Does Jose Bautista piss you off?

[ls7plus]

Matter of fact, I can think of one guy who fits the mold, sorta--Joe Hardy, the main character in Douglas Wallop's "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennnant," brought to the stage and movies as "Damn Yankees!" Oops, Hardy was a work of fiction (kind of like Jose in a sense, huh?).

Can't anyone here mount even a credible argument in support of the above positions???

Larry

[fkw]

No He is one of my favorite players NOW

Hitting a Homerun is not hard to do... I was hitting 350'-440' aluminum bat HRs once every 20 swings, at 16 years old....... and I was drafted as a pitcher, not a hitter...

A HR is a solidly hit balls with some backspin. If youve ever hit one you know it the second you make contact, and why..... The HARD part is making the solid connection, reading the pitch out of the pitchers hand and not being fooled by the speed spin location and movement... none of that has anything to do with some shot or pill (PEDs), its pure talent and every single person that has played some upper level ball has gone through times where they just cant miss, everything they see is fat, easily read, and every swing they take they make square contact on the sweet spot (wood sweet spot 3-4", aluminum 8+")...... some HS players may only have a single batting practice where they are completely "on", some MLB players... it may last for 10-15 years...
Bautista is not a big guy, but you dont need to be big to hit a HR, just big enough to get some bat speed going, and making solid contact with some backspin.... simple

He is seeing the ball WELL, and Not Missing!! Period!


Dont hate!
If you have to Hate.......... Hate someone like Mantle for letting his career slip so bad after his 30th B-Day.... lack of hustle, period .... there is no way you can explain why the slowest player to ever play in the big leagues (Bengie Molina) averaged more doubles per 162 games played than Mantle... and dont give me the "he was injured" BS, if He could play Centerfield, He could run out a gapper or shot down the line and make it to 2B. (My M.M. rant for the week )

[HRBAKER]

It only pisses me off if I am a Pirates fan. But then again if I am a Pirates fan I am already plenty pissed off so I probably haven't noticed.

[novakjr]

Many factors play into Bautista's emergence as a beast.

1)he clearly wasn't ready to be in the big's, yet he got to be during all those years in Pittsburgh. There are many great late bloomers that languish in the minors until 28 or 29 only to have some monstrous years at the big league level.

2)Confidence is everything. Many players that are brought up too soon get discouraged to the point where they don't see reality, and the mentality of thinking they suck, becomes a trend. While many times, a change of team or simple encouragement from someone such as a new manager or hitting coach can give them a new confidence.

3)That same change in hitting coach will often lead to a change in a player's swing. Which is clearly working for Bautista in this case.

4)Sometimes simple placement in the batting order will lead to seeing better pitches. Which, duh! Lead to more home runs.

5)Sometimes a player just gets the lucky with what pitches he's getting. I'll use Brady Anderson as an example here, yes, I know he juiced, But you don't go from 16-50 on steroids alone. Luck plays a huge part in it..

6)as someone stated earlier, Bautista is an all or nothing type hitter. Once all the other factors play in, if a player starts connecting, pitchers will start walking him or pitching around him. Which will often lead to the only hittable pitches he sees being mistakes. And he's been seeing alot of mistakes lately. That's the main difference between a guy like Bautista or Dave Kingman(dude was a beast, especially in '79) and guys like Richie Sexson and Russel Branyan.

Aside from not having almost no luck earlier in his career, Bautista would be the modern equivalent of Dave Kingman. Kingman peaked at around 30, partially due to a change in coaching that more suited him, plus some luck.. A difference in pitching and managerial approaches in this era are the reason a player of this type CAN bat .350+ rather than, if lucky, .288 in the older eras, as in Kingman's best season. Back in those day, the pitching approach was more, challenge him, if he hit's one then, oh well. And that was pretty much the same approach most pitchers took to Sexson as well. This "throw crap pitches and hope not to f*** up" approach is somewhat of a newer thing...

[Robextend]

Rico Petrocelli (Never hit more than 18HR before 1968):
1968 406AB 12HR
1969 535AB 40HR

Davey Johnson (Never hit more than 18HR before 1972):
1972 376AB 5HR
1973 559AB 40HR

Jose Bautista
2009 336AB 13HR
2010 569AB 54HR

Please explain the difference...I am sure I can dig up more examples as well. The point is that these things DO happen. And if you want to accuse Bautista, go ahead and accuse Davey Johnson and Rico Petrocelli as well.

Thanks - Rob

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by Robextend

Rico Petrocelli (Never hit more than 18HR before 1968):
1968 406AB 12HR
1969 535AB 40HR

Davey Johnson (Never hit more than 18HR before 1972):
1972 376AB 5HR
1973 559AB 40HR

Jose Bautista
2009 336AB 13HR
2010 569AB 54HR

Please explain the difference...I am sure I can dig up more examples as well. The point is that these things DO happen. And if you want to accuse Bautista, go ahead and accuse Davey Johnson and Rico Petrocelli as well.

Thanks - Rob

OK, Rob, I will explain the difference between what Johnson did and what Bautista has done. Johnson, in contrast to Bautista, was quite a good second baseman for the Orioles, making three all-star teams for them in 1968 through 1970, and batted over .280 three years in a row from 1969 on, when the mound was lowered and the strike zone made much smaller. Now let's see: Did Jose Bautista ever make an all-star team before 2010? Did he ever hit .280 before then? And with regard to Johnson's big homerun surge in 1973--that was the year he was traded to Atlanta, when the Braves still played in Fulton County Stadium, rightfully nicknamed, "the Launching Pad." Bill James had this to say about that stadium's propensity for increasing homerun totals in the context of Hank Aaron:

"...As you can see by the home/road homerun totals, to a considerable
degree Aaron's late-in-life resurgence is a statistical illusion created by
moving from a very poor homerun park, County Stadium in Milwaukee, to a
very good homerun park, Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta. At his peak,
Aaron would have hit 50 homeruns, and probably more than once, had he
been playing in an average homerun park; playing his best years in Atlanta
(or Wrigley Field) he absolutely would have hit more than 60 homeruns in a
season..."

Davey hit 26 of his 43 at Fulton County Stadium in 1973. While he did hit 17 in more neutral parks on the road that year, doubling that to 34 as representing his real, non-park related power surge, is a far, far cry from Bautista's 54 homeruns in 2010, and, as we speak, Bautista's 16 homers in about a fourth of a season or less (given Bautista's games missed to injury this year) and .370 average in 2011. And I don't think anyone would be in danger of confusing even Johnson's '73 stats with Babe Ruth's.

Interesting comparison, though I don't see anything to accuse Johnson of, other than taking advantage of a very favorable homerun park (the Park Factor for Fulton was 115, meaning games played there produced 115% of the runs produced in a neutral park. The infamous Baker Bowl, said to have greatly inflated hall-of-famer Chuch Klein's stats, had a park factor of 113-117 when Klein was in his prime playing half his games there). My assumption would be that Johnson tried to get more loft on the ball after the trade, which, as someone who has played a great deal, I can tell you can be done simply by raising the hitter's back elbow. This puts more loop in the swing, resulting in more flyballs and less line drives. And, as noted in an earlier post, there's nothing to accuse Petrocelli of, other than taking advantage of the obvious difficulty pitchers had in adjusting when he had his big year in '69, the first year they lowered the mound and shrunk the strike zone (you didn't think Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA the year before was all Bob Gibson, did you? He never had another season with an ERA under 2.18 after 1968, and more that were over 3.00 than under for the rest of his career).

One thing that is interesting to think about with regard to Bautista and Gibson is what the latter would have done to dear old Jose had he had the balls to hang so far out over the plate when Bob was pitching that the outside corner was in effect middle-in, as Bautista does now. This is one of the main reasons that this guy really pisses me off. As far as Bob Gibson was concerned, the outside corner of the plate belonged to him. My bet is that Gibson, who was not really a bad guy, just a fiercesome competitor, would have politely buzzed one in close to his chin first, as fair warning. Then, if dear little Jose had the cajones to hold his ground for the next pitch, he would have been sucking his meals through a straw for the next two months! Where are the Gibsons and Drysdales when you need them? You can probably tell that I REALLY don't like this guy!

Love your activity on this one.

Larry

[ls7plus]

Hi, Steve B. Did you know that Cecil Fielder hit 31 homeruns in just 506 at bats playing for Toronto over 4 seasons before his 51 homer season with the Tigers in 1990? Fielder's problem was getting playing time then, not any lack of demonstrated ability. A fellow named Fred McGriff held down the regular first sacker's job when Cecil was with Toronto, and Fred was pretty good. The old crime dog hit 20 homers in just 295 at bats with the Blue Jays in 1987; 34 in 1988, and 36 in 1989. I really don't think Cecil falls into the Bautista mold, or even comes close.

I will give you Darrell Evans as a sporadic homerun hitter, consistently hitting in double figures in homers, though only twice with 40 or more, and twice in the 30's. I hardly think that equates to mimicking Bonds on his best juiced days, however. And Ted Kluzewski (Big Klu) did indeed have a power surge, but was never a marginal player like Bautista prior thereto, as he had seasons of batting .309 four years before his first 40 homer season; 25 homers, 111 RBI and .307 three years before; 16 homeruns, 86 RBI, .320 one year before. He is like Bautista in the limited respect that his first really big year came at age 29, but that's all.

Jack Clark demonstrated pretty consistent power from the time he was in his second season, at 22 years of age, when he hit 25 homeruns and drove in 98 runs. His main problem was staying healthy, as he had only three seasons in which he played 150 games or more in his entire career. No, no Jose Bautista there either. Try as you might, you will find that the Bautista career progression is not one that occurs in nature. As I said earlier, there were only seven guys who had hit 54 homeruns or more prior to 1990, and none of them stumbled around looking like Ron Swoboda's twin brother for years and years before they achieved that status.

Larry

Originally Posted by ls7plus

Davey hit 26 of his 43 at Fulton County Stadium in 1973. While he did hit 17 in more neutral parks on the road that year, doubling that to 34 as representing his real, non-park related power surge Larry

So would 46 be Bautista's "real, non-park related" 162-game home run average for the last 1.25 seasons? Bautista has 41 homers in his last 95 home games compared to just 29 in his last 101 road games. His 162-game adjusted totals for the last 1.25 seasons are 70 homers, .295 at home; 46 homers, .263 on the road.

[steve B]

Edited to add that some guys are duplicated because it took me a long time to get this post together while taking care of the baby.

Leaving out early career cup if coffee type seasons.

Cecil Fielder - 4 years of half seasons poor to ordinary batting average and 14 Hr his best year. One year in Japan? Comes back to hit 51 hr .277 Sliding but reasonably productive through 96

Dave Kingman - good but not amazing for 4 years in SF goes to the Mets and goes from a sub 30 Hr hitter (Although barely under one year) to 36 and 37hr
production like a yo-yo the rest of his career.

Darrell Evans - 1971-82 with typically 20 or fewer HR. one outlier season with 41 in 73 and a good but not great year with 25 in 74. Then 30 in 83, 40 in 85, and 34 in 87.

Frank Howard - 1960 -66 Mostly teens or low 20's in HR 31 in 62 and 28 in 63
(62 expansion year if you buy that stuff) Then 67-70 36,44,48,44 HR

Jack Clark - 77-86 Good but not great and inconsistent. usually 20+HR but no more than 27 and only 3 years in the upper 20's. Then 35 in 87, a crazy year for HR anyway, but upper 20's for the next 4 years

Ted Kluszewski- 48-52 only one year over 20HR and that only 25. 53-56 40,49,47,35 HR.


yes, most good hitters are good right away. But taking a few years to get going while unusual isn't unheard of.

Steve B

[Robextend]

Good examples Steve. Either way Bautista could fall into a category of 1-2 seasons of greatness and then fall back like a Davey Johnson, or can be like one of Steve's examples and be a consistent bigtime HR hitter after a few years of not being one.

The examples are out there....

A couple more:

Wally Post
1954 451AB 18HR
1955 601AB 40HR

Bob Cerv
1957 345AB 11HR
1958 515AB 38HR

[ls7plus]

I think virtually all of you have missed the point. We're talking about a player whose performance for SIX YEARS was barely good enough to stay in the major leagues, who then catapulted out of nowhere into THE 99th PERCENTILE of current hitters, and should his production continue at current levels, certainly above the 95th percentile of all time, at age 29! I repeat once more for clarity: IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY IN NATURE--IT NEVER HAS, AND IT NEVER WILL! None of your examples fit that mold at all. Joe Hardy is far closer, and it is not a coincidence that he was purely a fictitious character. Frank Howard doesn't even come close to a fit--He hit 23 homers as a rooke, batting .268 in 1960, 15 in a half season's worth of at bats in 1961, while hitting for a .296 average, 31 homers in 493 at bats in '62, once again hitting .296, 28 HR's in only 417 at bats in '63--he had but one down season similar to Bautista's six, which was 1964, when he hit but .226, although he still managed 24 HR's.

Dave Kingman beyond any question doesn't fit the Bautista mold either, with a string of homerun seasons starting when he was just 23 years old of 29, 24, 18, 36, 37, 26, 28, 48, 18 (in only half a season), 22 (in two-thirds of a season), 37, 13 (in half a season's worth of at bats, 248), 35, 30 and 35. Nope, no Jose Bautista there!

Wally Post? Oops, sorry once again. Post hit 18 homeruns in 1954, a season which he started when he was only 24 years old, and batted just 451 times, hitting what was most likely at least close to a league average of .255. From a solid base, he did indeed progress to 40 homers the next year with 33% more at bats, followed by a run of years in which he was obviously not entirely healthy and played less than full time, playing in only 143, 134, 110, 132, 111, 99 and 109 games, yet posting respectable homerun totals of 36, 20, 12, 22, 19, 20, and 17 (in only 285 at bats in 1962). Sorry, no Jose Bautista there, either considering the factor of six entirely marginal major league performance years, or ANY PERIOD WHATSOEVER WHERE HE WAS EVEN ARGUABLY THE BEST IN THE GAME. Not only no cigar there, but not even any lolipop!

Rico Petrocelli does indeed bear a superficial resemblance, but his years preceding his big 40 homerun year included years of 13 (in less than two-thirds of a season), 18, 17, and 12 (in only 406 at bats), with batting averages which superficially may SEEM to resemble Bautista's, but were actually cose to the league averages in the heart of the pitcher's era, with a much larger strike zone and five inch higher mound. Plus, a shortstop good for 15-20 homers, fields well (Petrocelli did), and hits for the league average would not be considered a mediocre player. Petrocelli's big year came in 1969, when they shrunk the strike zone and lowered the mound, a time when a lot of other hitters achieved their career best years, including the aforementioned Frank Howard, Willie McCovey, Harmon Killebrew, arguably Reggie Jackson, etc. And I don't think anyone would have seriously nominated him as being in the running even then for the title of best hitter in the game. We're also not talking a 70-homerun pace here, as Bautista has been on since last May. Maybe a lolipop here for Rico, but certainly no cigar!
More tonight, when I have more time.

Nice lively discussion. Hope you don't take it personally

Larry

[Robextend]

I would hope no one would take baseball talk personally.

But let's break it down:

2004 Only 88 ABs
2005 Only 28 ABs

How should both of those seasons even count for anything? So instead of the 6 years, it is really 4. There has been talk ad nauseam about how his swing had been dramatically changed. How about the fact he tore up the league the last month of 2009?

But also, how don't any of those examples mentioned above prove that these occurrences do happen?

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by ls7plus

I think virtually all of you have missed the point. We're talking about a player whose performance for SIX YEARS was barely good enough to stay in the major leagues, who then catapulted out of nowhere into THE 99th PERCENTILE of current hitters, and should his production continue at current levels, certainly above the 95th percentile of all time, at age 29! I repeat once more for clarity: IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY IN NATURE--IT NEVER HAS, AND IT NEVER WILL! None of your examples fit that mold at all. More tonight, when I have more time, but let me end with this for now: the homers hit by Bonds and McGwire are certainly entitled to just as much respect as those by Bautista, and everybody knows what they did not for, but to, the game.

Nice lively discussion. Hope you don't take it personally

Larry

Simple, he shouldn't have been in the majors for most of those years. Dude simply wasn't ready yet. The only reason he was up in the bigs is because the Pirates for the last 15-20 years or so have been fielding a minor league team.. I'm not trying to put down the Pirates or the city of Pittsburgh, but the facts are the facts. Even as an Clevelander, I've always liked the Pirates(not as much as the Indians though), and my father would take the family on a trip to Pittsburgh once a year when I was a kid to catch a Pirates game. Obviously I hate the Steelers. I do respect the hell out of them though...The Pirates, not so much, but I've always wanted to see them be a better team than they have been.

Jeromy Burnitz for on comes to mind as a late bloomer. He really didn't get much of a chance in the majors until he was 28 and showed some pretty good power once he was ready to be an everyday player.

Henry Rodriguez was another late bloomer. Didn't get much of a break into the majors until he was 28. Another solid power hitter in his prime.

Anyways, after looking around at a few other players. The closest I would compare Bautista up to this point in his career would probably be Kevin Mitchell. Mitchell put up some inconsistent averages and showed minimal to average power until he was 27 and then hit 47 home runs. Followed by 35, 27,9,19,30 and then pretty much fell completely off the map.