What’s Wrong with Rollins?
With now over 300 plate appearances into the season, it’s hard to keep saying it’s just a slump for Jimmy Rollins. To the chagrin of his fantasy owners and fans of the reigning World Champs, the 2007 MVP is currently the worst hitting regular shortstop in baseball. His .255 wOBA translates to -20.5 batting runs. His manager, Charlie Manuel recently said Jimmy needs to “sit and relax”, meaning Rollins is going to ride some pine for a while and try and sort things out.
While I’d like to point to his .218 BABIP and blame bad luck, it is a little more dubious than that. Rollins really is trending downward in all the wrong places.
BB% LD% IFFB% HR/FB wFB/C Spd UZR/150 2007 6.4 19.9 7.5 10.7 0.58 8.8 6.3 2008 9.4 24.0 11.8 7.2 -0.12 7.8 15.0 2009 5.1 16.5 14.4 5.4 -1.57 5.7 4.0
What really rears it’s ugly head is that J-Roll is really having some major hang-ups with the heat, to the tune of -1.57 runs per 100 fastballs pitched. He’s also not striking the ball with authority, as evidenced by a plummeting line-drive rate and a hike in infield flies. It could be something as simple as a flat swing, or it could a slowing bat. That’s where scouting comes in, and someone who regularly watches the Phillies can feel free to help me fill in the blanks.
There’s also that drop in his speed score and UZR, which could have other implications, as in maybe he’s lost a step. At 31-years old, I’m hardly saying Rollins is finished, though I think this could be the beginning of the end of Rollins best days. Of course, he also could win another MVP next year and make me look really stupid.
Regardless of whether he’s entering a decline phase or is just in the slump of a lifetime, there has to be a little hand-wringing going on in Philadelphia over their star shortstop.
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I don’t see him as having noticably lost bat speed or lengthened his swing much, he simply has a horrible, overanxious, pull happy approach. He is an extremely stubborn guy and thinks he can hit his way out of his struggles, seemingly not realizing that a large part of that problem is that approach itself
I think eventually he will get red hot, but right now a benching is what he needs (especially after his mental mistake in the field Wednesday)
Defensively, he looks like the same guy he has been. Extremely solid. And recall that last year he was in the middle of the pack in UZR and +/- and really turned it on and surged to the top in the 2nd half last year
Isn’t this the same website that wrote this just a few days ago:
“The list of guys who have been written off as over the hill and then shoved that right back in everyone’s face is long and distinguished. You would think that eventually, we’d learn our lesson. There may be a point at which a major league player just loses enough of his ability to stop being productive, but we suck at figuring out when that point is. We’re so bad at it that we should just stop trying.”
indeed, although this site also goes to great lengths to praise brian Giles, but goes the other way on Rollins. There’s a balance somewhere.
Anyway, different authors. And hey, they gotta write something.
Then again, how old were Baerga or Alomar when they declined?
Never mind. Alomar was 34, Baerga 27-28. Baerga was not as good as Alomar, had some nice but high babip seasons, and he stopped juicin’ (per Bobby V., don’t blame me, but that is just hearsay from a friend of mine), but we all know the real cause was traded to the mets curse. :)
Rollins is 30 years old. To say a 30 year old player is already entering his decline phase seems pretty premature to me.
Hitters tend to peak in the 25-28 range, right? I wouldn’t be surprised at all if a hitter started declining at 30, since most do.
It’ll take more than a few months to know if Rollins is truly declining, but even a declining Jimmy Rollins is a great player, assuming the decline is more of a ramp than a cliff.
While hitters tend to peak at 26-28, they don’t tend to decline until at least 32… at least not in the way that Rollins is “declining.” I’d have to agree with AB – every game I’ve seen (and I’ve seen many this year) Rollins seems to be trying to pull the ball and is swinging at too many pitches. His head is pulling off so badly it looks like he’s trying to do a pirouette half the time when he’s in the batter’s box.
J-Ro’s season so far can pretty much be summed up in an AB he had during the Phils-O’s game on Father’s day: The first pitch he saw was ankles-low and he golfed it up to pop into shallow center. He didn’t wait for his pitch like a good leadoff hitter, he just started hacking as hard as he could as soon as he could. It’s a shame to see him struggle so much, and I have a lot of faith that he can turn things on down the stretch (he has before), but right now he does not look like he’s working to adjust the problems with his approach that are plaguing him.
Agree with AB for the most part except that I don’t think JRoll will get super-hot at any point this season. Cholly needs to drop him down to 6th in the lineup and JRoll needs to get it out of his head that he is a power hitter.
As for his defense, it hasn’t really slipped but it clearly isn’t the same caliber as last year. JRoll is still getting to a ton of balls but not making the same plays he did last year either.
Rollins will probably not match his 2007 season, but he’s pretty much completely out of whack this year. He tries to pull every ball when he’s left-handed too. I don’t know what his BABIP splits are but he just doesn’t look as bad right-handed.
My opinion is that Rollins’ problems are more mental than physical. His head is not in the game as evidenced by a couple of bonehead plays in the last couple of weeks. I have no idea of the source or nature of the problems but I don’t believe they are baseball related.
This is an odd situation. JRoll can flat out play. Three years ago his offensive levels jumped up in response to cutting the conrows and a new found love for offseason workouts. JRoll will get hot but not extremely hot like he did when he carried a hit streak from one season to the next. This struggle is definitely mental and was not predicted by anyone coming into the year. There were no precursors in showing a sharp regression. The phillies have been a hard team to put your finger on anyways this year. Jayson Werth fluctuating throughout the year. Raul Ibanez launching his career at the youthful age of 37. Cole Hamels hurt for the most part and Brad Lidge loosing his touch. The only constants have been Ryan Howard and Chase Utley.
I don’t own him or anything but I think poeple are overreacting to this big time. It’s funny cuz a very same situation just took place with Ortiz. He was doing awful and looked to be completly done. Now granted, I thought he was done too and that his big production years were chalked up the juice but at the same time, while I thought he was never going to be the Big Papi of old – I certainly didn’t think that he was as bad as he was showing.
Same goes for Rollins. You just don’t lose that much from one year to the next. The rollins who won the MVP and hit 30 HR in a season is never coming back (in my opinion) (I also think he juiced that year…crazy how cynical I’ve become) but to say that he’s 31 and he’s old and is now a .211 hitter is outrageous.
If there is one thing that holds true for baseball, moreso than any other sport, is that it’s the most unpredictable game statistically speaking short term but the most predictable over the long run. Players go through ups and downs on a week to week basis but so much more often than not, they somehow wind up at their career numbers by years end.
Do players get old and start to decline? Yes. But do players go from 40 steals, .280 to .211 and 20 steals in one season when he appears to be physically healthy and moving well in the feild. Prob. not.
At the end of the day, I have no problem to say that Rollins is decling – he may be bad, he may not be a 1st round pick anymore but no matter what you want to say, he’s not as bad as he’s been thus far. He will rebound and he will get his numbers closer to his career numbers, even if they end up being slightly worse than last year.
Jimmy Rollins BABIP
2003 .310
2004 .309
2005 .310
2006 .284
2007 .303
2008 .292
2009 .252
Just looking at this statistic one would expect a nice rebound from Rollins in 2010, barring injury.
Is Jimmy’s declining BABIP an outlier or the norm going forward? Rollins has only 9 infield hits this year – 6 less than last year with almost 100 more PAs this year. Also, 17% of his FBs (including LDs) didn’t leave the infield. In other years he averaged around 12%. Less speed, less meaningful contact?