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Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press today published a piece about Cody Ross, which was picked up by the likes of USA Today and Sports Illustrated. The highlights:
All in all, nothing Earth-shattering there. We all know Cody is a streaky player, and although two of his four home runs this year have actually come in the last 7 games, he's still down tremendously in the home run category. So what gives? Does his "more matured approach" give him less power and better contact? Some things seem to be a bit of an anomaly to me, which I'd expect to self-correct over time and bring Cody back to his usual .270-ish average with 20-plus home runs.
I'm no sabermetric genius like some of the people on our forums, but looking at the numbers seems somewhat counter-intuitive - and if I'm wrong, please correct me, as I'm a relative novice to the new generation of stats. This season, Cody has swung at a much larger percentage of pitches out of the strike zone - 31.5%, as opposed to a career average of 27.4% and 28.4% and 29.2% the previous years. Generally, swinging at pitches out of the strike zone decreases a hitter's success. However, his percentage of contact with pitches outside the strike zone has drastically increased as well - 67.3% this year, compared to a 58.7% career rate, and 60.3% and 58.8% the two years previous. Essentially, he's swinging at more pitches outside the strike zone and making contact with even more of them.
To go along with this, Ross has an extremely high batting average on balls in play (BABIP) this year, at a whopping .378. BABIP for hitters, unlike pitchers, is generally relatively consistent from year to year. Indeed, Cody's two full seasons ('08 and '09) have yielded a .299 and .306 BABIP, respectively, and his career rate is .307, thanks in large part to his monster 200-plate-appearance season in 2007 (in which he put up a .335/.411/.653 slash line). Even in that season, Cody's BABIP was .371, lower than what it is today.
Speed can contribute to a high BABIP, but Cody is not known for being particularly fast. Despite this, Cody's IFH% (infield hits divided by groundballs) is double his career rate - 9.7% this year compared to a 4.9% career percentage (4.8% last year and 4% the year before). Essentially, Cody has been hitting more ground balls this year (more on that later) and beating them out for more infield hits. He's got 6 infield hits this year, compared to just 7 all of last year and 5 in 2008.
Another thing that can contribute to a high BABIP is a high line drive rate. Cody's LD% this year is a whopping 26.7%, compared to a 19.4% last year and 20.8% in 2008. For comparison, last season only 17 players had a line drive percentage of 22.5% or higher, and of those, only our old friend Josh Willingham had a BABIP lower than league average.
So we can explain the high BABIP. What we don't know if his "more matured approach" has led to more line drives and more ground balls and fewer fly balls, or if this is simply a case of small sample size. It's likely a case of the latter.
What about the lack of home runs? Like I mentioned earlier, Cody is hitting more ground balls this year. In fact, his ground ball and fly ball percentage have seemingly swapped. Cody's career ground ball percentage is 36.6% (33% in 2009, 35.8% in 2008). This year, it's at 47.3%. Conversely, his career fly ball percentage is 42.4% (47.6% in 2009 and 43.3% in 2008). It's at 26% so far this year. His HR/FB ratio is the same as it was last year - 11.8% compared to 11.5% - which suggests to me that as he starts hitting more fly balls, the home runs will start coming.
The ZiPS projection model had Cody for a .262/.322/.473 slash line coming into the season. He's at .308/.357/.467 right now. As his BABIP and HR/FB ratio start to get where they should be with a larger sample size, I don't think that projection is going to be too far off. As far being a potential All-Star? Don't bet on it, unless the home runs start coming in bunches and the BABIP stays as high as it does.
- Cody's .308 average is tied with Ronny Paulino for the team lead and is 38 points higher than his previous career-best average
- His "more matured approach" to batting has lead to a decrease in power: his HR:AB rate is 1:42.3 this year, as opposed to 1:23.3 last year and 1:21 in 2008
- Fredi Gonzalez thinks he should be an All-Star
- The Marlins are much better when Cody hits well in games this season
- People like chanting his name
All in all, nothing Earth-shattering there. We all know Cody is a streaky player, and although two of his four home runs this year have actually come in the last 7 games, he's still down tremendously in the home run category. So what gives? Does his "more matured approach" give him less power and better contact? Some things seem to be a bit of an anomaly to me, which I'd expect to self-correct over time and bring Cody back to his usual .270-ish average with 20-plus home runs.
I'm no sabermetric genius like some of the people on our forums, but looking at the numbers seems somewhat counter-intuitive - and if I'm wrong, please correct me, as I'm a relative novice to the new generation of stats. This season, Cody has swung at a much larger percentage of pitches out of the strike zone - 31.5%, as opposed to a career average of 27.4% and 28.4% and 29.2% the previous years. Generally, swinging at pitches out of the strike zone decreases a hitter's success. However, his percentage of contact with pitches outside the strike zone has drastically increased as well - 67.3% this year, compared to a 58.7% career rate, and 60.3% and 58.8% the two years previous. Essentially, he's swinging at more pitches outside the strike zone and making contact with even more of them.
To go along with this, Ross has an extremely high batting average on balls in play (BABIP) this year, at a whopping .378. BABIP for hitters, unlike pitchers, is generally relatively consistent from year to year. Indeed, Cody's two full seasons ('08 and '09) have yielded a .299 and .306 BABIP, respectively, and his career rate is .307, thanks in large part to his monster 200-plate-appearance season in 2007 (in which he put up a .335/.411/.653 slash line). Even in that season, Cody's BABIP was .371, lower than what it is today.
Speed can contribute to a high BABIP, but Cody is not known for being particularly fast. Despite this, Cody's IFH% (infield hits divided by groundballs) is double his career rate - 9.7% this year compared to a 4.9% career percentage (4.8% last year and 4% the year before). Essentially, Cody has been hitting more ground balls this year (more on that later) and beating them out for more infield hits. He's got 6 infield hits this year, compared to just 7 all of last year and 5 in 2008.
Another thing that can contribute to a high BABIP is a high line drive rate. Cody's LD% this year is a whopping 26.7%, compared to a 19.4% last year and 20.8% in 2008. For comparison, last season only 17 players had a line drive percentage of 22.5% or higher, and of those, only our old friend Josh Willingham had a BABIP lower than league average.
So we can explain the high BABIP. What we don't know if his "more matured approach" has led to more line drives and more ground balls and fewer fly balls, or if this is simply a case of small sample size. It's likely a case of the latter.
What about the lack of home runs? Like I mentioned earlier, Cody is hitting more ground balls this year. In fact, his ground ball and fly ball percentage have seemingly swapped. Cody's career ground ball percentage is 36.6% (33% in 2009, 35.8% in 2008). This year, it's at 47.3%. Conversely, his career fly ball percentage is 42.4% (47.6% in 2009 and 43.3% in 2008). It's at 26% so far this year. His HR/FB ratio is the same as it was last year - 11.8% compared to 11.5% - which suggests to me that as he starts hitting more fly balls, the home runs will start coming.
The ZiPS projection model had Cody for a .262/.322/.473 slash line coming into the season. He's at .308/.357/.467 right now. As his BABIP and HR/FB ratio start to get where they should be with a larger sample size, I don't think that projection is going to be too far off. As far being a potential All-Star? Don't bet on it, unless the home runs start coming in bunches and the BABIP stays as high as it does.
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