Arizona's Clutch Hitter

Rob Neyer recently wrote about whether the Arizona Diamondbacks could see a turnaround in the near future. One of the more interesting aspects of Arizona's 2010 season was that they were seventh in the league in OBP and fourth in SLG, yet finished eighth in scoring. As he notes, poor clutch hitting usually accounts for this disparity, but the Diamondbacks apparently did well in this area.

Among all players in the league with a minimum 50 plate appearances with runners in scoring position last year, Arizona had one batter in the Top 50 in wOBA (Mark Reynolds) and five in the Top 100 (LaRoche, Drew, Upton, Montero). Reynolds is an interesting case; while he had a fairly big drop off across the board from his 2009 numbers overall, he excelled in big spots.
Mark Reynolds - 2010

	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
Overall	.198	.320	.433	.334
w/ RISP	.276	.414	.619	.441

	K%	LD%	HR%	BABIP
Overall	35.3%	13.2%	6.5%	.255
w/ RISP	27.6%	11.0%	8.2%	.325

Reynolds is a true outcome player. In 2010, he had the worst K-Rate of any qualifying major leaguer, while finishing in the top 6% in BB% and the top 4% in HR%. All those strikeouts really hurt his overall line, and dropped his OBP into the bottom 34% in the league. He may have gotten a bit lucky in clutch situations last season, as his BABIP saw a pretty big jump. However, it’s worth pointing out that in his last 551 plate appearances with RISP, Reynolds has hit .256/.365/.527 with 30 HRs for a .391 wOBA.
Mark Reynolds w/ RISP 2008-2010
Without Mark Reynolds' elevated numbers with RISP last season, the D-Backs would have likely finished a lot worse than 8th in scoring. Somehow, I don't think Melvin Mora will be able to replace that offense.

Figuring Figgins

Chone Figgins saw a huge falloff in his averages in 2010.  For his career through 2009, Chone showed himself to be a much better hitter against right-handed pitchers than lefties, with a BA 36 points higher and a slugging percentage 53 points higher.  In 2010, those number reversed, as he fit fine against lefties but posted a .247/.329/.288 slash line against righties.

There doesn't seem to be a good reason for the falloff, as Figgins was hitting poorly on pitches in the middle of the strike zone.  In 2008 and 2009 combined, you can see where Figgins was hot against righties:

Chone Figgins versus right-handed pitchers, 2008-2009.Note that he does well on pitches down and in and up and away, but hits very well on pitches in the middle.  That middle went cold in 2010.

Chone Figgins versus right-handed pitchers, 2010.If the pitch wasn't on the inside edge of the plate in the strike zone, Chone didn't do much with it.  It's not clear why this happened.  As in the previous two seasons, RHP worked Chone away and a bit up.  So his hottest zone in 2010 landed where pitchers throw him the least number of pitches.  They also threw mostly fastballs to him.

Figgins went through two upheavals in 2010, changing teams and moving positions.  It could just be that the combination caused his concentration to be off.  He hit lefties fine, so I suspect Chone will bounce back in 2011.

Carlos Silva Fighting to make Cubs Rotation

Gordon Wittenmyer at the Chicago Sun-Times writes today about Carlos Silva’s confidence that he’ll be in the Cubs starting rotation come April. As noted in the article, Silva had a great start to the season, going 9-2 with a 2.96 ERA through 16 starts. However, he fell apart after that, finishing with a 10-6 record and a 4.22 ERA on the season.

Here’s a quick look at Silva’s numbers through those first 16 starts, and what happened in the brief set of starts that followed: Carlos Silva

	P	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
4/1/2010 - 7/6/2010	1468	.242	.280	.372	.292
7/11/2010 - 9/30/2010	273	.460	.507	.683	.516

	BB%	K%	Contact%	LD%	BABIP
4/1/2010 - 7/6/2010	3.9%	17.2%	82.4%	14.4%	.269
7/11/2010 - 9/30/2010	11.0%	13.7%	86.0%	27.7%	.291

Silva battled a number of injuries last year, not to mention an irregular heartbeat discovered during a game with the Colorado Rockies in early August. The 31-year old veteran has a career ERA+ of 93, with his best season in 2005 with a 130 ERA+. The Cubs can’t rely on Silva duplicating his first half of 2010. However, should he stay healthy, he still might be a decent back of the rotation starter in 2011.