06-20-2017, 02:36 PM
(06-20-2017, 02:01 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: 27 is young for a guy like Votto who has the ability to hit the ball. Hamilton is 27 and his entire game is his speed. If you look at the stolen base numbers each year, there are basically no players over 30 in the top 10 for stolen bases. Brandon Phillips did it in 2015 but it's not very common otherwise.
I am all about optimism about our guys. But I just feel like Hamilton has been such a monumental disappointment on just about every level of his career, I would kind of love to see him moved before everyone else realizes how bad he is at swinging a bat.
I keep waiting for that Votto mentorship to kick in but it just hasn't.
As for his other years...Well...calling them incrementally better than his rookie year is, again, debatable.
He took a step down in BA, OBP, Slugging and WAR in his sophomore year. Not unexpected. Sophomore slumps aren't uncommon. He did improve his base stealing, as he was caught way less (23 CS in rookie year vs 8 in sophomore year)
If we're honest, his only good year was last year in which he hit .260/.321/.343/.664
I know people were optimistic about him because they thought he'd build on those numbers and maybe reach .330 or .340 OBP this year.
He has not.
In fact, even his best year is still below average for a lead off hitter. In 2014, the average OBP for a leadoff hitter was .326. That was down from 2013, in which it was .329. Between 2009 and 2012, the average OBP for a lead off hitter was somewhere between .324 and .347.
So, Hamilton's career year is still below average. His career average is over 20 points below average (.297 career OBP).
And that doesn't even take into account his higher than average strikeout rate. In his career, he's only had one year where his K% was below 20%, 2015 when he was averaging .226.
Every other year, he's been between 20 and 24% K. The average between 2009 and 2014 for lead off hitters was between 15.5% and 17.3%
https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2015/3/25/8124365/leadoff-hitters-the-book-declining-production
I keep trying to find statistics that would trend towards him improving, but the further I dig, the more damning things I find about him. I actually dislike him more after this discussion than I did before looking into all this haha.
Where he should be in the batting order is a different debate and I agree he shouldn't be leading off. I'd probably slot him in at 7. I think he has the talent but not the consistency. There are stretches where he hits over .300 for a couple weeks and then he gets dinged up and falls apart. This most recent stretch of futility is coming from a thumb injury.
I think the future at leadoff is Peraza or Winker.
