Hot Streak vs. Permanent Skill Growth
- By: Chris Liss
- On: 5/31/2009 1:59:00 PM
- View Comments : 4
Related: Chris Liss Minnesota Twins MLB
This week Erickson and I discussed Joe Mauer's power surge in Charging the Mound and much of the commentary both on RotoWire and Yahoo was that Mauer's streak was no different than Lance Berkman's from last year or Ian Kinsler's in April.
But while the small sample size argument is often valid, it's misplaced here. Mauer had 16 homers in 2007 and 2008 combined. For him to hit 11 in one month cannot simply be due to the normal fluctuation in balls leaving the park or pitches finding more of the plate. If Mark Buehrle, for example, pitched 50 innings and allowed just two runs with a 6 K/9, I wouldn't change my opinion of him going forward. But if Buehrle suddenly was clocked at 96 mph and struck out 60 batters in a 50-inning span, I would have to. The sample is exactly the same size, but in the latter case Buerhle would be displaying a heretofore unseen skill. And as our colleague at BaseballHQ says: "Once a player displays a skill, he owns it."
I'd argue that Berkman and Kinsler were like the successful Buehrle with the 6K/9 (or let's even say 6.5 K/9). Improved skills, but nothing radically different from one's normal skill set. Perhaps the slight boost in Ks moves the baseline ever so slightly, but you're not going to value Buehrle (or Berkman/Kinsler) significantly differently that you did at the start of the year. (Some people did with Kinsler this year, but in my opinion that's precisely the sample-size error that many think I'm making with Mauer.).
By contrast, the 96 mph/10 K/9 Buehrle (even if his ERA was 3.00), is a different pitcher. He has displayed a new skill. You cannot any longer simply assume regression to the mean, because the mean was established with an 89 mph fastball and 6K/9. There is a new mean, and you must value him accordingly.
Now it's possible that Mauer has just been extremely lucky, and he'll go back to being an 8-HR/year guy after hitting 11 HR in month. Possible, but unlikely because an 8 HR/year guy is just not capable of hitting 11 HR in a month. I'm not sure it's happened before in the history of MLB.
It's also possible a Kinsler type at age 27 does create a new baseline, too. But unless a player is in a massive growth phase, e.g. Justin Upton, the odds are against Kinsler, a good, but not elite prospect, suddenly taking his game to a far higher level than he did last year. Kinsler 2008, with the high BABIP, was likely his peak level, and he'd have to show sustained skills in 2009 beyond that level before I'd stop expecting a regression to the mean. One month is not enough.
But Mauer's performance is so uncharacteristic of his prior skill set, that it's almost impossible to think he hasn't shown substantive growth that's sustainable, health permitting.
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Comments
On: 5/31/2009 4:29:00 PM
Brady Anderson hit 15 during a 21 game stretch in 1995 when he hit 50. He only went over 20 in two other seasons.
Carl Crawford hit 11 over a 28 game stretch in 2006. He finished with 18 and only hit more than 11 HR in a season one other time.
I'm sure there are other examples of a big power streak like Mauer where the power numbers came out of nowhere and weren't sustained.
On: 5/31/2009 4:48:00 PM
On: 5/31/2009 6:24:00 PM
None of these examples mean that Mauer's power surge won't be sustained. But it should be noted that Mauer's number of doubles as a percentage of his hits is at an all-time low for him. Basically, he's converted a number of past doubles into home runs this season. So is this some new found power or will those home runs revert back to doubles. I checked out hittrackeronline.com to check out the distances of his home runs.
Mauer is averaging 389.2 feet on his home runs, good for 72nd overall in the majors. But he's only pulled four home runs, all of wich travelled over 400 feet. He's crushed the four home runs that he's pulled. All seven of his other home runs went to the opposite field and traveled an average distance of just 372 feet, three of which went 360 feet or less.
Mauer is definitely on a hot streak, and the power is undoubtedly up from past seasons. He's gotten lucky enough, though, that he easily could have just six or seven home runs instead of 11. If he had six home runs and four more doubles would you be writing this blog post about his new found power? Even six or seven home runs would be a power boost, but Mauer did hit 13 home runs in 2006 so a 20 HR season wouldn't seem crazy and there are plenty of players who have hit seven home runs in a month but only finished with around 20 home runs.
I don't think one month is nearly enough of a time frame to make a statement about his new found power.
On: 5/31/2009 10:04:00 PM
And if Mauer had seven homers and more doubles, I wouldn't write this post, but that's because with seven homers, the chance that the deviation from is career norm was pure luck would be higher. But with 11, the chance is smaller because even if you remove the luck he has seven or eight in one month, and that's far out of whack with the rest of his career.
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