Heatmapping Aubrey Huff

Published by on August 7, 2011 | 4 Responses

(H/T: to Phylan for the idea). Click the image to embiggen.

Lots of red squares in 2011. This is probably the longest Huff has struggled since his 2001 campaign. Huff actually broke into the league in 2000 (not included in the heatmap) and 2001 was his first season that he started the year in the majors. It was a tough season for Huff who hit .248/.288/ .372 in 434 plate appearances. He never quite got it going on offense that year. However, post-2001, Huff has put up some pretty good years. Those are the years marked by the long lines of green. Huff’s 2003 is impressive; he hit right from the start.

The image does a pretty good job of showing Huff’s ups-and-downs as a player. His 2009, in which most thought he was finished, started decently (.838 OPS on May 30th) but from June 1st he hit .225/.294/.333; that includes his truly awful time in Detroit (40 games, 49 OPS+).

The Giants’ plan is to keep running Huff out there everyday. For a player that’s undergoing his biggest struggles in 10 years, that strategy has to make you scratch your head some. At this point Good Huff isn’t coming back and the most that we can hope for is a few solid games here and there. We’ll see, but at this point I’m dialing my hopes down. Waaay down.

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Keith
Keith

Belt should be playing first everyday. He can't do worse and the kid needs AB's in the big leagues. But instead they keep jacking him around.

Damon T
Damon T

Nice graph- it reminded me of something I had previously forgotten about, which is that horrible red patch at the beginning of the 2010 season, the visual representation of the first 3 weeks or so where Huff did absolutely jack. I remember reading an article where he said his mind was caught up in overcoming AT&T's power-sapping effects, and he found himself trying to pull the crap out of the ball. When he realized the homers were not coming, he changed his mind and said "I'm just going to try to hit .300 this year" at which point he caught on fire. I wonder if a similar mental breakdown has afflicted him this year, and there's a way to snap him out of it. Maybe have him take BP with a giant curtain hanging in the way so he can't see the right field wall?

SFsander
SFsander

embiggen - is that a cromulent word?

Curtis
Curtis

Worse than his standard stats may be the .197 average with 2 outs runners in scoring position. And worse than that may be his .325 average when the Giants lead by more than 4 runs. In other words, his awful horrific year has been padded in garbage time facing mop up pitchers, lol. And by the way, Belt would have gunned Oswalt at 2nd to prevent him scoring on Utley's basehit in today's game. And I'm sure Belt could have turned the DP in the first inning on Victorino's hard ground ball. I know Krukow said it was because Victorino runs well, but he forget to mention that Huff has a wet noodle for a right arm. I'm willing to wager, without looking it up, that Huff has not turned one 3-6-3 DP the entire year.