me arch my eyebrow*. For one, I find it a bit odd he's seeing more pitches per plate appearance than in any previous season (with a long way to go, of course), but is walking at a much lower rate.

That won't hold. Cabera's only had one season where he's walked at a decent rate (2006), but he's not Jeff Francoeur or Alcides Escobar. Melky will walk more often than this, and he should to remain an everyday player.

The other part of it is the power. An isoP of .142 isn't anything to write home about, but it isn't bad for a CF, and it's something he has done before for most of a season -- as recently as '09. I threw in the g/f ratio and BABIP since they were also off career norms.

As far as meaning -- well, I don't think there's a lot of meaning to be gleaned from it yet, as he's too far off his career numbers with too few plate appearances to be convinced of anything. I will say, though, that if Cabrera is able to bring his walk rate back to about his career average and can keep the bit of power, he'll end up not being horrible.

Melky Cabrera, not-horrible CF for the Kansas City Royals!

Hm...lacks a little pizazz...

*I don't go arching my eyebrow for just anything, you know

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