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Improvement

There was a graphic during the pregame show last night that noted how Wainwright and Zambrano are the only pitchers who have improved their ERAs every month since the beginning of the season.  Wainwright secured an improved July with his start last night, so I thought I'd take a look at the rest of his numbers as well.  Then I wondered about our boy Rick Ankiel, and whether he was showing any improvement on the plate discipline so many fear he hasn't mastered well enough to hack it in the majors.  Hit the jump for all the numbers.

Star-divide

First, Wainer (Source):

Month  ERA W L G GS IP    H  R ER HR BB SO  AVG BB/9  WHIP IP/GS
April 6.14 1 2 5 5  29.1 39 21 20  3 16 21 .331 4.91 1.875  5.87
May   5.00 3 2 5 5  27.0 39 16 15  1  7 17 .339 2.33 1.704  5.40
June  3.69 2 3 6 6  39.0 34 17 16  5 14 17 .231 3.23 1.231  6.50
July  3.12 3 1 4 4  26.0 26  9  9  0  8 23 .260 2.77 1.308  6.50

So Adam started out the season turning every batter into Stan Musial, but since May has improved by almost 100 points.  As his BAA improved, so did his BB/9, which explains the steady decline in WHIP and ERA.  Also notable though, is that he's going deeper into games - averaging almost a full inning more in June/July than he did in April/May.

Next up, #66 (Source):

      AB H  2B 3B HR BB IBB HP  K SF GDP  AVG  OBP  SLG  OPS BB/SO
April 89 23  4  1  7  3   1  3 18  3   0 .258 .296 .562 .858  0.17
May   72 23  3  1  4  5   2  0 17  1   0 .319 .359 .556 .915  0.29
June  99 26  4  0 10  6   2  1 27  1   4 .263 .308 .606 .914  0.22
July  96 25  4  0  8 10   0  1 20  0   5 .260 .336 .552 .889  0.50

Firstly, I notice that Rick's BA has been remarkably consistent at ~.260 other than May, which can be partially explained by his corresponding jump in BABIP (not shown).  Meanwhile, despite a gradual increase in walks, his OBP has been erratic.  In the end, the original question was about plate discipline, and while .50 isn't a great BB/SO ratio by any means, he is showing some noticable improvement.

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If slick Rick
could keep that BB/K ratio at 1:2 consistently, how great would that be.  This guy's got some unbelievable power numbers.  12/25 hits in July were for extra bases, in addition to 14/26 in June (10 dingers), 8/23 in May, and 12/23 in April.  

Keep up the good work, Rick, and keep taking walks.

by silent_bob on Aug 1, 2007 4:42 PM EDT reply actions  

I'm a firm believer
that Ankiel had a mindset from the beginning of his transition to the OF that he had to HIT his way onto the team and only HITTING would make scouts and the Cardinals organization take him seriously as an outfielder.  Now that people have started to take notice and believe that this guy can be a major-league caliber fielder, his plate discipline will improve.  It's like the cliche about Dominican players having to "hit their way off the island" as an excuse why players like Vlad Guerrero don't walk very often.  I think the same thing happened with Ankiel.  He had to hit to get noticed, and taking walks wasn't going to get him anywhere.
A computer beat me at chess once, but it was no match for me at kickboxing.

by Ghostrider on Aug 1, 2007 4:58 PM EDT reply actions  

agree completely
That is one of the things that makes Hoffpauir's performance in AAA so impressive- he's actually improves his walk rate from 13% to 18% moving from AA to AAA.  I wonder if Ludwick is dealing with this same dilemma?
Panic!!!

by SleepyCA on Aug 1, 2007 6:00 PM EDT up reply actions  

Ankiel
he really scares me. One thing that really sticks out like a sore thumb is his Line Drive Percentage. Now I know that using LD% independently doesn't show much because the definition of a line drive is debatable...but most major leaguers are around 17%-21%. Slick Rick is at 11%. That is a HUGE gap and just indicates to me that he will struggle mightily in the majors. Most power hitters who have high HR and K rates have very high BABIP, and LD% rates like Jack Cust, Adam Dunn and Jonny Gomes. But thats not true in Rick's case, His BABIP at Memphis is at .267. His batting average is just .268, so he has been getting lucky and his average should be much lower with his high K% rate. I remember awhile back someone had a link to Baseball Prospectus  where you could input a minor league player and it would show the major league equivalency for those numbers. It would be interesting to see again a few months later. He probably projects to be a .220-.240 hitter with that really low BABIP. I think I found a major league comp for Ankiel in Sammy Sosa:

Ankiel @Memphis
K%-      20.8%
LD%-    11%
BABIP- .267
ISOP-   .306
.268/.316/.574   31HR

Sosa
K%       25.5%
LD%     15%
BABIP   .286
ISOP     .213
.239/.301/.452   16HR

by Bullet Bob Gibson on Aug 1, 2007 6:33 PM EDT reply actions  

reference my post earlier
almost half of his hits are going for extra bases - to me, that accounts for alot of the high BABIP.  The guy is hitting the ball hard when he makes contact.  His OBP and K% are the key stats, IMO.

by silent_bob on Aug 1, 2007 8:13 PM EDT up reply actions  

do you know
what the average FB, GB and pop-up %'s are?  
Panic!!!

by SleepyCA on Aug 1, 2007 9:42 PM EDT up reply actions  

Chris Constancio
is rapidly moving up my list of favorite baseball writers/people/stat-gurus.  His work at firstinning.com is simply outstanding.

He posted a while back some averages across leagues for this type of data.

by azruavatar on Aug 1, 2007 10:14 PM EDT up reply actions  

Slick Rick
I like the analysis Bullet Bob.  I wish Slick Rick would have taken his traveling minor league road show to another organization years ago.  The chances of Rick contributing at the ML level for the Cards in a meaningful way are negligible IMHO; however, the Cards continue to extend him opportunities.  I find Rick to be a distraction.  I would prefer the club focus on real OF prospects and be done with one Rick Ankiel (unless he wants to pitch again ... then I'd give him lots of looks).

by jjray on Aug 1, 2007 10:08 PM EDT up reply actions  

Slick Rick
I agree in that I wish he would have gone in the Mulder deal instead of Haren, but other than that, I love having him in the Birds organization. What other player with as little MLB experience has generated this much talk and intrigue for so long. This season would be much less fun without having the Ankiel home run watch to spice it up.

Think about this for a second. This guy has been a position player for about 1 years worth of at-bats and has hit 31 homers at AAA in 2/3 of a season. He will get better and by 2009 will be hitting some dingers in somebody's outfield.

How about handin' me another helpin' of those mashed taters...thank you very much!

by Elvis on Aug 2, 2007 9:26 AM EDT reply actions  

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