Fangraphs posted this excellent article today talking about Curtis Granderson's somewhat disappointing 2010 season so far, and it got me thinking. Back in the beginning of the season, everybody was in love with Austin Jackson, who was traded for Granderson. I wasn't - I pointed to his unusually high BABIP here - and came to this conclusion:
Sure enough, despite posting a .395 BABIP in May, Jackson only managed to hit .297/.336/.396. In June, Ajax cooled even further, hitting .253/.298/.316 as his BABIP fell to .345.Until he develops some more power or patience at the plate...my money is on Jackson hitting like a guy most teams wouldn't regret trading.
His running totals since May 1 - 211 plate apperances, 9 walks, 52 strikeouts, 14 extra base hits.
Both Granderson and Ajax have struck out frequently this season (24% of the time for Granderson vs. 28% for Jackson) but Granderson has done it with nearly twice the walks (9.7% of PAs vs. 5.7%) and double the power (.183 ISO vs. .101 ISO). They've been roughly equal defensively in center.
Where AJax has done well on batted balls, though, Granderson has done terribly, and the Fangraphs breakdown suggests that at least some of this poor luck really is out of his hands and should regress to the mean at some point.
I think Granderson will be the one Yankee who sees the biggest improvement in the second half. AJax, on the other hand, may put up a Ramiro Pena-esque performance down the stretch for the Tigers.
Score one for the Yankees.