Bay, Vazquez, and Pressure
Over the winter, both New York clubs made some big acquisitions – the Mets splurged for slugging outfielder Jason Bay, while the Yankees gave up some young talent to acquire the final year of Javier Vazquez‘s contract to solidify their rotation. So far, neither have lived up to expectations, as Bay’s power is MIA and Vazquez has struggled with more things than I have time to list here.
Any time a player struggles in the Big Apple, they always run the risk of getting labeled as a guy who just can’t handle the pressure. Vazquez, in fact, already carries that label, considering that he flopped with the Yankees back in 2004, the first time Brian Cashman traded for him. That he was so bad in April didn’t do anything to dispel the notion that he simply lacked the necessary personality to play well in New York.
Now some people – including one unnamed former GM who thinks trading Stephen Strasburg for Roy Oswalt is a good idea – are attaching that same label to Bay, suggesting that his lack of production is a direct result of the home fans expressing their frustration with his lack of power. There is just one slight problem with these labels – both Bay and Vazquez have played better at home than on the road, and in Bay’s case, the difference is enormous.
Bay is hitting .308/.406/.508 at Citi Field, but just .246/.333/.333 on the road. He has twice as many extra base hits in front of those frustrated fans as he does in front of ambivalent road crowds. If he was hitting as well away from New York as he was at home, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
The same is true of Vazquez, though not to the same extent. He is posting a 4.48 xFIP at home versus 4.72 on the road, with neither number representing his previous abilities. The same was true in 2004, when Vazquez pitched better in Yankee Stadium than he did away from the Bronx.
Sometimes a slump is just a slump. Guys slump in New York just like they do in Milwaukee, San Diego, or St. Louis. Perhaps we should avoid slagging a guy’s intestinal fortitude when he is performing better in front of the same fans and media that are supposed to be scaring him into a slump.
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Not that I lend credence to the idea, but is it really supposed to be that a player can’t play in front of New York crowds, or that the overall supposed pressure of playing for a ny team, living up to a big contract, etc., is effecting their play? Does it matter whether that is on the road or at home? One would think it is the overall production and not necessarily the home/road split. beltran also didn’t have a great first year at the plate in NY and was great after that. I tend to agree that it is just a slump. A lot of things could be effecting Bay’s power outage. Perhaps like Wright did this year Bay will bounce back. Wright and 2006 Beltran are/were a tad younger than Bay will be next year so I’ll hope it is not an extended power slump a la Brian Giles goes to SD.
It’s New York exceptionalism, and they find a way to fit it to however the player is failing to perform. Of course, Bay did produce quite a bit last season in Boston…
It must have something to do with team chemistry. Only explanation.
I just don’t think that, if there is anything to it at all, that it would necessarily have to manifest itself only when the player is in NY itself. The overall production is down; that he is doing better in Citifield may just be a fluke. Maybe they are playing him too deep there. :) The beat writers still follow him when he is out of town, the fans are still watching on tv and calling WFAN, etc.
This is all dignifying it too much, I suppose. Probably just slumping.
I find it both funny and sad that somehow the NY “pressure” is being used to blame Bay’s performance. I mean… the guy is hitting 0.300 with a 0.400 OBP at home, but 100 pts worse on the road. I wouldn’t call that caving under pressure. I’d call it separation anxiety.
And for the homers, I am not sure why anybody is surprised? Like… do these people not read any analysis? “But the man hit 30 HR last year! Clearly he will hit more when he is brought to a much larger park and surrounded by worse hitters!” I mean, this (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/316530-jason-bay-enters-a-hitters-nightmare) indicates that bay should expect a 30-40% reduction in home runs at home. His 3 HR at home fits right into that pace.
The only strange thing is that he has only one HR on the road, but you have to think that’s one of those random-chance things. The one thing I will predict is that by the end of the season, I’ll bet Bay has more HR on the road than at home.
On second thought, scrap that. I agree with Bravo. They probably need more washed up veterans. Is it too late to trade for Kerry Wood and Mike Sweeney?
BN, citifield actaully had a positive HR effect last year, massively negative this year. But Rod Barajas came in and didn’t have a problem hitting homers at citi. Ike davis either. It’s harder, and Wright got effected, but at least he is homering on the road. It may be, as someone else suggested, that bay is pressing on the road. maybe he is suffering the ‘first year in citi” effect that Wright suffered last year.
But I don’t think that just because he is doing better overall at home than on the road invalidates the “pressure” argument (such as it is-I don’t think his play has been so bad as to suggest anything but random chance and Citifield). But if there is something to the idea that he is pressing and suffering for it, that just because he is hitting better in citifield then on the road refutes the argument. It is not fear of the actual new york crowd, but more internalized. What will people think if I don’t perform? That I got fat and lazy with my big paycheck, that can’t take NY pressure (see, it becomes self-fulfilling). Do we think he is so stupid as to not realize the press and fans know how he performs when he is on the road?
Almost any player who says he doesn’t know or care about what the fans think is lying. I’d guess.
I agree with the statement that his performance is not being hindered by the pressure of playing in NY. But I don’t agree that the fact he is doing better at home than on the road refutes the statement.
Expectations are different. I think we should adjust xFIP for all New York pitchers, because obviously we EXPECT them to do better. Anything less than twenty wins is failure. And Mike Mussina had twenty wins, and he’s still a failure.
Not a failure.
Just a quitter.
/sarcasm
Everytime I see him on the road, he seems to just be trying too hard. I’m thinking that Bay is trying harder to hit a home run on the road, and it is crippling his road stats.
Perhaps it’s the opposite of conventional wisdom. NY is so awesome (no sarcasm) that players hate being away from it. Jeter’s career OPS is -.050 on the road; Posada’s is -.064. Teixeira had a huge road deficit last year.
New conclusion: New York is so great, it causes players to perform poorly on the road out of withdrawal for the city.
Bay played well in Boston. I feel like Boston plays by the same “pressure” rules as New York.
I would hazard to say that Boston has more pressure than being a Met. I mean… at this point in time, are New Yorkers lining the street DEMANDING the Mets to win? Boston has a whole metro area focused on them, while the Mets are pretty solidly second fiddle even in their own town.
Bay said in an interview that theres more pressure in NY than in BOS. he couldve been pandering to the NY writers, but he did say that the fans have a whole different “intensity” in NY
Not really surprising, as Boston isnt a real city, more of a town. I doubt if redsox players feel the geographic area of the fanbase.
For the Yankees, it’s win the World Series or you fail. You can’t compare any other situation to that.
Yeah, but that still doesn’t address the “pressure” issue. From what I’ve seen the NY media is full of themselves. Players like Whitson, Rogers, Weaver, etc have had a track record of mediocrity, that they’ve “failed” in NY isn’t an indicator of an inability to play, it’s that they’re playing to their normal level.
Vazquez has actually been pitching pretty well of late. Ever since he was sent to the bullpen he’s seemed to turn things around. I think he’s had 2 bad games since then.
Time and time again, Vazquez’s 2004 has been explained. He injured himself during the second half of the year, but knew that the Yankees had nobody else to stick into the rotation. He went out there and risked the future of his career for the team. Of course, that will never be mentioned in the NY media, because that would absolve him somewhat, and we need a fall-boy for the 2004 fiasco.
As for Bay, there’s a reason many general fans saw this as a horrible contract. People knew his power numbers were going to take a hit playing 81 games in Citi Field. The Mets’s hands were tied, though (at the time, I think Holliday was signed already, and he would have been a much better option, as I believe he is a better pure hitter than Bay, had it not been for his own high demands of course), so they made the move out of necessity.
“Now some people – including one unnamed former GM who thinks trading Stephen Strasburg for Roy Oswalt is a good idea …”
Since you would not say it, I will – - Steve Phillips is an idiot.
Correct as you may be regarding Mr. Phillips, it was one Dave Cameron who stated once upon a time that he wouldn’t trade Jeremy Reed for both Paplebon, and Jon Lester. Then he backed the statement up with borrowed scouting stuff and a mish-mash of statistical gobbledegook. He said so very matter-of-factly at the time… It seems that some of those national figures that Dave takes such glee blasting have similar track-records predicting success.
Totally different scenarios, and not just because Strasburg is awesome. Idiot Phillips was talking about trading a 34 year old vet who’s seen better days for the greatest pitching prospect of the past 10 years. The Reed thing was trading prospects for prospects.
Whoever chalked it up to New Yorks ‘exceptionalism’ hit it spot on. We assume there is more pressure for those playing here just because we as New Yorkers feel increased pressure to perform in our own jobs just due to our locale. We’re projecting how we feel about our own jobs/lives onto the players and I’m sure it’s hardly accurate.
Compared to other markets, New Yorks fans are relatively tame in comparison. As long as you don’t read the sports columns or listen to WFAN you can be a player living a blissful life as a multi-millionaire in a city where that actually counts for something. Sure, most of the fans are ignorant and will boo because a sports columnist told them to, but I’m sure if I were in the league, where I played half my games wouldn’t make a difference in the world in regards to my performance.
this is a good point. I’ve often thought that every time someone thinks they can observe how well a player is handling pressure–whether its through hitting in the clutch, in the playoffs, or playing in NY or Boston–it’s just them projecting their own nervousness or insecurity onto the player. Or they’re imagining how they would feel if they were batting in the 9th inning of a tie game.
Something like: “Oh my god, 3-2 count, 2 outs, tie game, sell out crowd, what a huge pitch this is! I’m nervous! Therefore the batter must be nervous. How he handles the next pitch will tell us whether the pressure has gotten to him!”
We have almost no way of knowing how much pressure players actually feel in a given moment and whether that pressure has an effect on their performance. It’s just impossible to know.
I’ve always heard this, and studies seem to suggest that there is some slight “clutch” ability, or lack thereof, but it makes no sense that players are immune to pressure. it isn’t just projection from our own experiences. They are human, and are used to dealing with pressure, and abnormal or supranormal humans in many ways obviously. There are numerous studies that normal pressure effects your average person’s motor skills and abilities. We know players develope fears of throwing a ball back to the pitcher, inability to throw strikes, etc. It would be strange if some get effected by new environment, living up to a contract, pressures, self-induced or otherwise. But you also just have random variation. Almost impossible to distinguish or sort out the noise.
The thing is, though, that any major league situation is going to come with an enormous amount of pressure. Guys who can’t handle the pressure wouldn’t make it in the bigs, period.
Except that many players over the years have refused to come to the Yankees or Mets, and their reasons often include the pressures and hectic lifestyle of the city (which in itself is another form of pressure).
NY fans are relatively tame in comparison to other markets? I totally disagree. And no one (certainly not the media) told the fans to boo Rivera or Jeter or Wright — players who probably wouldn’t have been booed in other markets (with the exception of Philadelphia).
NY fans are the most demanding, and unreasonably so at some times. They are excessively noisy and boisterous. All of this is reflected on talk radio. Even if a player chooses not to listen to it, his friends, family or teammates are, and will let him know what the fans and others think. So there’s no escaping that part of the media. Then there is the sheer number of media outlets covering the NY teams — more than for any other market including Boston. Because they all compete with each other, they are prone to fiction and sensationalism to attract readers/listeners which puts added pressure on the teams and their players.
Both NY teams face additional pressure to win because their payrolls are relatively high — and this is especially true for the Yankees with their huge payroll advantage. However that pressure is to a large degree mitigated for Yankee hitters by almost always having the luxury of hitting in stacked lineups.
For Bay specifically, I think Citi is a factor, despite his home numbers being better than on the road. His HRs even at home are down due to Citi’s dimensions and I think he does try to compensate for this on the road.
Probably there are a lot of factors affecting Bay’s depressed numbers this year, and maybe even he doesn’t know for sure the exact reasons. Overall, he should at least be hitting as well as when he was in Pittsburgh, but he’s not. I think a natural slump also has something to do with it, along with the pressure of living up to a large contract.
Mets fans can only hope his second half makes up for the first half.
Also, anything that comes out of the mouth of Steve Phillips should be ignored. Guy was a bigger moron than Minaya is and that’s saying something.
Steve Phillips = boob
Javy posted a 3 ERA in June, his horrible start completely skewed his numbers. I’m not sure his FIP since then but his numbers has greatly improved. Even in his arizona start where he was shaky he could have gone 7 innings of 4 run ball but was taken out due to pinch hitting since the yanks were down by 2 at the time.
The “pressure” narrative isn’t about performing at home as opposed to on the road. In fact, I seriously doubt that the type of people who say this kind of stuff go as deep as to look at a guy’s splits. The only way to refute it, other than to ignore/laugh at it, would be to point out that a guy really isn’t performing as badly as people think or that differently than his career norm.
Stop using xFIP when talking about Javier Vazquez
What would you like to use?
With Vazquez’s small sample (15-16 starts?) his home v road difference in FIP, could simple be “what teams he has pitched against” (as was illustrated in another thread).
I thought Bay would be far better than he has been, and thought it’d take Vazquez about 15 games to adjust since he’s smarter than he was the first time ’round with the Yankees.
I was wrong about Bay, but after he stepped in for an adored guy who was an absolute hitting machine, and put up similar numbers so I thought he could handle pressure. Sure, he wouldn’t be getting any gold gloves, but this is a sign of bad things to come.
Obviously we knew he’d hit less homeruns(sure he is hitting doubles and actually stealing bases again), but wow. The guy is on pace for 9 homeruns and about 65 RBI. I thought he’d have a higher batting average(adjusting to the park and batting over .300), more doubles, and get maybe 28 homeruns with 105 RBI.
If he were smart, he’d restructure his contract so he can be traded… the Royals, Giants, Astros, and so many other teams could use him. I know if he played in Houston, he’d get his share of bombs. Wait… never mind, he needs to be in the American League so he can DH half the games he starts.
Is it safe to call him a bust yet? Or will he go nuts in the second half? He’s not playing for the Yankees so I doubt it’s the fans killing him.
Bay is on pace for 70 RBIs and a .796 OPS. That would be better than what Beltran put up his first year with the Mets in a more hitter-friendly park and an arguably better overall lineup. Beltran went on to have a few MVP-caliber seasons. So if Beltran can bounce back from a poor 6 months, why wouldn’t Bay bounce back from an underwhelming 3 months??
If Citi is part of Bay’s problem (and I think it is despite the home/road splits) then it’s also possible he just has to go through a long period of adjustment (the way Wright did).
And why would Bay want to be traded, especially to teams less competitive than the Mets? At his age, this is probably his last big contract, so it isn’t about racking up the personal numbers for monetary gain anymore. He’s never been in a WS and spent most of his career with the Pirates, so I’m sure he’d rather be with a team like the Mets that has a better chance to make the postseason.
Also, Yankee fans are not more harsh on struggling players than Mets fans are. Bay also faces more pressure hitting in a less-stacked Mets lineup than he would in the Bronx.
You think Bay did not have pressure replacing Manny in 2008 and 2009?. Did not bother him a bit. The guy is ice. But he is prone to long slumps, and his bat went into hibernation for 2 months in the middle of 2009.
His swing and stance are all messed up. He does not look anything like he did with the Red Sox at the plate. If the Mets have a hitting coach, it’s not very apparent.
Since this topic recently came up, I want to hear your analysis on the differences in his hiting mechanics.
Before you assume I am calling you out, I just want to state that you brought up he looks completely different. I just want to read how.
But Jason Bay moved to the inferior league! I thought this meant he would perform better I mean if Carlos Silva doesn’t illustrate how superior the AL is to the NL Jason Bay certainly should….Right Dave!