Philadelphia Phillies: Is Raul Ibanez Done?

Many people, including myself, were against signing a 36-year-old, Type A, free agent to a three- year, $30 million back in December of 2008 and now they appear to be justified.

Those chants of "RAUUUULLLL" have been turning into a simple "BOOOO."

It's still very early into the season and I'm all for large sample sizes, but there are some major causes for concern, even with less than 100 plate appearances.

Coming into the season, I was hoping he'd just continue with a steady decline, but it appears it could be a pretty significant collapse. Coming into tonight's series against the San Diego Padres, his .219/.286/.297 line is nothing short of grotesque.

Unlike many player's other hot or cold starts being heavily attributed to a fluky batting average of balls in play (BABIP), Ibanez's .289 is not that far off from his career .306 mark. The main culprit, and red flag, for such a bad triple-slash has been his inability to make contact.

For most everyday starters, swing percentages have already become reliable as far as sample sizes go.

With another couple series, contact rate becomes reliable as well. Given that information, a swing percentage at a career high of 48.8 percent, up from 40.6 percent last year, is concerning. Tack on that he is also swinging at pitches outside the strike zone at 32.4 percent, up over 12 percent from his career, it becomes worrisome.

His soon-to-be reliable contact rate is an alarming 73.8 percent, a precipitous drop from 81% last year and 81.6 percent career.

On a pitch-by-pitch basis, he's been struggling catching up to fastballs and making contact with off-speed stuff.

Obviously, this isn't a good combination.

Vs Right Handers:

Pitch type	2010 Swing %	2011 Swing %	2010 Swing-Miss %	2011 Swing-Miss %
Curveball	28.1%	60.0%	13.9%	22.2%
Fastball	37.4%	40.7%	17.4%	29.2%
Slider	46.0%	44.0%	21.3%	27.3%
Changeup	45.8%	67.6%	22.5%	30.4%

Vs Left Handers:

Pitch type	2010 Swing %	2011 Swing %	2010 Swing-Miss %	2011 Swing-Miss %
Curveball	25.0%	46.7%	22.2%	57.1%
Fastball	42.6%	32.1%	16.0%	22.2%
Slider	37.3%	60.0%	55.1%	50.0%

As you can see, it's much worse versus left-handed pitchers. I expect some of his 2011 percentages to regress toward 2010's but even if it does slightly, platooning him should be strongly considered.

When Ibanez is making contact, he is mashing the ball in the ground. His 60.9 ground ball percentage is much higher than his 42.7 percent career norm. On his only home run this year, the ball came off the bat at 95.8 MPH.

In all last year, his average speed off the bat on homer runs was 104.9 with his lowest being 95.5 MPH. This may just be a problem of extremely small sample size, but it could be something to keep an eye on as the season progresses.

His already subpar fielding also has struggled early in the season. With an insane, albeit unsustainable and volatile, Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) per 150 games of -42.3. I'm pretty sure that would be an all-time record and will surely regress to a more normal level, but it certainly is not a good sign or start.

It is quite ironic now that when the decision was made to sign Ibanez instead of Pat Burrell, that Burrell would be the better player in 2011.

Hopefully, Domonic Brown's return from injury is quick.