Troublesome Edwin Encarnacion Trends
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
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
2008 Spray. s = single
2009 Spray. s=single f=flyout (as there weren’t enough singles)
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.
Great post. It’s hard to argue with those numbers and charts.
But I still believe in Edwin Encarnacion.
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.