More on Andy LaRoche
I know that everyone has pretty much discussed everything that is wrong with Andy LaRoche over the past few weeks but I think I'v come across something that has yet to been talked about. While perusing Fan Graphs earlier, (a fantastic website by the way) I ended up on Andy's page and noticed that his BABIP is an absurdly low .179 with the Pirates and Dodgers this year.
While I agree with most people that we should not freak out over 175 AB's this year, I think that at least some of Andy's problem this year is incredibly poor luck. Most players BABIP is very close to .300. I .179 figure means that LaRoche is simply not having any of his balls in play drop in for hits right now.
I am confident that next year he will come back 100% from his thumb injury and begin hitting for at least a moderate amount of power. Hopefully his luck will turn at least somewhat as well. If you have any thoughts on this or think its totally bogus feel free to say so.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.
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LaRoche’s minor league numbers indicate to me that he will be fine in the majors, the only thing that concerns me about him is that he played in a hitter’s park in Vegas and his OPS was considerable higher at home than on the road at that time. I don’t have the stats in front of me though, I just read it in a thread at some point either here or on www.onlybucs.com. I therefore can’t personally vouch for the validity of his home/road minor league splits. Personally I think he’ll be fine – these hand/wrist things take a while to heal plus he’s a rookie. Weren’t Delgado’s problems early this year due to linger effects of a hand/wrist injury? Also, look at what Tabata did once he got fully healthy this year. One thing is for sure, with the way Walker played this year and now the Alvarez fiasco we will be counting on Andy LaRoche.
The Hardball Times’ PrOPS tells us what a players OPS should be based on his batted ball types, strikeouts, walks, and home runs. Andy LaRoche’s PrOPS is .711, 222 points better than his actual .489.Still not particularly awesome, but it’s pretty clear that a large part of the problem is bad luck.
PROPS is pretty good...
…but when you use it, remember to adjust for the hitter’s foot speed. Fast runners will tend to exceed their PROPS to a slight but noticable extent, and slow runners will tend to do the reverse.
Doesn’t probably matter much in the case of LaRoche; I just figured I’d throw it out there for general consumption.
Minor league splits
Las Vegas is a helpful ball park for hitters (although not as extreme as Albuquerque). Minor League Splits lets you look at home and away performance after adjusting for park factors. It tells you that at bats were never particularly large and that most of the difference in performance was due to differences in BABIP. He hit fewer pop ups at home.
Viva Clemente!

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