Does Jose Bautista piss you off?

[steve B]

Edited to add that some guys are duplicated because it took me a long time to get this post together while taking care of the baby.

Leaving out early career cup if coffee type seasons.

Cecil Fielder - 4 years of half seasons poor to ordinary batting average and 14 Hr his best year. One year in Japan? Comes back to hit 51 hr .277 Sliding but reasonably productive through 96

Dave Kingman - good but not amazing for 4 years in SF goes to the Mets and goes from a sub 30 Hr hitter (Although barely under one year) to 36 and 37hr
production like a yo-yo the rest of his career.

Darrell Evans - 1971-82 with typically 20 or fewer HR. one outlier season with 41 in 73 and a good but not great year with 25 in 74. Then 30 in 83, 40 in 85, and 34 in 87.

Frank Howard - 1960 -66 Mostly teens or low 20's in HR 31 in 62 and 28 in 63
(62 expansion year if you buy that stuff) Then 67-70 36,44,48,44 HR

Jack Clark - 77-86 Good but not great and inconsistent. usually 20+HR but no more than 27 and only 3 years in the upper 20's. Then 35 in 87, a crazy year for HR anyway, but upper 20's for the next 4 years

Ted Kluszewski- 48-52 only one year over 20HR and that only 25. 53-56 40,49,47,35 HR.


yes, most good hitters are good right away. But taking a few years to get going while unusual isn't unheard of.

Steve B

[Robextend]

Good examples Steve. Either way Bautista could fall into a category of 1-2 seasons of greatness and then fall back like a Davey Johnson, or can be like one of Steve's examples and be a consistent bigtime HR hitter after a few years of not being one.

The examples are out there....

A couple more:

Wally Post
1954 451AB 18HR
1955 601AB 40HR

Bob Cerv
1957 345AB 11HR
1958 515AB 38HR

[ls7plus]

I think virtually all of you have missed the point. We're talking about a player whose performance for SIX YEARS was barely good enough to stay in the major leagues, who then catapulted out of nowhere into THE 99th PERCENTILE of current hitters, and should his production continue at current levels, certainly above the 95th percentile of all time, at age 29! I repeat once more for clarity: IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY IN NATURE--IT NEVER HAS, AND IT NEVER WILL! None of your examples fit that mold at all. Joe Hardy is far closer, and it is not a coincidence that he was purely a fictitious character. Frank Howard doesn't even come close to a fit--He hit 23 homers as a rooke, batting .268 in 1960, 15 in a half season's worth of at bats in 1961, while hitting for a .296 average, 31 homers in 493 at bats in '62, once again hitting .296, 28 HR's in only 417 at bats in '63--he had but one down season similar to Bautista's six, which was 1964, when he hit but .226, although he still managed 24 HR's.

Dave Kingman beyond any question doesn't fit the Bautista mold either, with a string of homerun seasons starting when he was just 23 years old of 29, 24, 18, 36, 37, 26, 28, 48, 18 (in only half a season), 22 (in two-thirds of a season), 37, 13 (in half a season's worth of at bats, 248), 35, 30 and 35. Nope, no Jose Bautista there!

Wally Post? Oops, sorry once again. Post hit 18 homeruns in 1954, a season which he started when he was only 24 years old, and batted just 451 times, hitting what was most likely at least close to a league average of .255. From a solid base, he did indeed progress to 40 homers the next year with 33% more at bats, followed by a run of years in which he was obviously not entirely healthy and played less than full time, playing in only 143, 134, 110, 132, 111, 99 and 109 games, yet posting respectable homerun totals of 36, 20, 12, 22, 19, 20, and 17 (in only 285 at bats in 1962). Sorry, no Jose Bautista there, either considering the factor of six entirely marginal major league performance years, or ANY PERIOD WHATSOEVER WHERE HE WAS EVEN ARGUABLY THE BEST IN THE GAME. Not only no cigar there, but not even any lolipop!

Rico Petrocelli does indeed bear a superficial resemblance, but his years preceding his big 40 homerun year included years of 13 (in less than two-thirds of a season), 18, 17, and 12 (in only 406 at bats), with batting averages which superficially may SEEM to resemble Bautista's, but were actually cose to the league averages in the heart of the pitcher's era, with a much larger strike zone and five inch higher mound. Plus, a shortstop good for 15-20 homers, fields well (Petrocelli did), and hits for the league average would not be considered a mediocre player. Petrocelli's big year came in 1969, when they shrunk the strike zone and lowered the mound, a time when a lot of other hitters achieved their career best years, including the aforementioned Frank Howard, Willie McCovey, Harmon Killebrew, arguably Reggie Jackson, etc. And I don't think anyone would have seriously nominated him as being in the running even then for the title of best hitter in the game. We're also not talking a 70-homerun pace here, as Bautista has been on since last May. Maybe a lolipop here for Rico, but certainly no cigar!
More tonight, when I have more time.

Nice lively discussion. Hope you don't take it personally

Larry

[Robextend]

I would hope no one would take baseball talk personally.

But let's break it down:

2004 Only 88 ABs
2005 Only 28 ABs

How should both of those seasons even count for anything? So instead of the 6 years, it is really 4. There has been talk ad nauseam about how his swing had been dramatically changed. How about the fact he tore up the league the last month of 2009?

But also, how don't any of those examples mentioned above prove that these occurrences do happen?

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by ls7plus

I think virtually all of you have missed the point. We're talking about a player whose performance for SIX YEARS was barely good enough to stay in the major leagues, who then catapulted out of nowhere into THE 99th PERCENTILE of current hitters, and should his production continue at current levels, certainly above the 95th percentile of all time, at age 29! I repeat once more for clarity: IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY IN NATURE--IT NEVER HAS, AND IT NEVER WILL! None of your examples fit that mold at all. More tonight, when I have more time, but let me end with this for now: the homers hit by Bonds and McGwire are certainly entitled to just as much respect as those by Bautista, and everybody knows what they did not for, but to, the game.

Nice lively discussion. Hope you don't take it personally

Larry

Simple, he shouldn't have been in the majors for most of those years. Dude simply wasn't ready yet. The only reason he was up in the bigs is because the Pirates for the last 15-20 years or so have been fielding a minor league team.. I'm not trying to put down the Pirates or the city of Pittsburgh, but the facts are the facts. Even as an Clevelander, I've always liked the Pirates(not as much as the Indians though), and my father would take the family on a trip to Pittsburgh once a year when I was a kid to catch a Pirates game. Obviously I hate the Steelers. I do respect the hell out of them though...The Pirates, not so much, but I've always wanted to see them be a better team than they have been.

Jeromy Burnitz for on comes to mind as a late bloomer. He really didn't get much of a chance in the majors until he was 28 and showed some pretty good power once he was ready to be an everyday player.

Henry Rodriguez was another late bloomer. Didn't get much of a break into the majors until he was 28. Another solid power hitter in his prime.

Anyways, after looking around at a few other players. The closest I would compare Bautista up to this point in his career would probably be Kevin Mitchell. Mitchell put up some inconsistent averages and showed minimal to average power until he was 27 and then hit 47 home runs. Followed by 35, 27,9,19,30 and then pretty much fell completely off the map.

[ls7plus]

Originally Posted by novakjr

...
Anyways, after looking around at a few other players. The closest I would compare Bautista up to this point in his career would probably be Kevin Mitchell. Mitchell put up some inconsistent averages and showed minimal to average power until he was 27 and then hit 47 home runs. Followed by 35, 27,9,19,30 and then pretty much fell completely off the map.

Kevin Mitchell--big, out of context power year in 1989...1989...hmmm. Jose Canseco came up to stay in 1986, and stated in "Juiced" that he didn't believe he would even have made the majors if he hadn't already been taking steroids then. 1989...Kevin Mitchell...hmmm...

Larry