Delgado Makes Us All Look Dumb
Coming to the ballpark on April 27th, Carlos Delgado was the scorn of New York. He was hitting .186/.276/.256 with just four extra base hits in his first 98 plate appearances of 2008. Coming on the heels of his .258/.333/.448 mark last year, and in his age 36 season, the “Delgado is finished” bandwagon got full in a hurry. I even jumped on, noting that his disappearing power was a classic sign of an aging player who just didn’t have anything left to contribute.
Most people suggested that the Mets begin looking for Delgado’s replacement, because the team needed a real power hitter to keep pace in the NL East, and he just wasn’t going to be able to get the job done. We were all wrong.
Since April 27th, Delgado’s hit .276/.353/.536 with 34 extra base hits (nearly half of his 73 total hits since then), including his July surge that has him posting a 1.212 OPS since the beginning of the month. He’s absolutely torching the ball right now, and looks anything but finished.
Delgado’s resurgence is yet another data point in favor of the belief that we simply have a long way to go before we can identify a player who really has “fallen off a cliff” ahead of time. Both visual evidence and trend analysis suggested that the grim reaper may have come for his power during the off season, but it just wasn’t true. Delgado was slumping, and slumps happen regardless of how young or old a player is. However, we have pre-written narratives about what slumps mean when they happen to young players (he’s not ready for the majors, he’s getting exposed the second time around the league, etc…) and when they happen to old players (he’s done), but we need to remember that those narratives aren’t based in as much reality as we would like to believe.
I’m speaking to myself as much as I am to any of you. While the tools we have are useful in predicting the future, we have to remember their limitations and not jump to conclusions that can’t be supported by evidence.
arbeck said,
July 18, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
Dave,
This is one of the reasons I love your writing so much. When evidence refutes something you previously wrote about, you not only admit it, you usually write a great post explaining why you thought the way you did. If only traditional baseball writers would admit it when they were wrong and work to get better.
Stos said,
July 18, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
Dude, I’m right there with yah. I’ve been one Delgado hating yapper for most of the year now, and I’m totally eating all my words on him now. It’s awesome he’s gotten things going, so I’m happy to eat my words and look like a chump. My guess is, he really disliked Willie’s way of doing things and digs Jerry’s manner out there.
Hopefully the Carlos keeps on truckin’ through the end of the year (and beyond).
salb918 said,
July 18, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
Why would we exclude April, though? That’s thumb-on-scale statistical reasoning. Delgado has hit .254/.334/.467 this year. Tangotiger’s Marcels had him pegged for .265/.349/.485 entering this year. ZiPS said .257/.349/.476. That’s pretty close, and if anything he’s done worse.
Those proclaiming Delgado “done” were going off visual evidence or else misinterpreting the numbers. Trend analysis (e.g. Marcel or any other projection algorithm) considered him “useful.” Unless there’s an injury we don’t know about it, I’m not sure why we would weight the visual evidence so heavily as to consider him cooked.
Given his performance this year, he’s actually done worse than a reasoned analysis of the his last few years’ worth of performance data would suggest. I submit that those proclaiming him “done” fell prey to that most insidious fallacy: an overweighting of recent performance. That’s the most common fallacy in interpreting stats among both MSM writers and statheads. At various times I’ve heard that Jack Cust, Jason Giambi, Oliver Perez, or Justin Verlander were all cooked as major leaguers. Yeah, right!
Jandy said,
July 18, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
I assume you are warning yourself for giving up on Turbo so quickly, right? That’s what this is all about.
aweb said,
July 18, 2008 @ 7:44 pm
Of course, even players who are done can have hot streaks too. Those who thought Delgado was done based on a bad month aren’t redeeming themselves by saying he’s back after a good one. With his BABIP near career norms now, it’s likely that he’s basically what his season line makes him appear to be - a slightly above average hitter for his position.
Also note with Delgado: he’s been just terrible in Shea, and still great on the road. Career in Shea: .227/.330/.424. Last three years (2006-2008) on the road: .291/.361/.548. Those numbers are bumped up by his great 2006 road season (.998 OPS), but the Home/Road split has been pronounced every year so far in NY.
Ron said,
July 18, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
Shea doesn’t take 88 points off your BABIP as is the case with Delgado (.237 home, .325 road since 2006). Give him back those 88 points for which Shea isn’t entirely responsible and his home line transforms from .226/.326/.426 to .290/.381/.507, roughly in line with his .291/.361/.547 road numbers.
Terry said,
July 19, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
I’ve spent the better part of this afternoon thinking about it and I can’t come up with a single scenario where Vidro (aka turbo) would be considered more useful on a baseball field than a typical ballgirl.
JMHawkins said,
July 20, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
I wonder how much injuries can mimic aging. Of course, one of the problems an aging player (or blog commenter, for that matter) has is that injuries take longer to recover from. Maybe Delgado can into the season nursing some minor issue that robbed his power, and he finally got heathy. Isn’t that what we saw with Raul Ibanez last year? Zero power, and a sudden rebound after he recovered from a previously undisclosed shoulder injury.
tarheelcoach said,
July 20, 2008 @ 8:29 pm
JMHawkins is right on, I think. Remember Delgado was coming off wrist surgery that plagued him all last season. Anyone that has watched him this year knows that early in the season Carlos was just getting flat beat by any good fastball - he just couldn’t turn on the ball anymore. Now, he is staying back and just unloading on pitches - they aren’t beating him with the fastball.
His resurgence is probably due more to good health than anything else.