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Tuesday, April 27, 2004 |
David Eckstein And The Alarming OBP Decline
Eckstein's .306 OBP is now ninth on the team, behind such non-walkers as Garrett Anderson and José Guillen. Jeff DaVanon last year went from being a surprise slugger to walking at a furious pace, garnering one walk for every nine plate appearances. This year, in 19 plate appearances, he has five walks, while Eckstein in 86 has only two. That the team has grown hacktastic over the last year is not surprising -- Guillen, Guerrero, and Anderson in particular are known to be free swingers -- but for this to affect Eckstein is alarming. Dismiss it if you want as a short season aberration, but consider that Eck's April 2002 OBP was .353. Erstad's was .288. Both are doing worse, and not by a little. I heard Eck dismiss it as a function of the quality of the lineup behind him, but -- isn't the theory of protection supposed to be that better hitters behind you results in better pitches to you? And, conversely, with less caution needed behind Eckstein thanks to Erstad's rotten year so far, shouldn't it be the case that Eckstein would tend to see more balls, not fewer?
Part 2
After looking at this a bit, his numbers have declined. With the month almost over, we can say his walk rate (defined as BB/TPA, or using traditional stats, BB/(AB+BB+HBP+SF)) is way down from his 2002 numbers -- or even last year:
| Year | BB% |
|---|---|
| 2001 | .065 |
| 2002 | .064 |
| 2003 | .070 |
| 2004 (to 4/27) | .058 |
That's huge -- a .012 point decline from last year. Of course, in 2002 he had four games against not-quite-so-weak-as-in-recent-years Cleveland (remember they had Colón to pitch on opening day), but he had grand slams in back-to-back games against Toronto, too. But still, he had 11 walks on the month, more than twice what he's got now -- which looks like is all he will get now that he's almost a sure thing for the DL. Maybe PECOTA knows more about Eckstein's career trajectory than I thought -- or had hoped (against).
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