With all the doom and gloom surrounding this year's offense and the intense focus on Castro and Rizzo, Luis Valbuena's fantastic season seems to have fallen through the cracks. Valbuena currently has a line of .248/.361/.421* on the year, good for a .339 wOBA and about 1 WAR through two months of the season. What the hell?
*Today's game, in which Valbuena homered, will only improve those numbers
When the Cubs acquired Valbuena, he looked like another hitter in the Joe Mather mold. Valbuena had spent the previous three seasons with Cleveland, where he put up a whopping negative 1.7 WAR with a combined line of .224/.283/.344. His defense rated terribly at second base as well. As awful as Josh Vitters was last year, it was still kind of surprising that Valbeuna saw so much playing time.
After the Cubs picked him up in 2012, he tore up the PCL to the tune of .303/.378/.507, but did not do so well at the big league level. However, Valbuena's .290 wOBA masked big improvements in his walk rate (up to 12%) and his ISO, which jumped to .121 after two anemic years in Cleveland. Valbuena also looked much better at 3b than at the keystone, and the defensive metrics agreed (small sample sizes, obviously). If he just improved on last year's .219 batting average his numbers would look pretty good, and the .260 BABIP seemed to suggest that some improvement was coming.
Fast forward to this year, where his batting average has fittngly improved by about 30 points. On top of that, he's upped his walk rate to 14.5%, which leads the team by a wide margin, and has flashed even more power.
One possible explanation for his improved batting numbers is the Cubs agressive platooning strategy this year. Valbuena has had 145 PAs, and only 17 of them have been against lefties (about 11% of them). Previous to this year he had also been held back against most lefties, only recording ~16% of his PAs against them. This probably accounts for some of the improvement.
Pitchers don't seem to be approaching him any differently – the only relatively big difference is that he's seen fewer sinkers and cutters, but that's probably just a sample size issue. He's been crushing fastballs much better than he has in the past. His plate discipline numbers haven't changed too much, but it is interesting to see that he's seen about 4% fewer strikes this year. It could just be crappier pitching, but it could also be that pitchers are starting to avoid him a bit now.
The projection systems still haven't bought in to Valbuena's improvement. Both ZiPS and Steamer have him pegged at a .313 wOBA for the rest of the year, good for another 0.6 WAR, suggesting a true talent level of 1.0 or so. What they do believe is for real is his walk rate, though only at 10% or so rather than the current 14.5. Still, a 10% walk rate would lead all the regulars on this team (unless you count Ryan Sweeney, which I don't). Even when he inevitably regresses, maybe the Cubs should start considering batting him higher in the order, and moving the slumping Starlin Castro down the lineup.
Comments
How does his 2013 bat flip rate compare to his career line?
sitrick2Quote Reply
I’m surprised Castro hasn’t been moved down in the lineup already. Especially since Barney’s BA is above .200 now.
SVBQuote Reply
Rice Cube wrote:
All Cubs players with OPS less than Travis Wood should not be allowed in the locker room until they can outhit the pitcher.
AlvinQuote Reply
@ sitrick2:
Not sure, rate against these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EOotZPM4x4
#80BatFlip
Rice CubeQuote Reply
I don’t count you.
Ryan SweeneyQuote Reply
@ Ryan Sweeney:
I’m a mathematician, I can’t count unless it’s in greek
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ sitrick2:
I expect heavy regression of those numbers
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ sitrick2:
If that was a veiled question about his HR rate, it’s obviously much higher this year. He has a pretty low HR/FB rate for his career (at least relative to the usual baseline I know for pitchers), but it’s 13.3% this year.
BerseliusQuote Reply
Berselius wrote:
Haha, it wasn’t. Someone on twitter yesterday pointed out how Valbuena has the highest rate of non-HR bat flips of anyone they’ve ever seen and now it is ALL I SEE whenever he comes to the plate.
sitrick2Quote Reply
Interview with Colin:
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2013/5/31/4382914/talking-to-a-sabermagician-colin-wyers
MishQuote Reply
Nice article, b. I keep waiting for him to get worse, but he’s maintained that great walk rate to this point. I don’t expect him to ever be very good, but he’s become a productive player and he’s cheap. That surprises me based on his numbers prior to joining the Cubs.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
The walk rate is great and his improvement is a surprise…but I still think his TTL is around 1 WAR. There’s some isolated things to be excited about but his biggest problem is that he doesn’t make a lot of contact. A 10% walk rate isn’t as good when you’re hitting .240
BerseliusQuote Reply
Berselius wrote:
Doesn’t that just make him essentially what we thought Brett Jackson was going to be? I suppose that’s less valuable because it’s at 3B and not in CF.
sitrick2Quote Reply
@ sitrick2:
Yeah pretty much. Valbuena’s power numbers have improved, but I think his best avenue for improving on his projection is with defense. He’s looked pretty good at 3b in the eyeball norm.
BerseliusQuote Reply
I just typed in “bert jackson” to fangraphs while looking up Jackson’s numbers. You win, Ryno.
BerseliusQuote Reply
Travis Wood has 0.6 batting WAR in 26 PAs
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
He’s been as fun to watch at the plate as Zambrano was.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Ryan SweeneyQuote Reply
New Shit
MylesQuote Reply