What type of player is Jason Bay? A good to great player you say. And I reply, well, yes, but he’s been fairly inconsistent in his career in which will he be.
It all really revolves around his AVG. From 2005 it has been: .306; .286; .247; .286; .268. What’s driving that? Two numbers that don’t necessarily move together: K% and BABIP.
His BABIP in those same years: .355; .338; .298; .328; .318. Now as you’ll notice, that .247 AVG from 2007 is easily explained away by the .298 BABIP, just an unlucky year.
His K% those same years: 23.7%; 27.4%; 26.2%; 23.7%, 30.4%. Wow, look at that last one. That’s what explains the low AVG this year. His K% rate got up to silly levels. But he did this while maintaining a BB/K of .58. Why is he striking out so much? Well, he’s obviously not making as much contact.
Let’s look at his Plate Discipline stats on Fangraphs. The O-Swing and Z-Swing numbers are steady at 20.5% and 62.7% respectively, within 1% each of his career average. The real problem is his O-Contact% which is down 10% from 58.9 to 48.5 from last year. Although his Z-Contact% is also down to 79.9 from 83.6. This all combines for a Contact% of 71.7%, down from 77% last year.
Now I don’t know enough about the math, and I haven’t run across many studies about how these numbers vary from year to year. But it doesn’t look good. Intuitively, one would think Swing stats are less luck and more under control of the hitter.
So here’s the thing. If you think he’s declining in his K%, then his ceiling on AVG is .270. With that basement of .247 staring at you. But lets say we get to spring training and he’s talking about a new batting stance, his numbers look much better in ST, what then? Well, with a good BABIP year and a return to his 23% K%, he could be a .300 hitter.
What does all this mean? .300 and he’s a top 5 hitter. .270 and he’s somewhere around the 12th best hitter. .247 and he’s in the mid 20′s in the rankings. Along with Reynolds, Reyes, and Sizemore, he’s a guy with first round ability but a large range of what he can produce. Which to me isn’t what you want in your high round or high dollar guys. So when the bidding happens, don’t let anyone steal him, because like I said, he’s still in the 20′s even at the low end, but it is a $10 swing in value between top five and mid 20′s.
