Hanley Ramirez 2011: Knocking on .250's Door

[Swifty]

I'm a fan.

http://soflamarlins.com/showpost.php...2&postcount=15

[Big Z]

0-6 last night leaves Hanley at .204, looking like he wants to lift the ball every AB.

Goodluck getting to that .290 with 9 HR by the end of May

[flamarlins3]

Really though the title of the thread was going to be "Hanley Ramirez: Out of Order" from the front page.

Amazing that this team has been doing as well with a black hole in the 3 spot. (And now 2 spot). Really hope he turns it around and soon, but nothing he is doing gives me any hope.

And not to mention he should have had two errors last night instead on 1 if it weren't for a lil luck.

[Big Z]

Infante in the 8th spot has been great.

They were just talking on 790 about trading Hanley for King Felix. Lol

[Swifty]

If Seattle agrees, I think you think about it. Felix is signed through 2015, Hanley 2014.

All that said, it won't happen, and please keep discussion on point.

[Big Z]

It's a good deal, just think people are over reacting about Hanley.

Talent like Hanley is hard to find, trading him with his current contract is ridiculous.

He will eventually start hitting again, we just don't know when "eventually" will be.

[Mainge]

I think there's legitimate concern about Hanley not being Hanley anymore.

[Ralph]

His power has been declining the last 3 years. Even if he starts hitting again for average I personally wouldnt bet on him hitting 30 homers again.

[Swifty]

From September 2009 through May 17, 2011, he's hit 28 homeruns. That's concerning.

But I'm not so sure what Hanley "is."

I think, with the exception of 2009, which was unreal, we've seen Hanley is not a true middle of the lineup bat.

He doesn't walk a ton, but he really doesn't strike out at an alarming rate (3:2 K:BB, roughly) so maybe he's a top of the lineup bat...?

I really don't know what he "is" so I don't know if I'm concerned with him not being himself anymore. The dude always loved swinging first pitch and swinging through challenge fastballs. Maybe teams have figured it out, seems to be getting out a lot on fastballs.

[Mainge]

From September 2009 through May 17, 2011, he's hit 28 homeruns. That's concerning.

But I'm not so sure what Hanley "is."

I think, with the exception of 2009, which was unreal, we've seen Hanley is not a true middle of the lineup bat.

He doesn't walk a ton, but he really doesn't strike out at an alarming rate (3:2 K:BB, roughly) so maybe he's a top of the lineup bat...?

I really don't know what he "is" so I don't know if I'm concerned with him not being himself anymore. The dude always loved swinging first pitch and swinging through challenge fastballs. Maybe teams have figured it out, seems to be getting out a lot on fastballs.

I'm confused by a lot of this. The difference between his 2009 and other years is negligible at best. He definitely showed earlier than 2009 that he could be a "middle of the order" bat.

He was a .940+ OPS bat at the SS position, you should be concerned that he's not that anymore.

He's also seeing fastballs this year less than any other year. 54.8% percent versus 56, 59, 61, and 60 the previous 4 years .

[Swifty]

Yeah, I re-read what I wrote. That doesn't make sense the way I phrased it.

I think the takeaway I have from watching Hanley, and this is just a pure recollection and not a statistical study, is that whenever it's a challenge fastball, he's not squaring it up, and that's even when he was going right. In addition to that, it seems most of his homers came off of sliders, no surprise, 'you hang-em we bang-em' is a long standing axiom. Moreover, I'm fairly sure a great deal of Hanley's success came in low pitch at bats. He usually jumps on the first pitch, especially the first pitch away. When Hanley was "on" it was a lot of screamers to the right-center gap. Now, he's trying to pull the heck out of everything and still jumping first pitch.

His approach was always kind of 'meh' to me, but you don't question it when the results are pretty amazing. Now that he is struggling, I don't know if you tell him change his approach, or you try to move him back to leadoff because at least then you know that there's the unique lineup protection of the pitcher wanting to attack the leadoff guy so the rest of the inning isn't a sideshow.

[Swifty]

After that oppo shot last night....I am.....excite?

[Beef]

Remember when he got a couple hits a little while back and he was proclaimed out of it (again)? Then he went 0-16.

[Omar]

So let's give Hanley the benefit of the doubt and say that by May 30th, he meant after that game is completed. That gives him 17 games to raise his average from .217 to .290. He currently has 129 AB in 34 games. Thanks to my limited skills in mathematics I appreciate greatly that I merely have to divide 129 by two for the 17 games to get a prediction of 64.5 upcoming AB and round up to 65 for a total of 194 after that day's game.

With 194 AB, he'd have to reach 57 hits in order to be at .290 or better. With 28 hits at the moment, he'd have to more than double that to get there. That means that, in 17 games, Hanley will hit .446 to reach the mark he wants.

We're also currently 3 games back of Philly and have a 1.5 game lead in the NL Wild Card race. During the 17 game stretch Hanley is talking about, Philly plays 18 times:

Good Guys
3 @ WAS (18-19)
2 @ NYM (17-20)
2 vs CHI (16-20)
3 vs TB (22-15)
3 @ SFG (21-16)
3 @ LAD (18-20)
1 @ ARI (15-21)

Stupid People
3 @ ATL (21-18)
2 @ STL (22-16)
2 vs COL (19-16)
3 vs TEX (19-18)
4 vs CIN (20-17)
3 @ NYM (17-20)
1 @ WAS (18-19)

With what looks like a slightly easier schedule for the Phillies, you have to give them the edge. But if our #3 hitter decides to hit .446 and everything else holds constant, I predict we tie Philadelphia for the NL East lead going into May 31st's games.

I'm with Hanley - take a picture!

At Sandroimbuto's request, an update:

Hanley is now at 152 AB with 32 H. That means that he has 42 AB to get 25 more hits, of which four have to be homers. That means he needs to hit .595 through May 30th - you can do it, Hanley!

Unfortunately throughout this stretch, we've lost ground in the Wild Card hunt (only up 0.5 games on St. Louis at the moment). However, losing 1.0 games of territory in the Wild Card is washed down by gaining 1.5 games on the Phillies, so go Hanley for that.....?

[Omar]

Get excited guys - Hanley will be hitting .800 the next 7 days in order to get to .290