How Lousy is Alex Gordon’s Start?
Posted by Chris J. on June 13, 2007
I don't thing it's much of a secret that Royals phenom Alex Gordon has gotten off to a surprisingly bad start this year. Heading into today's action, he was hitting .198 with an OBP & SLG both barely over .300. Through 58 games, he has an OPS+ of 61.
Let's put this in perspective using the Play Index.
- Go to the Batting Season Finder and set the following qualifications:
- From years 1901 to 2007, when has a rookie (choice from first season to first season of a player's career in the far left column), among third basemen (since all positions come marked off, unmark all boxes except the 3B one).
- Search for an OPS+ of 65 or worse and games played at 50 or more. I raised the OPS+ a bit and lowered the Games to get those a little better, er, a little less worse to put Gordon in the middle of the sample size. You can choose a different criteria if you'd like.
With that search, it turns out that Gordon's only the fifteenth rookie at the corner to hit this poorly. He has the 12th worst OPS+ of any with at least 50 games. Ouch.
June 14th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
If I understand your PI methodology here, what you are picking up this way is a player's "debut" year, rather than what is usually defined as his "rookie" year. Sometimes, that's the same thing, but often it is not. A player may only play a handful of games (or even one game) in, say, a September callup in his "debut" year, and then play a full rookie year the next year. In that case I don't think your approach will pick up the "rookie" year. Or am I missing something?
June 14th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Yeah, we don't have rookie years coded in. Technically a player can have multiple rookie years which is a bit of a mess.
June 15th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Good catch. Instead of rookie, it would be more accurate to say first-year player.