Melky Cabrera’s fast start

Published by on May 14, 2012 | 20 Responses

Today, Rory Paap was up for the Giants ESPN Power Ranking blurb.

Rory wrote:

The swap of Jonathan Sanchez (62 ERA+) for Melky Cabrera (155 OPS+) is looking pretty good right about now. With Pablo Sandoval out, though, the Melkman is working without a wing man.

Let me go ahead and get this out of the way: I love Melky Cabrera. It’s weird, I know, but Melky has quickly become one of my favorite Giants. It’s a weird progression for a guy that I was admittedly lukewarm about when the team acquired him. This isn’t Huff level wrong, but it’s pretty close.

Of course, hitting the crap out of the ball for 1.5 months will make anyone come around on a player.

Entering today, Melky ranks in the National League in the following offensive categories.

* 13th in wOBA (.391)
* 14th in wRC+ (151)
* 3rd in hits (47)
* 12th in OBP (.396)

He’s not hitting for a huge amount of power, but he’s getting on base by racking up gobs of base-hits. Even if you think his BABIP will move back closer to his career average — it most assuredly will — Cabrera has impressed the heck out of me with his “all fields” approach.

Check out his Hit Chart courtesy of ESPN’s Stats & Info:

And his contact rate heat maps:

Melky has always had good-to-great contact rates; even in his down years he got the bat on the ball. However, this year he’s really covering the right side (from the hitter’s vantage) of the strike zone. One of the more interesting developments with Melky this year is that he’s hitting more balls on the ground than ever before. According to FanGraphs, Melky’s groundball to flyball ratio currently sits at 2.43; his current groundball percentage is 58.4 percent. Hitting the ball on the ground so much will help Melky’s batting average, but it’s going to hurt him in the power department. Still, it’s hard to argue with a .348/.396/.504 slash-line.

Also, it’s hard to argue with this …

One of the funner Giants to watch in recent memory. Cabrera is looking like a pretty good argument for taking a chance on a struggling player that experiences a career year in his late-20s. Because there’s always a chance that the player figures something out, and that payoff could be quite nice.

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ariess
ariess

If Cody Ross could stay healthy all year,  would he be more valuable than

Melky, even if Ross hit 30 points lower in batting average.  Ross throughout

his career, except perhaps in 2011, had a tendency to hit better with runners

in scoring position.  something that the giants desperately need.  I realize

Melky is a switch hitter, and Ross's numbers were certainly much better

versus the lefties.  It seems we are short a right hand hitting outfielder.

ceugene
ceugene

Melky hustles past every base like nobody else on the team.  I wish more position players would try to be faster out of the batter's box on 'routine' flyballs or grounders.

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ajp
ajp

I think there are a lot of players who seem to be pretty mediocre and then all of a sudden around 27 or 28 seem to figure it out and then have a 4-5 year peak where they are considerably better than they were in their early/mid-20's.  Melky seems to be on of those and there seem to be a lot of there people.  Although he is an outlier and is having a crappy year, see Jose Bautista.

 

It would be interesting for someone to do an analysis of this.

RogerM
RogerM

 @ajp A "lot" is pretty vague.  I'm not sure who those guys are.

Seagulls in the Outfield
Seagulls in the Outfield

 @ajp I think I've seen a stat that traditionally players peak around 31 years old. This was thrown off slightly when PEDs were brought into the equation, but we might start seeing the shift back to the 31 year peak in the coming years. 

Chris Quick
Chris Quick

 @Seagulls in the Outfield  @ajp Must studies indicate that hitters peak around 27.

Seagulls in the Outfield
Seagulls in the Outfield

 @Chris Quick  @ajp Thanks Chris, I definitely hadn't done any research to back up my numbers. I just did though and found a Baseball Prospectus study that dives into this. Like you said, it found that players (hitters) peak in their late 20's. Though interestingly, they have different peaks for different stats. HRs and BBs seem to peak around 32 in this study. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9933

Seagulls in the Outfield
Seagulls in the Outfield

 @Chris Quick  @ajp Thanks Chris, I definitely hadn't done any research to back up my numbers. I just found a Baseball Prospectus study that dives into this, and, like you said, it found that players (hitters) peak in their late 20's. Though interestingly, they have different peaks for different stats. HRs and BBs seem to peak around 32 in this study. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9933

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Seagulls in the Outfield
Seagulls in the Outfield

He's been a huge surprise. Let's hope he keeps this up and Sabean signs him for the next 3-4 years. He's not quite the huge power outfielder that we (think) we need, but he is a better fit for this park with his speed and hitting spread (great chart, btw!). I also think that Arias and Blanco have been two of the other pleasant surprises of this season so far. 

RogerM
RogerM

 @Seagulls in the Outfield 3-4 years?  Haven't we learned lessons about overreacting to small samples?  I'd already learned it back before the Marvin Benard extension.  And I'd really learned it before the Randy Winn extension.  The Freddy Sanchez extension maybe? Aubrey Huff?

Seagulls in the Outfield
Seagulls in the Outfield

 @RogerM All true, but keep in mind all those guys were in their early to mid 30s, not their 20s like Melky is. I'd say the biggest risk with his performance is his weight and conditioning, and he seems to be taking more seriously now. You've got to take risks to build a solid team, I'd rather take that risk on a young player than a middle aged one. 

Seagulls in the Outfield
Seagulls in the Outfield

 @RogerM  Thanks for correcting me about Bernard, I guess he just seemed like an old player (can you blame me). I agree, I wouldn't pay market price for him (or anyone, given the choice), which is why I would advocate a mid-season deal. If he produces like this all year, his price will be very high at the end of the year. Maybe I'm just getting caught up in the fact that we got a player we have a shot at signing, even if it is just for 2 years, who is potentially just hitting his prime, rather than one who is just coming out of his prime. 

RogerM
RogerM

@Seagulls in the Outfield @RogerM Actually Benard was 27 an coming off the greatest season he would ever have. Don't get me wrong, I like Melky, but he strikes me as exactly the level of player that you shouldn't pay market prices for: solid but not great. Not surprisingly the kind of guy who can be had for a Sanchy in decline (or as Sabes has done quite successfully over the years, plucked off a scrap heap). You should pay for impact players and then figure out how to put together the compliments. I think it's the fact that the Giants have had so much trouble finding these kind of good production players for the last 10 years that makes us want to lock them up for awhile whenever one saunters into our midst.

RogerM
RogerM

I'm really loving Melky on the team this year.  But looking ahead to 2013, I'd make him the $12 mil offer and take the draft choice personally.  The "we're open to an extension talk" has my spidey sense tingling. 

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Robert Haymond
Robert Haymond

Not only you, Rory, but other columnists and commentators were all down on the trade which brought Melky to us. Down on him in spite of his superior performance last year.  Remind me again not to take you guys with all your stats and measurements too seriously in the off year 2012-2013.  The point is, there is an unpredictability about baseball performances which no amount of stats and pages of probabilities can really match. 

ariess
ariess

 @Robert Haymond   Things can change fast,  the name "Aaron Rowand" comes to mind.  Although Randy Winn was a fairly

nice player,  we should not have been fooled by his initial hot streak with the giants.  After 49 hits, and a good year last year, there is still

much time for evaluation.  Some guys are more first half players, and others second half.  I will give you that Melky  has now played well through both halves last year, and through the first quarter of this year.  A little more power could have iced the deal.  He does seem to

have a better eye for the strike zone than Marvin, swing at the pitch over his head, Benard.

Chris Quick
Chris Quick

 @Robert Haymond I'm not Rory, and I don't think it was unreasonable to be skeptical about Melky. He's had a long line of poor performance combined with weight issues that have hurt him.

Chris Quick
Chris Quick

 @Robert Haymond And also, if you go back and read my Melky post, I wrote about his plusses and minuses at the time.

RollZine
RollZine

love the "is the toilet seat up?" hesistation before he plops to the ground. 

ariess
ariess

On a man for man basis it always looked like a decent trade.  But was the move

the smartest one made by a team which so values pitching.  They could have

signed Beltran. Of course the money would be more than that payed to Melky,

but the production would probably be better.  We possibly could have had both,

and I would not be against that, nor was I, prior to the loss of Beltran to

the Cards.  But with pitching injuries and the loss of a solid reliever

Ramon Ramirez on another trade,  it could have been possible to move

a power arm like Sanchez's back to the bullpen.  At least until Zito

re-implodes in two or three successive starts.  Not to mention that

Timmy obviously misses Sanchez, and has done his best to emulate

his performances.   It would really be cool to have a team with 3

Sanchez's.