Tweet
So when looking to find what exactly went wrong with hermida, it's really only one answer, that being power.
His BABIP is roughly what to expect. This season he has a .311 BABIP. While he does have a career BABIP of .322, 3 out of 4 seasons he has a babip of .310-.311, and you look for trends not exceptions. And he has a MILB BABIP of .337, so a .310ish babip is basically around what to expect.
His K% isn't anything glaring. It's 23.4% this year, and he has a 24.9 career %. He has a MILB career K% of 22%, and it was 23% in his big 2005. So, again, he's showing what he's always shown.
While his MILB BB% of 15.3% hasn't carried over, that's also not that surprising, as it's very hard to transfer high BB%'s especially with a lack of power. So again we shouldn't really be disappointed in his 10% career BB%, 11.6% this season.
That leaves ISO. Power generally doesn't go away, and infact should be expected go up as one ages throughout their 20's. Hermida had a decent but not great MILB ISO of .152, but more importantly had a .225 ISO in 2005, putting up a 14% HR/FB (park factored HR/FB of 15.5%). All signs were he would hit for power.
2006 was a very disappointing year. The main culprit being power, as he put up an abysmal .117 ISO and 6.2% HR/FB. However, he was injured most of the year, and so we sat on his potential. 2007 we were rewarded for it, as he put up a .205 iSO and a 15.7% HR/FB. While was lucky with balls in play, this was more or less then Hermida we were expected.
Then '08 came. '08 he had issues elsewhere, as his BB% lowered and his K% raised, but he still only showed average power at a .157 ISO. His HR/FB% dropped to 13%.
Now we're in '09 and we're in another subpar season. The only thing that's off is ISO. It's dropped all the way down to .133. his HR/FB is down to 10.1%. This is a very disturbing trend for a player in his mid 20's.
Well, maybe he was just unlucky? Thankfully we have HitTracker here, which breaks HRs into 3 type: No Doubt (ND), Plenty (P), or Just Enough (JE), which is ample explanation for them. The theory is simple: If a player hits a lot of far HRs (aka no doubt HRs), they'll also hit a lot of just enough home runs, aka they'll have a high home run total. Likewise, a player who hits a ton of just enoughs isn't going to hit many no doubts. So, using that theory, if a player has a ton of ND home runs but has a low home run total, they were probably unlucky and can expect an increase in HRs. And if a player only hits JEs and has a huge HR total, that probably is gonna go down.
No surprise, in 2007 he put up monster totals. Of the 18 HRs he hit, 9 were ND (50%), 6 were P (33%), and he hit only 3 JE (16%). His power numbers definitely weren't luck factored in 2007, he absolutely scorched the ball.
2008 was different though. He would only hit 2 NDs (12%), although he also only hit 5 JE (29%). Most of his HRs were P (10 for 59%), which isn't bad but isn't good either.
This year has been horrible. 6 of his 13 HRs have been JE (46%), while 5 have been plenty (39%), and he has only hit 2 ND (15%). When the majority of your HRs are only barely getting out, there's issues.
It's not just HRs that's a problem. In 2007, 30% of his hits in play went for XBH (aka 2b/3b). In 2008, this number was just 23%. This season it's just 16%. So his gap power is completely disappearing as well.
I mean, I know this isn't unprecedented, but it's just fucking crazy.
One of the things people bring up is that he needs to be more aggressive. There certainly might be something to that. Of balls within the strike zone, Hermida swings just 61.7% of the time this season, 62.2% in his career. Not surprisingly, 2007 was the highest of his career at 64.2%. The ML average is 65.9% this season. However, we're also wanting a .200 ISO out of him. Players with at least a .200 ISO this season average a 67% zone swing rate. Now you might look at this as a difference of only 5.3%, big deal. Hermida has seen 982 balls within the strike zone this season. Meaning that he would have swung at 52 more pitches if he raised his Zone swing % by 5.3%. And with his zone contact rate of 90%, that means 47 more balls hit. Now what exactly he does with those pitches is certainly questionable. Just because a ball is a strike doesn't mean you can do something with it. While players with more power tend to be more aggressive, you don't have to be aggressive to have power. Nick Swisher has the lowest zone swing % of a player with at least a .200 ISO at 55.7%. Mauer is next at 55.8%. But it certainly could be something for Hermida. And he will be hitting his power prime, turning 26 next year. But things definitely aren't headed in the right direction.
His BABIP is roughly what to expect. This season he has a .311 BABIP. While he does have a career BABIP of .322, 3 out of 4 seasons he has a babip of .310-.311, and you look for trends not exceptions. And he has a MILB BABIP of .337, so a .310ish babip is basically around what to expect.
His K% isn't anything glaring. It's 23.4% this year, and he has a 24.9 career %. He has a MILB career K% of 22%, and it was 23% in his big 2005. So, again, he's showing what he's always shown.
While his MILB BB% of 15.3% hasn't carried over, that's also not that surprising, as it's very hard to transfer high BB%'s especially with a lack of power. So again we shouldn't really be disappointed in his 10% career BB%, 11.6% this season.
That leaves ISO. Power generally doesn't go away, and infact should be expected go up as one ages throughout their 20's. Hermida had a decent but not great MILB ISO of .152, but more importantly had a .225 ISO in 2005, putting up a 14% HR/FB (park factored HR/FB of 15.5%). All signs were he would hit for power.
2006 was a very disappointing year. The main culprit being power, as he put up an abysmal .117 ISO and 6.2% HR/FB. However, he was injured most of the year, and so we sat on his potential. 2007 we were rewarded for it, as he put up a .205 iSO and a 15.7% HR/FB. While was lucky with balls in play, this was more or less then Hermida we were expected.
Then '08 came. '08 he had issues elsewhere, as his BB% lowered and his K% raised, but he still only showed average power at a .157 ISO. His HR/FB% dropped to 13%.
Now we're in '09 and we're in another subpar season. The only thing that's off is ISO. It's dropped all the way down to .133. his HR/FB is down to 10.1%. This is a very disturbing trend for a player in his mid 20's.
Well, maybe he was just unlucky? Thankfully we have HitTracker here, which breaks HRs into 3 type: No Doubt (ND), Plenty (P), or Just Enough (JE), which is ample explanation for them. The theory is simple: If a player hits a lot of far HRs (aka no doubt HRs), they'll also hit a lot of just enough home runs, aka they'll have a high home run total. Likewise, a player who hits a ton of just enoughs isn't going to hit many no doubts. So, using that theory, if a player has a ton of ND home runs but has a low home run total, they were probably unlucky and can expect an increase in HRs. And if a player only hits JEs and has a huge HR total, that probably is gonna go down.
No surprise, in 2007 he put up monster totals. Of the 18 HRs he hit, 9 were ND (50%), 6 were P (33%), and he hit only 3 JE (16%). His power numbers definitely weren't luck factored in 2007, he absolutely scorched the ball.
2008 was different though. He would only hit 2 NDs (12%), although he also only hit 5 JE (29%). Most of his HRs were P (10 for 59%), which isn't bad but isn't good either.
This year has been horrible. 6 of his 13 HRs have been JE (46%), while 5 have been plenty (39%), and he has only hit 2 ND (15%). When the majority of your HRs are only barely getting out, there's issues.
It's not just HRs that's a problem. In 2007, 30% of his hits in play went for XBH (aka 2b/3b). In 2008, this number was just 23%. This season it's just 16%. So his gap power is completely disappearing as well.
I mean, I know this isn't unprecedented, but it's just fucking crazy.
One of the things people bring up is that he needs to be more aggressive. There certainly might be something to that. Of balls within the strike zone, Hermida swings just 61.7% of the time this season, 62.2% in his career. Not surprisingly, 2007 was the highest of his career at 64.2%. The ML average is 65.9% this season. However, we're also wanting a .200 ISO out of him. Players with at least a .200 ISO this season average a 67% zone swing rate. Now you might look at this as a difference of only 5.3%, big deal. Hermida has seen 982 balls within the strike zone this season. Meaning that he would have swung at 52 more pitches if he raised his Zone swing % by 5.3%. And with his zone contact rate of 90%, that means 47 more balls hit. Now what exactly he does with those pitches is certainly questionable. Just because a ball is a strike doesn't mean you can do something with it. While players with more power tend to be more aggressive, you don't have to be aggressive to have power. Nick Swisher has the lowest zone swing % of a player with at least a .200 ISO at 55.7%. Mauer is next at 55.8%. But it certainly could be something for Hermida. And he will be hitting his power prime, turning 26 next year. But things definitely aren't headed in the right direction.
Comment