After committing a not-insubstantial $52 million contract to Chase Headley during the offseason the New York Yankees are probably not pleased with what they’ve seen so far.
The 32-year-old third baseman has posted a .255/.308/.402 line and relatively putrid 0.2 WAR given his salary and his history. It’s safe to say that not only are these results thoroughly disappointing, they are quite surprising.
Free agent shopping is an inherently dicey proposition, but the Yankees seemed to do everything right in Headley’s case. They got the player Dave Cameron pegged as the biggest bargain of the 2015 class and did it without stretching either the term or dollars.
The team secured a third baseman with power upside at Yankee Stadium, but paid the market rate for his production rather than his potential. They even had a chance to get a very close look at his medicals and clubhouse fit by acquiring him the previous year.
There was no reason to expect Headley to falter, and the cause of his significant drop in value is even more perplexing. Although he has not excelled with the bat, his 96 wRC+ is not far off the 103 mark he posted in 2014 and he’s only a small bump in walk rate from returning to his career norms.
The real problem has been Headley’s defense.
Last season he provided the third-most defensive value in the major leagues behind only Andrelton Simmons and Billy Hamilton according to FanGraphs with 21.6 runs added. In 2015 he ranks 134 among 186 qualified position players with -3.7 runs of value.
Small samples of defensive data are plenty fickle, but it’s peculiar to see a player with a sterling reputation with the glove struggle so much in the field and both traditional and advanced measures agree that Headley has been a poor defender in 2015, especially compared to what he did last year.
| Year | UZR | UZR/150 | DRS | Errors | Fielding Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 20.9 | 28 | 13 | 8 | .975 |
| 2015 | -4.4 | -14.9 | -8 | 11 | .923 |
Now, there is some built-in unfairness to this comparison because it shows the contrast between Headley at his worst and Headley at his best with no regard for his “true talent”. However, the chronology is astounding.
The fact that he can be an unbelievable defender one year and a very poor one the next is worthy of examination. This cannot be explained away by the foibles of available defensive numbers.
So, what plays has Headley been missing? Put visually they look like this:
There are some tough plays there, but there are also some easy ones. Most of the criticism of Headley’s glove this year has related to him being unreliable rather than not getting to enough balls.
He got off to a poor start in this regard throwing a ball away on opening day:
On Friday against the Athletics his issue was simply letting a ball through the wickets:
Earlier this month, he even made a meal of a Wilson Ramos grounder in creatively embarrassing fashion:
What these plays have in common is that they don’t show any kind of skill deterioration. They are sloppy, but they show a player losing focus in the moment not losing his skills.
During the same period he’s made plays like robbing Omar Infante of a base hit…
… and laying out to catch a popped-up bunt off the bat of Danny Espinosa.
Headley clearly isn’t done making big plays with his glove. So far, he’s mixed those plays in with too many miscues, but the skills remain.
Chase Headley may have performed poorly on defense so far in 2015, but he hasn’t suddenly become a poor defender.
(Photo: Kelly L. Cox-USA Today Sports)