2006 in Review- Jason Bay

Instead of doing one review post where I do everyone on the team, I'm going to do a post or two a day about each player (or maybe sometimes two players). I'm doing this for a couple reasons: 1.) It'll give me something to write about for most of October and 2.) I can go more in depth this way. I won't be writing a Kip Wells novella on everyone, I'll talk about what we expected (based on the PECOTA projections from BP 2006), what actually happened, maybe a bit of how that bodes for the future, and assign some type of grade at the end. We'll start with the easy guys and move on. It'll probably be position players first, pitchers second. First up is Jason Bay:

2005 key stats: .306/.402/.559, 32 HR, 101 RBI, 44 2B, 95 BB, 21 steals in 22 attempts
2006 PECTOA: .287/.388/.531, 32 HR, 103 RBI, 37 2B, 92 BB, 16 steals in 21 attempts
2006 key stats: .286/.396/.532, 35 HR, 109 RBI, 29 2B, 102 BB, 11 steals in 13 attempts

Wow, looks like PECOTA nailed this one. All in all a pretty similar year to last year, though he did hit a few less doubles, walk a little more, and steal fewer bases. I think all of that can be attributed to the fact that Bay kind of flew under the radar last year and certainly did not this year. His home and away splits this year were also very interesting, he slugged 54 points higher on the road (.558 to .504), but had an OBP that was 59 points higher at home (.426 to .367). The high SLG on the road is expected given PNC's layout, but the higher OBP at home is kind of strange. I'm sure the conspiracy theorists among you will point out that he walks more at home because he's more tentative in front of the home crowd due to his non-clutchness, but you know I don't buy that. He's also got a batting average that's 21 points higher at home than it is on the road. Maybe the explanation is that while left field is the place where right-handed homers go to die, it also provides lots of room for more singles to fall in. I suppose more research is needed on those kind of splits. Perhaps another day.

It would be remiss to talk about Bay's 2006 and not mention his amazing 10 day run in May in which he hit 10 homers in 10 days. It was a performance unlike any other Pirate performance I've ever seen. I don't know how else to put it, it was dominant. Still, I think people kind of feel like his whole season was condensed into those 10 games and he just coasted for the rest of the season. This isn't true. He wasn't quite as good in the second half (which is understandable given the previously mentioned 10 day run in May), but he certainly wasn't coasting. For the first half of the season (approximately April through the end of June) he went .283/.398/.543 with 20 homers and 57 RBI while in the second half (July through the end) he went .289/.395/.520 with 15 homers and 52 RBI. I think it's worth noting that even in his second half he only hit one less homer than the guy that finished second on the team behind him (Bautista with 16).

More than anyone, Bay suffers from the lack of a big left-handed bat in the lineup. He was walked intentionally the same number of times in 2006 as he was in 2005, but it was plain to see that was pitched around much more often. Bay, like most hitters, has a weak spot in his swing, the slider or curve from a righty that breaks down and away out of the strike zone. Pitchers can fearlessly pitch him there as long as they know there's no threat behind him because walking him is preferable to having him hit the ball over the fence. He's still fairly young (he'll be 28 next year) and entering his prime. Nate Silver of BP ranked his 50 most valuable players for ESPN prior to this season and ranked Bay 9th, mostly on the idea that because Canadian players often play less youth and high school baseball they tend to bloom later (using Larry Walker, Eric Gagne, and Matt Stairs as prime examples). We can certainly hope this will hold true for Bay. I don't know if there's much use to assign a grade to Bay. He was one of the few Pirates we had high expectations for, and he was one of the few Pirates that met our expectations. You can't really ask for more than that.

Stats from the Baseball Musings Day by Day Database, Yahoo! Sports, and my trusty copy of Baseball Prospectus 2006.