Reid Brignac

by doug frobel on Jun 27, 2007 1:28 PM EDT

When checking out various prospects up for vote in the community voting, I came across Brignac's splits. Obviously we only have half a season of sample data, but here's the LH hitter's 2007 L/R breakdown:

Pitcher AVG SLG OBP AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO
vs. L 311 451 346 122 38 6 1 3 13 7 20
vs. R 204 371 271 167 34 7 3 5 28 17 26

To me, a couple of things stand out. It's interesting that he's faced about 25% less LHs than RHs. It would figure the discrepency would be larger. Also, despite the underlying secondary numbers favoring Brignac facing a RH, it's obvious far more balls (singles) are falling in against southpaws.

I don't know whether it's good news that Brignac hangs in so well against LHs, bad news that he's struggled against RHs, or just bad luck that more balls aren't falling in vs. RH pitching.

What are others' thoughts?

Tweet Comment 18 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

there must be an

extraordinary amount of LHP in the Southern League. 122 at bats at this point of the season is INSANE. Most hitters in the big leagues don't see over 160 at bats versus LHP over a full season.

Can't explain how a LHB could struggle so mightily versus RHP. After seeing these numbers I feel better about him as a prospect because I know he'll hit RHP--this has to be an anomoly charged to sample size.

by So Cal Bob on Jun 27, 2007 1:36 PM EDT reply actions

Unlucky

From what I see, I'd say he's been very unlucky so far vs. RHP, he has a .219 BABIP this season. If that was at a normal level, there wouldn't be any worry about him.

"Aw, how could he (Jorge Orta) lose the ball in the sun, he's from Mexico."-Harry Caray

by gatling on Jun 27, 2007 1:43 PM EDT up reply actions

babip

i think it's dangerous to just assume that low babip = bad luck. there can be other explanations - something causing a hitter to strike the ball with less than full authority. usually an injury, or lack of focus/concentration, etc. my gut feeling is that there's something odd going on with him right now, bigger than just bad luck in where he hits the ball. hopefully something temporary.

of course it's possible it's just luck.

his LD% is around 20% right now (i'm not sure if i'm calculating it exactly right) - but i can't remember if that's supposed to be good or bad.

http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?pl=458582&tm=MonSL&bp=b

by wily mo on Jun 27, 2007 2:47 PM EDT up reply actions

20%

is pretty decent. IIRC, around 15% is average. More line drives usually end up as hits. If you hit a lot of line drives and still have a low BABIP, there's probably a lot of luck involved.

Vice-Chairman of the Sonnanstine Underground Railroad

by Brickhaus on Jun 27, 2007 3:19 PM EDT up reply actions

hey brickhaus...

is the 15% league average for the Southern League? Or is that a general MLB average?

If he is sitting at 20% and say the league average is around 11%, then he is pretty unlucky.

Just curious.

by So Cal Bob on Jun 27, 2007 3:27 PM EDT up reply actions

I calculated 20% as well

And in general you expect the BABIP to be 12% higher than the LD%. So you would expect a BABIP of about .320

by Kanst42 on Jun 27, 2007 3:22 PM EDT up reply actions

12%

i think that 12% rule is for the majors. in the minor leagues BABIP is generally higher due to worse fielder. it's particularly noticeable in the low minors, but even at AA i think you generally see a higher BABIP than you would given the same peripherals in the majors.

having said all that, i'm pretty sure the rule is supposed to be applied to pitchers, not hitters, since they have no control over who is standing in against them. i agree with wily mo that not all BABIPs are created equal for hitters. if brignac is not hitting the ball with authority, then it's not bad luck which is causing him to have a low average.

by jpahk on Jun 27, 2007 3:35 PM EDT up reply actions

No (response to Jpahk)

I think the LD% + 12 is supposed to be for hitters. 95% sure.

by siddfynch on Jun 28, 2007 2:48 AM EDT up reply actions

you're right

after thinking about it... it's definitely for hitters. pitchers, supposedly, don't even have much year-to-year consistency over their LD% allowed.

by jpahk on Jun 29, 2007 11:01 AM EDT up reply actions

all right

so maybe it is luck. it seems very strange, though, if he's really hitting the same way he always has, for his numbers to be this bad for this long. i mean they're reliably bad. you open the box score thinking "man i don't want to see this, i bet brignac sucked again" and - lo and behold! - yes he did. night after night. when i get to the point where i'm doing that it usually turns out something's actually wrong with the guy.

by wily mo on Jun 27, 2007 3:35 PM EDT up reply actions

I'm going with luck

His XBH% has dropped off just a tiny bit, from High A ball last year(37.3% last year vs. 34.7% this year), so I'm guessing he's hitting the ball pretty much the same. Then again, I haven't seen him so I could be all wrong.

"Aw, how could he (Jorge Orta) lose the ball in the sun, he's from Mexico."-Harry Caray

by gatling on Jun 27, 2007 3:49 PM EDT up reply actions

huh

and he was in the california league most of last year, so you'd probably expect a drop of at least that just from the context change. odd. but then pedrophile says he's hitting more balls in the air, which might lead to increased XBH% on both ends - adding long fly-ball hits on the one side of the equation, while taking away ground-ball singles and reducing BABIP on the other side.

by wily mo on Jun 27, 2007 4:01 PM EDT up reply actions

Looks like BABIP

.354 vs. LHP, .213 vs. RHP. Not sure what his G/L/F splits are, but that's a pretty big difference. IMO, he looks like he's on track to be a very good major leaguer.

by jc3 on Jun 27, 2007 1:42 PM EDT reply actions

Brigy

Than Garza and Davis for me

by JD Sussman on Jun 27, 2007 1:52 PM EDT reply actions

Scouts....

Scouts are saving that he is playing like he tired and having his family and friends follow him around the Southern League plays into that....

by Mix Won Soon on Jun 27, 2007 3:39 PM EDT reply actions

I've seen him play the last

three nights and about 10 times counting his late call-up last season and this season here in Mississippi and his family is always here. And they scream and yell like an LSU fan would the entire game.

Of course he has played great in the field including a sweet double play last night. I've seen him hit two bombs in the left-center bullpen that went 400 feet at least.

Great athlete that hits the ball hard...of course he hits in front of Longoria and you can tell the pitchers are afraid of him.

by themurph @ Minor League Ball on Jun 27, 2007 5:44 PM EDT up reply actions

BABIP

just from a very quick look:

his line drive rate is good and the % falling for hits seems to be normal. But line drives are not the only type, you must look in the batted balls in play data.

His ground ball singles are low, especially the infield singles. It probably only adds up to a handful of hits though. Is he running slower or was he just unlucky?

What concerns me more is the flyball + popup numbers which are quite high.

Group A: The strikeouts, flyballs, popups are the three areas where you are giving atbats away.

Group B: The hr's, line drives, ground balls (which contain gb line drives) are typically where you get your hits.

Instead of focusing on BABIP I try to look at where a hitter is putting his balls in play, group A or group B.

by pedrophile on Jun 27, 2007 3:53 PM EDT reply actions

His K rate has been improved ...

I have taken from his drop in production as a desire to improve his K rate (and by extension K:BB) ... I kind of assumed TB was beating plate discipline into him (kind of a hitting version of Matt Garza) ... of course I've only seen stats and scouting reports, but after following how the TB org tried to will defense into BJ Upton, I'm wondering if something similar is happening here ...

Paul Householder, Gary Redus, Tommy Lawless, Duane Walker ... prospects rawk!

by design28 on Jun 27, 2007 4:31 PM EDT reply actions