Bartlett Finds Power Too
This afternoon, we talked about the surprising power surge of Kendry Morales, who is beating his projected ISO by about about 120 points this year. However, we always knew that Morales had some power – we just didn’t expect his doubles to turn into home runs like this. If we want to look at a guy whose really having an out-of-nowhere power surge, then we have to turn to Tampa Bay, where Jason Bartlett continues to have one of the craziest seasons in recent history.
Bartlett’s ISO by season, 2005 to 2008: .094, .084, .096, .075. He had 12 home runs in about 1,700 plate appearances. He was consistent in his lack of pop, which is kind of what you expect from someone with his physical build and defensive chops. Bartlett was a classic glove first middle infielder who drew some walks, stole some bases, and tried not to kill too many rallies.
This year, however, has been a totally different story. He’s at .338/.398/.522, and his ISO is .184. He’s doubled his career home run total in 109 games, and it hasn’t just been balls flying over the wall – he’s got 32 doubles+triples, one off his career high, which he set in 2007 with 120 extra plate appearances.
Even an injury can’t slow him down. He had a monstrous start to the season, then missed three weeks in June with an ankle injury. After coming off the DL, he looked like he was reverting to previous form, hitting just one home run and slugging .402 from mid-June through the end of July. But he’s found the power stroke again as of late, hitting .349/.432/.560 since the beginning of August.
As a 29-year-old with no track record of this kind of ability, it’s hard to figure what to make of Bartlett. For all the talk that Ben Zobrist‘s breakthrough offensive performance has gotten, he’s not the only former slap hitter now whacking the ball down in Tampa. With Reid Brignac waiting in the wings and newly acquired Sean Rodriguez in the fold (plus the aforementioned Zobrist and Akinori Iwamura), the Rays have enviable middle infield depth. If they’re convinced that they’ve fixed Bartlett somehow, then he’s an all-star that they should be hanging onto.
More likely, however, is that Tampa’s going to try to shop him this winter coming off a career year and one season away from free agency. It will be interesting to see how many teams believe this version of Bartlett is for real.
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Who is Barlett?
Great, all we need is a third powerhouse team in the AL East. At least Tampa’s a nice alternative to the Yanks and Red Sox. Time to expand the playoffs from four teams to six in each league?
A third powerhouse team to beat the crap out of those other two overexposed fatwallets and their bandwagon fans 38 times a season? Fine with me. I just feel sorry for the O’s and the Jays.
They have quite a few 2B’s, but really does Brignac project as much of a SS? I guess I see him as being pretty over-rated. His AAA numbers the last 2 years aren’t very impressive, seems like a candidate for a sub .300 OBP with decent, but not special defense. I know Bartlett’s going to get expensive, but can the Rays afford to carry 2 offensive black holes (catcher being the other)
speaking of, what happened to Navarro?
Navarro only starts against lefties, with Gregg Zaun playing against righties.
Interestingly, while Bartlett has been hitting this year, he has a negative UZR.
In fact over Bartlett’s career his UZR has a pretty clear trend line. He almost had to hit this well to continue to be valuable.
brignac was rated as having the best SS in the IL this year, and has gotten raves for his defensive abilities over the last two years. If the Rays feel Sean Rodriguez plays a passable SS, there could be a very nice platoon situation with him and Briggy.
It’s interesting how earlier in the season everyone jumped on the Ibanez-is-on-steroids bandwagon, even though he has always been a slugger (to some extent). With all these middle infielders all of a sudden hitting for power, no one has really broached the subject. Have they learned their lesson from the Ibanez fiasco? Or are people gun shy?
A couple of points to note about Bartlett.
1. The power started last year after he returned from injury in August. His post allstar break numbers are close to this years.
2. If you look at his L/R splits, what has actually changed is that he is now hitting righties with the same success that he has always hit lefties.
3. In his minor league career his ISO seemed to settle around .130, not great but significantly better than his previous ML data.
4. In terms of pitch data, he is striking out more as his contact rate has dropped by .05. His walk rate though is up but is not the result of a more patient approach as he is still seeing the same amount pitches per p/a.
5. The biggest change is that when he does make contact it is much better contact as he has reduced his GB rate by .100 and added it all into LDs, which supports his high BABIP.
All of the above leads me to believe that Bartlett’s success could simply be the result of good coaching. The Twins had the reputation when Bartlett was developping as having a “choke-up and put the ball in play” approach to hitting whereas the Rays seem to lean towards to a “try to make hard contact and strikeouts be damned” approach. The pitch and batted changes reflect that change in approach and the fact that changes happened after an injury when he would be more willing to overhaul his approach adds some support to my theory. The fact that his UZR has gone down could also suggest that maybe his conditioning program has changed as well – emphasizing strength over agility.
While I doubt that he can sustain this high of an LD rate, many of his gains do seem legit and I suspect that going forward he should be closer to the ’09 version than the ’08 one.
Which begs the question: can the Rays nab a high end prospect for a guy who was pretty average coming into 2009.
Bartlett did have a great year in 2008 as well Joe R. He was named the team MVP by his peers so the value has been there the last couple years
The difference is that in 2008 calling him the team MVP was insane. He was the ninth most valuable player in the starting lineup, assuming the 4th outfielder played DH.
“great” year? He was very much a middle of the road regular in 2008. The Tampa chapter of the BBWAA voting him team MVP was asinine on a team with Longoria, Pena, Upton, good Kazmir, and Crawford, even in a down year. This season he’s become a LD hitting machine and rocks a .337 BA and a .396 BABIP as a result. Trying to say Bartlett in 2008 is even in the same league as Bartlett in 2009 is just straight up not true. 2008 Bartlett was ordinary, 2009 Bartlett’s one of the league’s better players.
Looking at Jeff’s #1 had me thinking has anyone done a study on players coming off injuries who had unexpected power surges? Joe Mauer comes to mind.
“The Twins had the reputation when Bartlett was developping as having a “choke-up and put the ball in play” approach ”
ah yes, the David Ortiz magic milkshake defense.
Sheffield had pretty much the same one and look how fast people stopped caring.
Just saying.
I say trade Barty while his value is at it’s highest. Like an earlier post said, leave a Briggy/Rodriguez platoon at SS. As much as I like him, surely we could fetch a nice prospect or two for Bartlett. But what if the Rays put Rodriguez at 2nd? Do we keep Barty or go with Brignac? Or keep all 3
any idea whether bartlett had instruction with the same hitting coach that zobrist worked with? apparently, this guy reconstructed zobrist’s swing to take advantage of previously untapped power.
Whoever it is, is he in the price range for summer city league middle infielders?
This was exactly what I thought. If the guy really is a bit of a rainmaker then the Rays would be fools not to have all their light hitting types try it out. But Bartlett has hit for avg before. Last year he had that bad first half but the year previous hit well in Minny.
The Twins could use a shortstop….