Season in review: David DeJesus

In Commentary And Analysis by berselius99 Comments

I was looking through our media library, and it looks like the only pictures we have of DeJesus in the system are of him in a Royals uniform, his wife, and his ridiculous truck. That's pretty much summed up his year as a player. He didn't do anything in particular to raise anyone's ire, but never really distinguished himself either.

Here are DeJesus's numbers for the year, along with his projection going into the year

  PA H HR BB SO AVG OBP SLG WOBA oWAR
Projected 523 126 10 45 80 .267 .339 .431 .326 0.9
Actual 582 133 9 61 89 .263 .350 .403 .332 2.4 (F) / 1.9 (B)

DeJesus did distinguish himself in one way: he had the most walks on the team with 61. That's 17 away from the Cubs next best walker….Alfonso Soriano. That pretty much sums up the Cubs offense this year. Alfonso Soriano drew the second most walks. Soriano.

The eyeball test said he didn't embarass himself out there in RF this year, and I would have guessed that he was average to above average. The advanced metrics disagree (SSS applies, as usual). DRS had him at -4, UZR had him at -4.9, and what ever B-Ref is using now had him at -11 in RF. He was only -1 in baserunning, so that should be solidly above average for a Cubs player.

DeJesus started off the season with a cold bat, hitting only four extra-base hits (all doubles) in the month of April. There was nothing wrong with his eyes though, as he still posted a .350 OBP despite a .250 AVG. His walk rate for the whole year was 10.5%, and he never strayed much more than a percentage point in either direction in every month of the season.

DeJesus's two best stretches of the season were the month of May, in which he hit four triples, and mid-August, in which he hit four homers in eight days. His best games by wRC+ (excluding pinch hitting appearances) were his two-homer game on 8/15 against the Astros, a five RBI day in Miller Park on 5/11, and a 5/4 game in Wrigley against the Dodgers in which he was a single short of the cycle. In terms of WPA, his best game was the aformention Brewers game, and his worst game was in the opening game of the Cubs first series with the Brewers on 4/9. DeJesus went 1-5 with three strikeouts and a TOOTBLAN, 'good' for a -0.25 WPA.

If you're looking for room to add someone in the Cubs outfield next year, DeJesus had a .225 wOBA in 115 PAs vs LHP this year. Small sample sizes, regression, etc. applies, but he might be a platoon player at this stage in his career. A Soriano DeJesus platoon would probably be pretty productive but would never happen. Too bad aside from Soriano pretty much everyone else (Brett Jackson, Tony Campana, Bryan LaHair) is left-handed. That is, except for Joe Mather.

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  1. josh

    I bet he throws a curveball that doesn’t get called a strike, then one of his patented softball-sized 70mph BP fastballs that gets hammered out of the park by the Cardinals batboy or whoever.

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  2. josh

    A friend of mine asked of Pablo Sandoval was fatter than Prince Fielder, which surprised me, because I assumed it wasn’t even close. According to official weights, Fielder has 50lbs on Sandoval.

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  3. mb21

    From what I can barely remember of the 2012 season, DeJesus wasn’t performing too well and was on his way to not even reaching his projection, but then got super hot and passed it by quite a bit. Maybe I’m just full of shit.

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  4. josh

    @ Berselius:
    Yeah, Muskat is a shill, but at least a bland one. She doesn’t do what she’s not paid to do (i.e., in depth analysis), and I think that’s fine.

    Model proposal: the paid guys get the info, deliver it flat, and the bloggers analyze. They can be the data collection team, bloggers the data analysis team.

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  5. Author
    Berselius

    @ josh:

    Muskat’s far more likely to tweet live stuff about what prospects are doing in the minors than the other Cubs writers, though you’ll get even more minors info if you follow harrypav

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  6. Suburban kid

    josh wrote:

    Model proposal: the paid guys get the info, deliver it flat, and the bloggers analyze. They can be the data collection team, bloggers the data analysis team.

    Because Josh in mom’s basement has more baseball acumen than Bruce Miles, who has seen the first 7 and a half innings of 9,438 baseball games?

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  7. WenningtonsGorillaCock

    Per deadspin:

    “The ALCS MVP was first awarded in 1980, and the average career WAR (according to Baseball Reference) of the players who have received the award is 39.1. Delmon Young’s career WAR is 0.6. The player on the list with the next-lowest mark is Nelson Cruz at eight. The next lowest after that is Matt Garza at 11.8. Young also boasts a .296 career OBP and an OPS+ of 89. He’s a terrible baseball player. He is so bad, in fact, that when he is added to the list of ALCS MVPs, he lowers the average WAR to 37.9. Delmon Young has sullied the record books by a whole nearly two wins.”

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  8. Mobile WaLi

    So I was able to program my phone so that whenever I type l o l it replaces it with (dying laughing) Its great

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  9. mb21

    FWIW among position players Young had the highest WPA in 3 of the 4 games and was 3rd in the other. He almost certainly led the team in WPA. Solid pick.

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  10. josh

    @ mb21:
    Really? I only heard his name mentioned once and just assumed he was his normal lame-ass self.

    The only bad thing about the Yankees losing is that I ended up having to defend stupid A-Rod to a friend whose sort of anti-saber (for unknown reasons, given that he studied math).

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  11. mb21

    “We fell short of our singular and constant goal, which is a World Series Championship. However, I am proud of the accomplishments of this year’s team. We earned the best record in the American League and were one of the four teams to advance to the League Championship Series, despite having to overcome and fight through a series of .long-term injuries to a number of our key players.

    Make no mistake, this was a bitter end to our year, and we fully intend to examine our season in its totality, assess all of our strengths and weaknesses and take the necessary steps needed to maintain our sole focus of winning the World Series in 2013.

    Hal Steinbrenner is not George’s son. (dying laughing) If George was alive you’d fire all the players, coaches, front office and then hire them all back.

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  12. Rice Cube

    So I read that Beltran is the best postseason hitter of all time. Nice placement of that ground ball there.

    I wonder if Berkman is healthy enough to DH in the WS.

    I am still annoyed that the Cardinals are going to the WS again.

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  13. uncle dave

    (dying laughing)
    (dying laughing)
    (dying laughing)

    Somehow, Fox is broadcasting a Don Zimmer dementia hallucination.

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  14. Rizzo the Rat

    According to espn.com, 2 of the three top performers are Barry Zito (that is, he made it as a pitcher and as a hitter).

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  15. Mercurial Outfielder

    Barry Zito is my new favorite person. He and Timmy will be doing some killer bong rips after the game.

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