Am I really going to do this? I guess I have to. Alright, here we go with the questioning of Josh Hamilton‘s 2014 season. This could take awhile. It might also require a few anti-depressants.
Was Hamilton really as bad as everyone seems to think he was?
No… and yes. On the season, Hamilton had a 108 wRC+. That’s above league average by a fair amount. Vernon Wells he is not. But $125 million slugger he also was not.
That’s what it always seems to boil down to with Angels fans. Hamilton has been a disappointment since he first donned an Angels uniform. Fans were already predisposed to not like him since he had previously been the face of the Rangers and his personality isn’t exactly endearing either. So when he fell on his face out of the gate in 2013, everyone was ready to pounce and that was pretty much it for him. Even his hot start to the 2014 season didn’t really engender him much support from the fans.
Of course, that hot start didn’t last long because Hamilton quickly landed on the DL due to a thumb injury suffered while stupidly sliding into first. That injury basically put him back to square one with the fans so when he came back from the injury with poor results, he was back to be skewered by everyone. By the time September rolled around, Hamilton went in the tank and then suddenly started having those mysterious upper body pains.
Poor misguided Josh then tried to work his way back into the lineup for the ALDS, for the good of the team. Only it was no good at all as he ended up turning in one of the worst performances in a playoff series ever. So, yeah, it is more “yes” than “no.”
What exactly was up with that weird injury in September?
First, it was his shoulder. Why exactly did his shoulder start hurting? Nobody knows. It just hurt and he couldn’t throw and was having a hard time swinging. OK, whatever.
Then suddenly the discomfort in the shoulder became side/chest pain that made it hurt for Josh to breath. Huh? I’m not a doctor, but that is just weird. It’s also weird how at no point did the Angels feel compelled to explain any of this.
It isn’t that there was some sort of shenanigans going on here, just that maybe Josh was more injured in September than we realized. Or maybe Josh was milking it. Maybe I’m just reading into it, but there sure seemed to be a lot of frustration in the tone of Mike Scioscia at the time whenever he gave an update on Josh’s status.
Are Josh’s problems all physical?
Sadly, no. The biggest issue plaguing Hamilton is that the league has basically decided that they don’t need to throw him fastballs anymore. That’s probably because they don’t. Since 2012, Josh has seen the percentage of fastballs thrown to him drop dramatically. It reached an all-time low, 40.1% which was far and away the lowest mark in the league, in 2014. The reason the mark keeps getting lower is because the results keep getting better, for the pitchers.
They’ve learned that Josh will just keep chasing offspeed pitches out of the zone and whiffing on them, or making weak contact. The scary part about that is Hamilton actually showed improved discipline in 2014. His in-zone swing percentage was the lowest of his career. His out-of-zone swing percentage, while better than his 2012 mark, was actually the second-worst of his career.
That improved discipline didn’t lead to more contact though. In fact, the contact numbers are pretty scary. His in-zone contact rate was the second-worst of his career. His out-of-zone contact rate was his worst by a mile. He was at 44% in 2014 whereas his career mark is 56.4%. During the prime of his career, he was making contact above 60% of the time.
What this looks like to me is a guy who used to be able to swing away at everything and get away with it. Then something happened, maybe he lost some bat speed, maybe it is a mental thing, where he lost that ability. His approach didn’t change though, he just kept swinging away, ramping up the behavior a bit even. It’s like the scene in Superman II where Clark Kent tries to fight the guy at the diner, but forgot he gave away his powers in that chamber in the Fortress of Solitude earlier.
You aren’t going to tell me that it gets worse, are you?
Sorry to break it to you, but I am. One of the good data points that people used as a glimmer of hope for Hamilton is that he was able to hit lefties last year. He was actually better against southpaws (.383 wOBA) than righties (.305 wOBA). That’s a stark turnaround since Hamilton had been basically useless against lefties in 2013 and the latter parts of 2012.
Unfortunately, this rebound was built on the back of a .464 BABIP against left-handed pitching. I believe the clinical terms for that number is “absurd.” There is just no way that he can repeat that. When that number regresses next year, things could get real ugly.
Final Answer
2014 couldn’t possibly have ended worse for Hamilton with him flaming out in the playoffs and freely admitting that he shouldn’t be batting clean-up anymore. He’s taken a beating from the fans and the media and now sounds like he is beating himself up too. There are still three years left on his contract. Those are going to be a long three years.
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