Is Renteria Cooked?

So here we are in late June in the lead for the Wild Card with the second best record in the National League. But all the warm fuzzies we get when looking the standings get counteracted by the cold reality that have a severely flawed team. Sure the pitching is the envy of 29 teams, but can we really get to the postseason without some offensive help? The flaws are obvious and the Giants' leadership is looking for a right-handed bat to help score some runs for a team who is 2nd to last in the league in scoring. Unfortunately, this midseason tune up isn't the easiest thing to do. For a clear upgrade on offense, you would need to give up some of your prized young talent…and if you go for a cheaper move, the upgrade might be so small that it might not make enough of a difference….and hell, who knows if it would even be an upgrade over what we already have in house.

So apparently a right handed bat is the target, but I can't help but wonder what happened to the right-handed bat we obtained last offseason. I see him at Shortstop almost everyday playing like a sloth in molasses. Pretty sure we didn't pay him for his gold glove pedigree, so where is that National League Silver Slugger for which we spent so richly? Well, he is putting up a line of .249/ .308/ .312…..Yes OPS geeks, that’s .620…..hell even Harold Reynolds knows Rent is stinking up the joint. So what the hell…..

"Second Half Player" right? He was this bad last year and then caught on fire!.....well, he did perform better in the second half last year, but his best months were April, August, and September, so I would think it was random more than "getting comfortable" or "warming up as the season progresses." Additionally as we go further and further back, there is no real pattern of a 2nd half surge. In 2007, his second half numbers show improvement but this is based on a torrid July and then getting hurt and missing August and some of September. 2006 Showed a dramatic fall off in the 2nd half, and 2005 and 2004 show no real difference between the two halves. Not exactly a Adam LaRochesque 2nd Half Surger…..

(FOR THOSE WHO HATE STATS SKIP AHEAD)
STATS HEAVY PART BEGINS

Lets look at the stats a little deeper. First off BABIP (batting average on balls in play).
2004 .317
2005 .318
2006 .325
2007 .375
2008 .294
2009 .289
First off….. WOW….2007 was his golden year for sure, slim chance he does that again…..this year is similar to last year, so hard to call it an outlier, although it has regressed since 2004-06. Hard to say if that is luck, skill, maybe even fewer infield hits as he gets older?

Lets look at BB and K rates
2004 6.2 %BB 13.3 %K
2005 8.1 %BB 16.1 %K
2006 9.4 %BB 14.9 %K
2007 8.5 %BB 15.6 %K
2008 6.9 %BB 12.7 %K
2009 8.1 %BB 16.0 %K
A little bit of wiggle in the data, but 2009 is hardly an outlier. Down from last year, but comparable to 2005-07. Combine that with the BABIP rate similar to 2008, and we got the worst of both worlds…..but I don't think we have found the source of his woes quite yet……

Lets look at the batted ball splits…..What does this tell us? (see bottom of post)
Well first the easy one, looking at BABIP for Groundballs, you see no trend, so loss of speed doesn't seem to be the source of BABIP decline in 2008-09. Could it be luck?

Flyball, Line Drive, Groundball splits seem to be holding steady, nothing to see here.

What jumped out right away was 2009 Flyball BA, SLG, and BABIP. Sure does look like he is either getting really unlucky on Flyballs, or he is hitting lots of easy flies…..
Also, looks like his Linedrive BA and BABIP have dropped nearly .200 points from 2006-07, going from above league average to below league average

As far as the Spray numbers (Pull vs Middle vs Oppo) looks like he maintains a pretty balanced distribution, with nothing of consequence coming from the % sprays. But when you look at the BA, SLG, and BABIP for 2008-09 Pull numbers, and 2009 Up the middle numbers, looks like he is getting killed. Again could be just luck, but maybe he is hitting a lot of weak shit when he is pulling the ball. In fact his slugging is down basically across the board.

Maybe we can explain 2009 with the ballpark???
No Chance, he is actually doing better at home
Home .258/ .333/ .317 BABIP.294
Road .239/ .281/ .308 BABIP.273

STATS HEAVY PART ENDS
(FOR THOSE WHO HATE STATS START READING AGAIN HERE)


No, personally I think what the stats are trying to tell us is two things…..
1) Renteria's power is waning; this is not just showing up in his pitiful 2 homer output, but with other Flyballs and Linedrives being turned into outs

2) This lack of power is not because he is just slapping at the ball trying to make contact, you can see this in his K% trend and the spray patterns……

So what do we do? Well, it would seem strange to me that a 32-33 year old player would suddenly lose it, but it wouldn't be unprecedented. Bonilla, Lansford, and Alomar come to mind when I think of hitters falling off the map in the 32-33 year range.

Do I think he is losing it? Yes, unfortunately…..I read these stats as a player who felt like he was losing it in 2008, and was afraid of going to 2 strikes, so started putting the ball in play more (5% more swings in 2008, then 2007). This helped his batting average but hurt his walk rate and didn't help his slugging. This year, he has gone back to his "more selective approach" but instead of success, he finds a further regression in ability.. I expect him to start swinging earlier in the count and thereby helping his BA again, but hurting his walk rate.

So how do we know if he is coming around?
Watch Renteria's power #'s.. If he suddenly starts pulling a few doubles and homers, you know things are coming around and he can be a productive hitter again. Otherwise, expect him to get more aggressive helping his superficial stats without really helping out the team.

God, I really hope I am wrong……

Splits
League BABIP Ave.233 GB.144 FB 718 LD