This article series examines how various Pittsburgh Pirates players are trending and focuses on one specific player that is trending up and one that is trending down.
Today, our attention is on hot-hitting shortstop Jordy Mercer and the recent struggles of Gerrit Cole.
Jordy Mercer Warming Up
It was just two weeks ago that Jordy Mercer was highlighted as a player that was trending down. In that article we pointed out that Mercer tends to start slowly in April and May and starts to heat up in June. It looks like Mercer decided to speed up the timetable a bit and started crushing the ball in the last part of May. He took a rare day off on May 21, and since then, has been on a tear.
In his 13 games since that day off, Mercer has gone 23-55 with three walks. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, Mercer has 9 multi-hit games in that stretch and he has been hitting for some power, clubbing 3 home runs, 3 doubles and a triple. His batting average was sitting at .203 on May 21 and now it is a very respectable .264. His batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is up to .294 after sitting below .250 earlier in the season. Given this, it’s likely that Mercer has been somewhat victimized by bad luck early in the season.
The chart below shows how Mercer’s batting average and slugging percentage have trended over the 2017 season. It is evident that Mercer has “figured it out” in the last 2 weeks.
Mercer is also playing solid defense this season. Fangraphs has Mercer’s Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) at 0.6 so far on the season. If he keeps this up, he would finish the season around 1.8 which would be a career best for Mercer and well above his career worst -8.4 UZR from last year.
He is not flashy, as his range is lacking, but he makes up for it by committing few errors and converting almost every routine play into an out. Mercer’s arm is his greatest strength and allows him to make up for bobbled balls with a strong, accurate through.
Gerrit Cole’s Long Ball Problem
If Jordy Mercer’s arm is a cannon, then Gerrit Cole’s is a Howitzer.
For significant stretches, Cole has been a dominant, top-of-the-rotation pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates. However, over his past four starts things have been trending the wrong way for the hard-throwing right hander.
Cole’s ERA currently stands at 4.27 and is trending in the wrong direction, largely because he is giving up home runs at an unprecedented rate. In Cole’s last 4 starts, he has gone 6 innings three times and 5 innings once. In that span, he has given up 12 earned runs and, more concerning, 5 home runs. Giving up the long ball has been a disturbing theme for Cole this year. He has already given up 15 in 12 starts in 2017 after giving up only 7 in 21 starts last season. The combination of Cole’s ERA and home runs surrendered is shown in the graph below.
The second half of May has not been kind to Cole. He was actually lucky in a couple of his recent starts in that the home runs he surrendered were solo shots. The damage could have been worse.
Trending Up and Down
Jordy Mercer has really turned his season around in the last two weeks and has earned his place as the Pittsburgh Pirates’ top trending player. Gerrit Cole is struggling right now and finds himself trending down. Hopefully, he can figure out a way to limit the home runs hit against him and turn things around.
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