The Difference between Andy LaRoche and Nyjer Morgan
If you're unaware at this point in the season, the Pirates have gotten off to a hot start, then sputtered, and are playing at around .500 ball right now.
There have been a few standouts on the offense, mostly Adam LaRoche—one of the league's more well-known slow starters—who is hitting .294/.314/.697 with three homers so far.
Another stud is Nyjer Morgan, who, at the beginning of the season, caused a riff among Pirates fans. Although he's simply a placeholder until CF Andrew McCutchen gets called up later this year, some fans wanted him to be the starting left fielder, while others wanted Eric Hinske or Steve Pearce to take the last outfield spot. Personally, I was and still am in the latter camp, but so far Morgan has produced well, hitting .400 with two doubles, two triples, and three stolen bases.
Meanwhile, there has been a sputterer in this offense who us Pirates fans were really hoping would be able to turn it around this year.
I'm speaking, of course, of Andy LaRoche.
Yesterday, I sarcastically put up a celebratory post of his first hit of the season, but in that same game he hit into a rally-killing double play.
Considering this guy was once the Dodgers' top prospect and has perennially been in the top 10 of every prospect list in baseball, it's disappointing to say the least to see the centerpiece of a trade that sent Jason Bay to Boston sputtering so badly.
But I wonder...what's the difference between Andy LaRoche's slow start and Nyjer Morgan's hot start?
LaRoche's problem hasn't really been strikeouts. In 21 plate appearances, he's put the ball into play all but five times, and one of those times was a walk.
Courtesy of fangraphs.com, I looked up some batted ball data to see if I could get an answer. I decided to compare LaRoche, off to the most surprisingly slow start, to Morgan, who is off to a surprisingly hot start.
If you don't know these stats, they're pretty self-explanatory. Contact percentage is the percentage of all balls thrown at the hitter that he makes contact on, GB/FB ratio is the amount of grounders as compared to the amount of fly balls, and line drive percentage is the percentage of balls put in play that are line drives, etc.
Here are the results:
Nyjer Morgan
Contact: 86.6 percent
GB/FB ratio: 2.13
Line drive: 26.5 percent
Ground ball: 50 percent
Fly ball: 23.5 percent
Andy LaRoche
Contact: 75 percent
GB/FB ratio: 1.00
Line drive: 25 percent
Ground ball: 37.5 percent
Fly ball: 37.5 percent
As you can see from the results, Morgan's success has come mainly from emulating Willie Mays Hays from Major League. He's striking the ball hard into the ground and sprinting to first, relying on his legs to beat the ball to the bag. When he hits a line drive, he stretches it for extra bases. A guy like Morgan can do that, but it's not sustainable over a full season. I'd expect him to regress to around .275 once the sample size grows.
LaRoche, on the other hand, is hitting the ball for the type of spread you'd like to see from a dynamic hitter. Twenty-five percent of the balls he puts into play are line drives—he's just not hitting them where they ain't. The Hardball Times estimates that on average 75 percent of line drives fall for hits, so we can expect to see that luck turn around soon.
In addition, LaRoche doesn't hit the ball on the ground very often. I was surprised by that number, because every time I watch him bat it seems like he's hitting a weak dribbler to the second baseman, but the numbers are what they are.
And finally, LaRoche is hitting a lot of fly balls, which may explain his problem. Early on—in cold weather like this—those balls aren't carrying. From a subjective point of view, it seems like a lot of the flies he hits are popups, but it also seems like a lot of them are going just short of the warning track. Later in the season when the heat starts to set in, we can expect to see more of those balls travel out of the park.
My final assessment? Give them some time. Nyjer Morgan won't be able to sustain this pace, but neither will LaRoche. Given more time, we should see a nice spike in production by LaRoche, maybe even with some pop. This is the difference between good and bad luck in a small sample size, folks.
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