Comments on: Hairston’s Surge

By: chris welsh

chris welsh — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 01:19:43 +0000

I am fairly confident that Hairston played the last two seasons with a bad back and he declared after his early season stint in AAA that he was “finally 100% healthy again.”

By: Tom Au

Tom Au — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:41:51 +0000

Good analysis by the others. I’d just add that after a year of performance below his true ability, Hairston’s now performing above his ability. It’s the swing from one extreme to the other that makes it so dramatic. Statistically, most go from one extreme to “mediocrity,” not the opposite end. But there is also a “statistical” number of outliers like this one.

Ian Snell, Pirates’ starting pitcher, is another example. Basically a 4.50 ERA man in my book. But he pitched about 3.00 for half a season in 2007 and 6.00 for half a season in 2008 (and about 4.50 for the other two half seasons).

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:29:56 +0000

Hairston is a good but fragile athlete who reportedly played the last two years with a broken rib. He’s spent some time on the DL this year for a strained hamstring but his swing hasn’t been affected. This still doesn’t explain why he’s been this good, but it does show why he’s not as bad as he was last year.

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:08:31 +0000

Dave, you can bet us Reds fans having been talking about Hairston at length. For me, it comes down to one simple number: 28.2. That’s Hairston’s LD% for 2008 and it’s 2nd among players with 270+ PA.

His BB%, K%, and Contact% are all nearly identical to his career averages. It’s pretty clear he’s not doing anything differently – he’s just getting better results for it. He’s managed to turn a good chunk of grounders and a small number of fly balls in to line drives. He’s making higher quality contact and it’s showing up in an inflated BABIP boosting his AVG/OBP/SLG substantially. Normalize that LD% and you’re still looking at a good year for him, but of the 75th percentile variety, not the 99.9th.

Consider his company at the top of the LD% leaderboard.

1. Omar Infante
2. Hariston
3. Jeremy Carroll
4. Ramon Vazquez
5. Mark Loretta (though Loretta, like Michael Young, is perennially up here)

I think there’s a theme. Every year there are a handful of players in this general mold, relatively light hitting contact oriented guys, who simply hit a lot of line drives. In 2006 it was Freddy Sanchez’s path to the batting title. Maybe it represents a true change in skill. But given that it’s not paired with any other apparent skill development, it looks to me like a healthy dose of random variation. Though it’s always more fun to attach a narrative, I’d put my money on a 2009 Hairston that looks a lot more like the .700 OPS guy he’s been over his career. Though likely a more handsomely paid version.