Come this time of year, if you play fantasy baseball, it is around the time when you begin to scout for your leagues. Statistics get crunched, trends are looked at, and a draft list begins to take place. If you happen to be in deep leagues, you look beyond the top 15 at each position, and look for players that may be able to have bounce back or unexpected seasons.
Looking over Chipper Jones' statistics over the past three years, there is a marked decline. Yes, Jones is still taking his walks, however his power has decreased dramatically and his batting average has suffered. Perhaps this is due to age (Jones is 39) and injury, but there may be more to it than that. In 2008, Jones hit .364, leading the National League, and slugged 22 homers. In 2009, that went down to .264 and 18 homers, despite 62 more plate appearances. Last season, in 381 plate appearances, he batted .265 with 10 homers.
Part of this may be due to bad luck. His batting average in balls in play has dropped from .383 in 2008 to .287 in 2009 and .281 in 2010. His career average on BABip is .315, so there is a significant difference there. Also, he has a lower than normal BABip over the past two seasons, as the median falls at .299.
However, there is a disturbing trend that may signify why his BABip is decreasing so rapidly. When he makes contact with an offspeed pitch or a breaking ball on the outside part of the plate, his batting average has fallen rapidly. Back in 2008, his batting average on such pitches .358. This fell to .274 in 2009, and down to an atrocious .136 in 2010.
Typically, when a batter is about to lose his abilities, he is no longer able to keep up with the fastball or maintain his batting eye. With Chipper, this is not the case. He can still hit the fastball, and he can still draw a walk. Yet, he no longer seems to be able to hit softer pitches on the outside half. It will be curious to see how he hits these pitches throughout the spring, and whether or not pitchers begin to throw him more offspeed pitches on the outer half.
Jones has had a great Hall of Fame worthy career. But his time is about up, and it's interesting in how the decline has been this atypical.
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