August 4th in 2009 season, Matthias, Toronto Blue Jays by Matthias Koster .

Troublesome Edwin Encarnacion Trends

Troublesome Edwin Encarnacion Trends

edwinencarnacionjays.png

Home/Away Split

The Park Factors for the Great America Ball Park have always been high. ESPN and Baseball-Reference confirm this theory (ESPN gives the park a 1.00+ run and HR ranking in each of the past three seasons. Baseball-Reference lists the hitting factor at 104, which is high on their system).

For his career Edwin has a 113+ OPS at home and a 88 OPS on the road. His road OPS is .743. In his career he has posted only one .750+ road OPS (.799 in 2007).

Fastballs

I don’t like seeing this. Opponents have increased the percentage of fastballs to Edwin this season by a large percentage

edwin-fastball.png

Spray Chart

After looking at the fastball data I called up a few home spray charts to see if Edwin is having a hard time getting around on fastball (ie trends towards not pulling, etc)

2007 Spray. s = single

2007sparyee.png

2008 Spray. s = single

2008sprayee.png

2009 Spray. s=single f=flyout (as there weren’t enough singles)

2009sprayee.png

Is this less than stellar chart trend (from a pull perspective) by design? Maybe. Here’s an EE Quote heading into the season

“I want to try to stay more to the middle. Last year, I tried to pull too many balls and hit more homers. That’s why my average went down. I will be more consistent as a hitter. I know I can do it. I’ve done it before. I know I can hit better than that and I just have to keep working”.

Time will tell

Optimistically EE is being sold to the Toronto fans as a young player having a bad season with plenty of upside. Defense aside we’ll use the rest of the season to monitor EE’s offensive production.

Matthias Koster

VIsit Matthias Koster's website

2 Comments

Mopupduty.com is gravatar friendly. What's a gravatar? It’s a small image that appears beside your name in blog comments. To sign-up for free you can go to Gravatar.com.

  • eyebleaf
    August 4, 2009

    Great post. It’s hard to argue with those numbers and charts.

    But I still believe in Edwin Encarnacion.

    Reply
  • bkblades
    August 4, 2009

    Those road splits are indeed troubling. But EE still has a year to reverse these trends, despite the difficulty, so we’ll have to wait and see. Needless to say, 3B looks to be another free agency position for depth next year.

    Reply

Leave A Comment.