For better or for worse, the misfortune of others is very interesting to most human beings. Most of what we call “news” falls under that umbrella. In some cases this interest leads to action for the betterment of those suffering. Often it does not.
The extent of this suffering is important for people to be interested. “Man cuts himself shaving” is not a headline. “Man accidentally slices carotid artery while shaving” would get more than its fair share of clicks.
Early in a baseball season all manner of player, including the biggest stars, start slowly and post uncharacteristically ugly statistics. Right now Troy Tulowitzki is hitting .160/.267/.320. David Price has a 6.14 ERA. In small samples, weird things happen.
However, that oddness needs to gets out of hand for it to really generate interest. It’s safe to say that’s where we are with Chase Headley.
No one is expecting Headley to be an offensive force, but he’s meant to hold his own at the dish. Whatever the opposite of holding his own is (holding someone else’s sounds too vulgar) that’s what the New York Yankees third baseman is doing.
Currently he’s sporting a .153/.253/.153 line, which is abysmal. However, the first two-thirds of it are not unbelievable. Hitting .153 for a relatively short time isn’t that unusual and the On-Base Percentage is logical considering that number. His .200 BABIP helps account for how the two marks are deflated.
What’s remarkable is the third number, or if we step outside the basic slash line, his Isolated Slugging. It sits at a cool .000 meaning the man is currently without an extra-base hit through 83 plate appearances.
To put that in perspective, consider what pitchers do at the plate. They have always been bad at hitting, and in recent years they are worse than ever. They often look uncomfortable and give the impression that they yearn for the comfort of the dugout bench or the mound.
Even so, since the beginning of last season, 13 of them have stood at the plate at least 80 times like Headley has this year. Out of those 13, only two have posted a .000 ISO. At this particular moment, in time 84.6 percent of pitchers are hitting for more power than Headley is right now.
It becomes worth asking how exactly this is taking place. Headley’s spray chart is revealing.
Often times pitchers are told to keep the ball in the “big part of the park” and they’ve certainly done a good job with Headley. Right now the third baseman has driven 47.3 percent of his balls in play to center field, much higher than his career average of 33.5 percent.
Generally speaking, there isn’t anything wrong with this policy. There are plenty of hits to be found up the middle, although fewer than there used to be due to shifting. That being said, unless you have special power the easiest route to extra-base hits is by pulling the ball.
Headley hasn’t been able to turn on the ball effectively at this year. His longest fly balls to the corner outfield spots were 289 and 279 feet respectively, and both of those were hit the other way. Unless he can pull the ball down the line or into the gap the doubles won’t come.
It would be foolish to assume things won’t better for Headley in the power department. It would quite literally be impossible for them not to. But if he doesn’t stay out of the big part of the park, they certainly won’t get much better.
Lead photo: Anthony Gruppuso / USTASI
When you have a lineup full of dead pool hitters who do not know how to move runners over, cannot fathom the need to go the other way rather then roll over the pitch and fucking ground out into the shift time and time again then this is what we get.
We are shifted against the most in the league and guys like Tex, Belltran, McCann, Headley, the entire team for that matter not named Elsbury and Gardner have no idea how to go to opposite field.
This lineup was built for the home run and mediocre pitching beats us and the shift kills us so its time to adjust and make moves and not wait.
When i say moves I mean moving these contracts sooner then later and bringing up some of the kids to create some excitement in this lineup and move runners over. I actually think our defense and bullpen is elite and our rotation is passable but we need drastic changes in lineup starting with Headley and moving to Tex and Beltran. McCann gives us too much defensively with pitchers to fault him plus he hits 20hr as a catcher so he gets a pass. Tex is great defensively and saves Headley and Didi time and again but his bat is sooooo awful that its time to make changes and drastic changes including moving Miller for big prospects and trying to get younger. Didi gotta go also, get something now before his value goes to the shitter and use Torreyes at SS until one of the kids be it Wade or Mateo or Holder is ready.
I knew he was doing horrible. But his longest hit ball is 289 feet? Thats impressive in the most negative way possible. Granted not MLB pitching, however, I’ve hit balls that went farther than that in high school. And pitching was always more of my thing than hitting was. Pretty sure I’d take 16 year old Bryce Harper at the plate right now over Headley. I like the guy and really hope that he turns a corner but its looking more and more like Drew2.0.