Fleeting Rowand Thought (with graph!)

Published by on May 11, 2011 | 7 Responses

A tweet from Amy G before tonight’s game against the D-Backs:

#sfgiants 5/11/11 lineup: Torres CF F. Sanchez 2B Huff 1B Posey C Ross RF Fontenot SS Rowand LF Tejada 3B J. Sanchez LHP

With Andres Torres back in the lineup, let me be the first to scratch my head at Rowand’s inclusion into tonight’s lineup. I still get the feeling that there’s a narrative being spun about Rowand’s hot start to the season. I mean, come on, the guy already has 10 doubles! 10 doubles! That’s a lot of doubles!

Because this is BCB, here’s a rolling wOBA graph for Aaron Rowand this year, detailing his hot start.

Don’t get me wrong, those first five games were amazing. Rowand was hitting like a reanimated Tedd Williams with robot legs, but then Rowand did something funny — he started to hit like, well, Aaron Rowand. Hacky, weird squat, grossly overpaid, Aaron Rowand. His current wOBA of .314 is below average and over his last 20 games played, he’s lost about 80 points in wOBA.

Other fun Rowand facts from this season:

* Rowand didn’t draw his first walk until his 11th game played. He went 39 plate appearances before getting that first walk. His current walk-rate is 3.9%.
* Most of Rowand’s offense is almost entirely based on his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) which right now is at .348 versus a career of .318.
* Despite the 10 doubles, Rowand’s ISO (.125) is below average. He’s basically hit a bunch of singles and a handful of doubles while never walking.

Anyways, this wasn’t meant as a ‘pile on Aaron Rowand post’ because those are easy, and they’ve been done to death, but it makes you wonder why Burrell isn’t starting tonight? Even with his terrible glove, he’s been one of the better hitters on a poor hitting Giants squad this season. At the moment, Burrell is probably +30% better than Rowand with the bat. So, why isn’t he in the lineup? Inquiring minds want to know …

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Daniel Smith
Daniel Smith

I think the thought was that mayhap they didn't want to heap the responsibility of covering all of CF and a chunk of LF on Torres in his first game back. At least, I hope that was it, because Burrell needs to be in there to single, walk, or homer.

daveinexile
daveinexile

I was happy to see Rowand in LF and Torress in CF along with the quick drop in the batting order for Rowand. That is 2 large step for his Headness I thought might take weeks. As for Burrell not starting I am fine with that this time of year. I think if this same game is in August he starts but this early in the season the line up should be used to help these kinds of veteran players “have something left in the tank” form August onward.

nomisnala
nomisnala

You could probably make a similar graph this year on Posey.

Chris Quick
Chris Quick

>> You could probably make a similar graph this year on Posey the entire team. Quiet you!

Jomar
Jomar

lolol. not Panda though.

obsessivegiantscompu
obsessivegiantscompu

The bigger question to me is that Schierholtz isn't playing instead. Both Burrell and Rowand have been in a pretty cold streak for 3-4 weeks now, while Nate has been hitting the past few weeks. I think that this is where the touchy-feely managerial techniques comes into play with Bochy rewarding Rowand with starter status for a while, as a reward for holding down the CF position while Torres was out, give him a chance to start hitting, but after maybe a week, hopefully less, he would show Rowand his poor stats and sit him for an extended period while another OF gets hot (like hopefully Nate).

Otis Anderson
Otis Anderson

Why it almost looks like it's converging on his true talent level.