2014 might have been the best season of Howie Kendrick‘s career. None of his numbers really jump off the page, but when you look at all the different aspects of his game, he’s never been more complete.
Where did his biggest improvement come from?
Kendrick has always been a good defender, but he was pretty terrific this year. All the different defensive systems thought quite highly of Howie. It was actually a bit of an upset that he didn’t get a Gold Glove finalist nod, in my opinion. He’s not the flashiest of defenders, but he makes all the plays asked of him. He’s basically the yin to Aybar’s yang.
What about the bat?
You know, I try and not focus on offense for a change, but it always comes back to Howie’s bat, doesn’t it? If you look at his TV numbers, Howie didn’t appear to do anything special. His seven homers were actually kind of disappointing and his batting average was almost exactly on par with his career batting average.
It’s his other numbers that show his real progress. Yes, the power was not there this year. His .104 ISO was actually the lowest of his career, but he made up for it by posting the highest OBP his career at .347. He did that by drawing career-best, by far, 7.1% walk rate coupled with his lowest strikeout rate since 2010. Considering his .341 career BABIP, Howie cutting down on the Ks and putting more balls in play can only be a good thing.
But wait, where did those walks come from?
Honestly, I’m not sure. His swing percentages and whiff percentages are all almost perfectly in line with his career norms. He actually saw a his pitches per plate appearance go down a bit from last season when his walk rate was one of the lowest of his career. He also saw basically the same pitch mix that he’s seen in throughout his career. Everything appears to be exactly the same.
The only variable that changed that might explain things is that Howie spent a lot more time batting fourth and fifth than he has previously. As a result, he saw a marginal uptick in PAs with runners on base, he saw a big rise in his walk rate in that situation over last season, but he also saw a similar rise in his walk rate with men on base. So that doesn’t really explain much either.
Digging deeper into the splits, the one big difference that can be seen in his walk rates was a huge rise in walk percentage against right-handed pitching. That is interesting, but doesn’t explain anything either.
Maybe Howie just is getting smarter now that he’s into his thirties and getting better about controlling the zone. Or maybe this area is a prime target for the regression hammer to strike next season.
And where did the power go?
This answer is a lot more simple. Howie, already a prolific hitter of groundballs, posted a 60% groundball rate, the highest rate of his career. Turns out that getting extra base hits is kind of hard when you don’t hit the ball in the air. The ability to hit the ball hard is there, but he just doesn’t often get the trajectory to make it amount to anything.
So when are we going to get that batting title we were promised a decade ago?
Um, yeah, about that… That… that’s just not going to happen.
Final Answer
It really was one of the best seasons of Howie’s career and did well to remind everyone just how good he could be. That’s nice to see considering Dipoto and the fans both wanted to trade him last offseason. Naturally, it will probably only serve to help get him traded this offseason instead.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
