The first thing i noticed was that in his MVP ballot years of 09 and 11 he posted fielding%'s of .961 and.964, but in his 10 and 12 years where he was less productive with the bat his Fld% were .985 and.984. Has he possibly worked on hitting one year and def another? Is it just random or meaningless?
Another oddity I noticed were his IFFB% in 9 and 11 were 14.5% and 15.8%, but in his down years 9.5% and 10.3%.
The only other stat (not directly affected by his HR)i noticed being different in those paired years were his pitch f/x pitch values being positive on changeups in the good years and negative in his down years, but versus Slider was the opposite being negative in good and positive in down.
I'm sure anyone looking has noticed his eye progressively improving each of the last 4 years.
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=== The Tools of Victory(TM), Dept. ===
Shandler sez, on Justin Upton for 2013,
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Maintained CT% gains but suffered major power outage. He hinted that April thumb injury may have been a factor. Finished strong with 6 HR, 137 PX in Sept. That doesn't erase Apr-Aug, but given age and previous track record, could bounce back in a big way. Buy at a discount ($29 roto) if you can ... UP: 2011, or more.
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:: taps chin ::
This is interesting, the implication that Upton's contact rate trend is the most important factor in his assessment. (In chess, a master wins by sorting through various attributes of a position to find the one that matters most. He sees through the confusion and zeroes in on that aspect of the terrain that will trump the other aspects. This is the pattern recognition we're talking about.)
You might think, "well, all players improve their EYE ratios, their K/BB ratios, as they get older." That's true. But we're not talking about K/BB ratio. We are talking about strikeout rate itself. THAT is not the default assumption, that a player will start striking out less as he gets older.
For example, Justin Upton's b-ref.com comps list is loaded with players who were great at 23 years of age, but who never got better. Ruben Sierra is there, and Cesar Cedeno, and Andruw Jones, and guys like that. Boom, you file Justin Upton with Ruben Sierra, right? A couple of 5-WAR seasons in his early 20's, and then 2-3 WAR for the rest of his career?
Actually not. Sierra was a thick-headed player whose K's never got better. Same with Andruw Jones: he fanned 107 times as a 20-year-old, and was still fanning 130 times a year as a 30-year-old.
The pattern recog gives us a key difference in the position: Upton is evolving at the plate, whereas Sierra, Jones, etc. never did evolve.
| Justin Upton | CT% | EYE |
| Age 20 | 64 | .40 |
| Age 21 | 74 | .40 |
| 22 | 69 | .42 |
| 23 | 79 | .47 |
| 24 | 78 | .52 |
| 24, second half | 82 | .57 |
Let's not use these numbers indiscrimately; let's take a breath, calmly, and watch him hit on video. Does his swing match the above trendlines?
Actually it does. Ruben Sierra was always a GREEDY hitter, jumping at the ball and hoping to hit a glory shot so that he could do a wiggly-waggly down the 1B line. Justin Upton is almost the opposite of that, staying almost too much within himself, taking easy swings and using the whole field.
Shandler's opinion is that Upton is learning, that he is definitely getting better as he gets older, and that a spike could be just around the corner. Considering his opinion carefully, I've got to admit that Ron is probably right. Upton's trends do look great.
Except for the power, of course...
NEXT
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Comments
... along with his popup rate, suggesting that he was teeing off and juuuust missing some of them. In 2009, when he was only 22, his fly ball rate wasn't up yet, so hard to say -- grounder rate goes up when you pull the ball, so maybe he was going after the ball, but topping some to short and popping some up ... both are conceivably reflections of Upton being aggressive, but who knows...
Yeh, I've always used positive FB + CH pairings as indicators that a hitter was reading the pitch well, staying back on cambios but being quick to the heaters also. In his off years, the "slider-speed bat" is catching pitches in between, maybe.
If any of that be true, it would suggest that Upton has still not digested enough pitches to hit his prime yet.