What to Expect from Cody Ross?

Published by on April 20, 2011 | 10 Responses

By now you’ve probably heard the good news: Cody Ross is coming back! With Ross getting recalled yesterday, the stars are aligning for Ross to come off the DL tonight and make his first start of 2011. It’s old news, but Ross was a major force for the Giants during their dash to a world title, hitting .294/.390/.686 across three series, including several memorable home runs. The Giants are expected to send Brandon Belt down to AAA in order to make space for Ross.

For Giants’ pitchers, getting Ross back in the outfield will be welcomed with open arms. Removing Andres Torres because of injury has made the Giants’ OF look old, slow, and sluggish. It is one thing to flank Torres with Burrell and Huff, but replace Torres with Rowand, and it’s a recipe for base hits falling left and right. Ross will return to right field where he’s been a solid defender (+2 runs UZR/150) that’s occasionally flashed defensive brilliance. DRS, or defensive runs saved (the plus/minus metric based on runs), has Ross at +17 for his career in RF. Replacing Huff with Ross on defense could net the Giants a swing of +5 to +10 runs on the season. That’s a big upgrade, and I’d make the argument that, for a flyball staff like the Giants, it’s a bigger deal than for your ‘usual’ team.

The offensive side of things is another question entirely. People tend to place the most weight on recent performances, and for most of us, we can still see Ross launching postseason dingers off of Roy Halladay. However, over his body of work, Ross has been more of a league average hitter. Let’s check out a few quick numbers.

Year    BB%    K%       ISO    wRC+
2008    6.5    25.2    .228    106
2009    5.6    21.8    .199    105
2010    6.5    23.0    .145    101

As you can see, wRC+ tells us that since 2008, Ross has been right around league average as a hitter. He walks at a below league average rate, but he makes up for that with power. The league average ISO (AVG-SLG) tends to be around .150 and excluding 2010, Ross has shown good power.

Preseason, what did several projection systems say about Ross?

ZiPS: .269/.318/.450
Marcel: .261/.316/.433
CAIRO: .272/.326/.461

Ross ends up in the neighborhood of a .750-775 OPS hitter by these projections. After looking at what the average RF hit in the NL last season (.778 OPS) Ross is much closer to average offensively for his position than I thought. Still, it seems that while Ross’ power is nice – if it returns to previous levels – the biggest benefit of his return will be based on his defensive contributions. It’s totally unrealistic to expect Ross to hit like he did in the playoffs. But, I don’t think many Giants fans have that expectation anyways.

To sum things up: Getting Ross back improves the outfield defense which has been an issue for the Giants in the early going. It’ll also move Huff back to 1B with Brandon Belt, sadly, returning to the minors. Don’t expect Ross to post another 1.000 OPS, but he’s a nice player to get back into the fold.

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UPDATE: Cody Ross is hitting 4th in today’s lineup. Giants to announce corresponding roster move shortly.

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robanne2
robanne2

Even though baseball is such a statistically driven sport, having "Rodeo" Ross back in the outfield affects the chemistry and defense of the Giants as much as any predictions etc. He's a "gamer" and you never know when he's going to go off offensively. Welcome back "Rodeo"!

obsessivegiantscompu
obsessivegiantscompu

I think that his uneven 2010 is why the Giants have not given him a long-term contract, even though he has openly said he wants to stay around long-term. As much as I loved his 2010 playoff performance, we don't know whether 2010 was an aberration or if it was the start of his decline. After all, he's a late bloomer and thus has less to fall due to age to become easily replaceable. And most players peak in the 27-31 age range and he's 30 for this season. He could have peaked already. And as nicely as he did for the Giants in the regular season, as well, .288/.354/.466/.819, that was with a .360 BABIP, when he was roughly .300 career BABIP, and he struck out a lot. Dialing back to a .300 BABIP would drop that line to roughly .228/.294/.406/.700, probably lower with a loss of power. He needs to prove that he can still hit this season, at the level he did in 2008-9, and that 2010 was just a down-blip, not the start of his career decline.

nomisnala
nomisnala

Ross should help the outfield defense, but now the defense at first base will have to be downgraded. Its time to move Sandoval to short, and put DeRosa at third. On half the plays to short now, Sandoval is cutting off the ball so that Tejada does not get to play them. Belt looked like a defensive wizard picking all those horrendous throws from Tejeda. Outfields with any of the following four should be good defensively, Torres, Rowand, Schierholtz and Ross. Now we can add Ford to the mix, but I would much rather have Belt playing than Ford on the bench.

marcello
marcello

Sandoval at SS? I don't think that's a good idea.

Chris Quick
Chris Quick

I appreciate his creativity, but Pablo would be a horrible shortstop. His arm is good enough. His range, however, is not.

graywhale
graywhale

lots of "temper your expectations" talk all over the place on ross now that he's coming back. of course it would be silly to expect him to rake the way he did last fall, but: i remember someone (maybe grant from mcc) talking about some pretty curious splits for ross, and not just the LHP/RHP numbers, which are quite divergent. i cant remember too well (and of course i couldn't find the post), but they were related either to impressive stats against excellent pitchers and struggles against average ones; or maybe it was does well versus good teams, poorly against bad ones. argh! wish i could remember. anyway, have you seen anything curious in your research? maybe some WPA numbers pop out?

obsessivegiantscompu
obsessivegiantscompu

Looking over his splits, maybe one of these? Empty: .244/.299/.422/.721, 42 HR in 1119 AB (26.6 HR/AB) Men on: .290/.349/.517/.867, 44 HR in 916 AB (20.8 HR/AB) RISP: .281/.358/.538/.896, 28 HR in 502 AB (17.9 HR/AB) 0 outs: .258/.306/.424/.730, 25 HR in 691 AB (27.6) 1 outs: .251/.305/.433/.737, 24 HR in 668 AB (27.8) 2 outs: .286/.355/.538/.894, 37 HR in 676 AB (18.3) High Lev: .290/.346/.536/.882, 27 HR in 427 AB (15.8) Med. Lev: .244/.311/.435/.746, 27 HR in 706 AB (26.1) Low Lev: .269/.319/.455/.774, 32 HR in 902 AB (28.2) He did his best hitting in 1st (1.007 OPS), 8th (.906), 6th (.829), 9th (.817). Not that well in extra innings though (.200/.302/.257/.559 in 43 PA/35 AB). And of course: vs. RHP: .255/.310/.413/.723, 42 HR in 1442 AB (34.3 HR/AB) vs. LHP: .288/.350/.592/.942, 44 HR in 593 AB (13.5 HR/AB) These were all the splits where one was in the 900 OPS neighborhood and the rest closer to mid-700 OPS. He has done better where there are runners and particularly in scoring position, plus particularly when there is 2 outs. Resulting in his good numbers in high leverage situations and later in the game. Even in his peak years, he probably should have been more of a platoon player than full-time starter. He totally kills LHP, but is below average vs. RHP. Should hopefully lead to more starts with Schierholtz in RF, particularly against RHP that Ross has trouble with, like Tim Hudson (2-18, 0 XBH, .222 OPS), Matt Garza (1-9, 0 XBH, .311 OPS), Ryan Madsen (3-17, 0 XBH, 8 K's, .440 OPS), Carlos Zambrano (2-12, 0 XBH, 5 K's, .481 OPS), John Maine (3-14, 0 XBH, .481 OPS), Tommy Hanson (1-9, 5 K's, .495 OPS).

Otis Anderson
Otis Anderson

He hits slightly better in high and medium leverage situations, but offhand it doesn't look like a meaningful difference to me. THe big split for Ross is RHP vs LHP. Versus right handers he hits like a second baseman with a little pop. Versus LHP, he's a monster - he's slugged almost .600 against them.

graywhale
graywhale

i noticed that too, its a big split. i had some time and looked through some stuff at BBR and couldn't find anything that jumped out either. its frustrating that nate doesn't have the splits of a typical lefty! that would be such a cool platoon.