I really don't think it's a matter of unluckiness. I think the problem is concentration. He's got the attention span of an ADD kid on speed. See, the conundrum I see is that if he hit the way he's been hitting as a DH, he'd be great to bring back, even on a 3 year deal. We all know how his hitting ability drops when he DHs though. He can't come back as the full-time 1B though. Isn't Teixiera available this offseason? If we can bring him in, there's no way we shouldn't. Isn't Matsui still under contract too? Then we'd have two DHs that are pretty useless defensively.
He hit .295 in May and .296 in June. He's just been hurt by an April in which he slumped and was incredibly unlucky. 18% LD vs .250 BABIP, a small gap that shows how unlucky he's been. The only legitimate concern is his power (HR/F is 6.6%, down from 11.5% last year and 12.3% the year before; .116 ISO, down from .182 last year.)
But how do you determine "unluckiness"? I attribute his lack of luck to a lack of patience, and lack of focus. I guess I just don't understand what you're saying. Do you mean that he was making solid contact, but just hitting it at people?
There's a lot of different ways, but just going by the example I used, his line drive percentage is 18 and his BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) is .250. Generally, a player's BABIP should be .120 more than his LD%. So, with a LD% of 18, his BABIP should be .300. The fact that his BABIP is lower (and was much lower earlier this year while maintaining a similar LD%) means he's hitting the ball equally as well as last year (his LD% was actually worse last year) but they're not finding the holes. His numbers in April were strikingly similar to his overall 2007 numbers: Cano 2007 2008 BB% 5.9 6.2 K% 13.8 13.2 LD% 16.9 17.4 GB% 52.2 51.1 FB% 30.9 31.5 His 2008 numbers have almost improved across the board, so he should have even better numbers now than he did in all of 2007, but he's just been incredibly unlucky.
dont know where this came from, my buddy emailed it to me...just reinforcing what we already know. At what point - tonight? - do the Yankees admit that Melky Cabrera doesn’t belong in the lineup? He is at .223/.284/.290 since May 1 with two homers, 20 RBI and 12 runs scored over 213 plate appearances. 12 runs scored in 53 games? That is tough to do. June (.206/.289/.255) was even worse and for the season he’s hitting .222 with runners in scoring position. Yet Cabrera has played in 81 games and is a lineup constant, even against left-handers despite his atrocious performance (.198/.289/.255) as a right-handed hitter. For all the tinkering Joe Girardi does with his lineup, Cabrera is accorded the same respect as A-Rod and Jeter. Three actual good players sat against Oliver Perez the other day. Cabrera played and was 0 for 3. Cabrera is 0 for his last 15 and has one RBI since June 16. Yes, he has a fine arm. He also has three assists all season. Playing him on the off chance that he might throw somebody out doesn’t begin to balance out his offensive ineptness. Joe Torre had the same loyalty to Cabrera that Girardi does. Cabrera, Torre used to invariably say, gives the Yankees energy. In terms of “energy” stats, Cabrera had eight triples last season, none this season. He’s also on pace for fewer doubles, fewer stolen bases and fewer sacrifices. Now that Brett Gardner is here, there is no compelling reason to continue playing Cabrera every day. Keeping Johnny Damon out of center field is understandable. But the Yankees would be best served with Damon in left and Gardner in center for an extended period of time. None of us know what Gardner will do. But how much worse can he be at this point? The second part of this is whether Cabrera has any trade value beyond being a throw-in. He did have market value at some point, but that has faded. This slump goes beyond two months. Cabrera has hit .263 since the start of the 2007 season. That’s not a slump, that’s what he is.
10penn, can you run melky's numbers against your bad luck stat and tel us what we can expect from melky for the 2nd half please?
YANKEES (44-39) Damon DH Gardner LF Abreu RF Rodriguez 3B Giambi 1B Posada C Cano 2B Betemit SS Cabrera CF Chamberlain RHP I think (hope) this will be Cabrera's final game as a regular.
F***! I like that lineup, except that it contains Beteshit. If the bottom of your lineup is going to be that weak anyway, why not play Gonzalez?
Joba is erratic as hell today....this offense is going to need to put up runs instead of stranding runners at 3rd....
Cano drills it up the middle and it shanks Millwood and goes directly to 1st....when you are playing this bad, you never catch any breaks...
Posada's lost all ability to throw the ball. Really scary to see after signing him to a 4 year deal this off-season. Looks like 1B or DH is in the very near future.
as much of an idiot that cashman is, im sure he only figured on posada catching for this season....I hope
