Stats & Info: John Jaso
April showers have brought May flowers for Jay Bruce.
BruceThe Cincinnati Reds slugger Sunday hit his National League-leading 15th home run of the season and his 11th homer in May, which ties Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays for the most during the month this season.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the 11 home runs in May are the most by a Reds player in a single calendar month since Adam Dunn hit 12 in July 2008.
Bruce ended the month of April struggling with four home runs, 11 RBI and a .237 batting average, which ranked 135th in MLB among players with at least 75 plate appearances.
This month has seen a completely different story. He’s hitting .330 with 11 HR and 29 RBI. In his previous two years in May, Bruce had just a .239 batting average with 12 homers and 30 RBI over 57 games.
So what’s been the difference? According to Inside Edge, Bruce is getting aggressive and taking advantage of fastballs. In the month of April, Bruce had a slugging percentage of .364 on at-bats that ended on the first pitch. That is up to .778 this month.
On at-bats that ended on the fastball, Bruce hit .254 during the month of April. That was below the MLB average of .285 in the situation. This month, he’s increased that to .344 and his slugging percentage is at .889.
But Bruce wasn’t the only “Jay” that had a strong Sunday.
• The Toronto Blue Jays scored 13 runs, including a six-run first inning as they clubbed the White Sox 13-4.
• Ricky Romero got the win for the Blue Jays as he allowed two runs over seven innings. According to Baseball Reference, his nickname is “RR Cool Jay”, like the rapper and entertainer “LL Cool J.”
• J.A. Happ (pronounced “Jay") did not allow a hit until the fifth inning for the Houston Astros. He also hit his first career home run.
• Jayson Werth of the Washington Nationals had three hits, but he was left stranded in scoring position in the eighth inning as the potential go-ahead run.
• J.J. Hardy of the Baltimore Orioles had a pair of hits, including a double.
• Jay Gibbons of the Los Angeles Dodgers had three hits. He entered Sunday with a .190 batting average and eight total hits for the season.
• Jon Jay of the St. Louis Cardinals and John Jaso of the Tampa Bay Rays each hit their eighth career home run. Alphabetically, those two are next to each other on the active player list. It was the first time they've gone deep on the same day.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the 11 home runs in May are the most by a Reds player in a single calendar month since Adam Dunn hit 12 in July 2008.
Bruce ended the month of April struggling with four home runs, 11 RBI and a .237 batting average, which ranked 135th in MLB among players with at least 75 plate appearances.
This month has seen a completely different story. He’s hitting .330 with 11 HR and 29 RBI. In his previous two years in May, Bruce had just a .239 batting average with 12 homers and 30 RBI over 57 games.
So what’s been the difference? According to Inside Edge, Bruce is getting aggressive and taking advantage of fastballs. In the month of April, Bruce had a slugging percentage of .364 on at-bats that ended on the first pitch. That is up to .778 this month.
On at-bats that ended on the fastball, Bruce hit .254 during the month of April. That was below the MLB average of .285 in the situation. This month, he’s increased that to .344 and his slugging percentage is at .889.
But Bruce wasn’t the only “Jay” that had a strong Sunday.
• The Toronto Blue Jays scored 13 runs, including a six-run first inning as they clubbed the White Sox 13-4.
• Ricky Romero got the win for the Blue Jays as he allowed two runs over seven innings. According to Baseball Reference, his nickname is “RR Cool Jay”, like the rapper and entertainer “LL Cool J.”
• J.A. Happ (pronounced “Jay") did not allow a hit until the fifth inning for the Houston Astros. He also hit his first career home run.
• Jayson Werth of the Washington Nationals had three hits, but he was left stranded in scoring position in the eighth inning as the potential go-ahead run.
• J.J. Hardy of the Baltimore Orioles had a pair of hits, including a double.
• Jay Gibbons of the Los Angeles Dodgers had three hits. He entered Sunday with a .190 batting average and eight total hits for the season.
• Jon Jay of the St. Louis Cardinals and John Jaso of the Tampa Bay Rays each hit their eighth career home run. Alphabetically, those two are next to each other on the active player list. It was the first time they've gone deep on the same day.
FanGraphs: Best underhyped catchers
May, 28, 2010
5/28/10
10:00
AM ET
By Matthew Carruth, FanGraphs | ESPN.com
Raise your hand if you know who Matt Wieters is. I hope a lot of you out there have your virtual hand up. Now raise your hand if you know who John Jaso is. Ryan Hanigan? Carlos Ruiz? Now, there is probably a lot fewer of you with hands up.
Minor League hype is a fickle beast. For every Jason Heyward, there are five Brandon Woods. Many regarded Wieters as the savior of the Baltimore Orioles on his way through the minors. His numbers certainly supported that belief, but they have yet to show up where it counts. This isn’t writing Matt Wieters off as a future Major League star. He just turned 24 so he has plenty of time to adjust to the bigs and begin posting the numbers people dreamed out of him. While we wait to see if that will occur, some catchers that got nowhere near the hype of Wieters have nonetheless turned in some valuable seasons for their big league clubs.
Ryan Hanigan isn’t a sexy prospect but he does one thing particularly well and that’s draw walks. His 31 walks in just 293 plate appearances helped him to a .361 OBP with the Reds. Hanigan, whom the Reds signed as an undrafted free agent back in 2002, has had an even bigger success story this year with a .338/.449/.486 triple slash line while splitting time with Ramon Hernandez. It is a small sample, but Hanigan’s .409 wOBA has made him the seventh most valuable hitting catcher in the majors, despite being a part-time player. Hanigan is almost certainly not going to maintain numbers that lofty, but ZiPS projects him to post a .334 wOBA going forward, which almost exactly matches ZiPS’ .336 wOBA projection for Wieters. Maybe someone should start a Ryan Hanigan Facts website.
John Jaso also flew under the hype radar when he failed to show much power in the minors. What he did show though was good plate discipline and low strikeout rates, which helped to maintain a high average and impressive OBP. Getting an extended look in Tampa due to an injury to Dioner Navarro, Jaso has made his case for keeping the starting job with a .324/.449/.493 line.Jaso’s 8.5 percent strikeout rate is just behind Hanigan’s 8.1 percent and, among catchers with at least 50 trips to plate this year, they rank second and third respectively, with only A.J. Pierzynski bettering the unheralded pair.
Hype of minor league players is generally well founded. It comes from quality scouting reports and/or fabulous numbers. Hype doesn’t always equate to Major League results though, and certainly does not guarantee instant success. Sometimes it takes awhile and sometimes, solid Major League catchers appear out of seemingly nowhere.
Matthew Carruth is a writer for FanGraphs.
Minor League hype is a fickle beast. For every Jason Heyward, there are five Brandon Woods. Many regarded Wieters as the savior of the Baltimore Orioles on his way through the minors. His numbers certainly supported that belief, but they have yet to show up where it counts. This isn’t writing Matt Wieters off as a future Major League star. He just turned 24 so he has plenty of time to adjust to the bigs and begin posting the numbers people dreamed out of him. While we wait to see if that will occur, some catchers that got nowhere near the hype of Wieters have nonetheless turned in some valuable seasons for their big league clubs.
Ryan Hanigan isn’t a sexy prospect but he does one thing particularly well and that’s draw walks. His 31 walks in just 293 plate appearances helped him to a .361 OBP with the Reds. Hanigan, whom the Reds signed as an undrafted free agent back in 2002, has had an even bigger success story this year with a .338/.449/.486 triple slash line while splitting time with Ramon Hernandez. It is a small sample, but Hanigan’s .409 wOBA has made him the seventh most valuable hitting catcher in the majors, despite being a part-time player. Hanigan is almost certainly not going to maintain numbers that lofty, but ZiPS projects him to post a .334 wOBA going forward, which almost exactly matches ZiPS’ .336 wOBA projection for Wieters. Maybe someone should start a Ryan Hanigan Facts website.
John Jaso also flew under the hype radar when he failed to show much power in the minors. What he did show though was good plate discipline and low strikeout rates, which helped to maintain a high average and impressive OBP. Getting an extended look in Tampa due to an injury to Dioner Navarro, Jaso has made his case for keeping the starting job with a .324/.449/.493 line.Jaso’s 8.5 percent strikeout rate is just behind Hanigan’s 8.1 percent and, among catchers with at least 50 trips to plate this year, they rank second and third respectively, with only A.J. Pierzynski bettering the unheralded pair.
Hype of minor league players is generally well founded. It comes from quality scouting reports and/or fabulous numbers. Hype doesn’t always equate to Major League results though, and certainly does not guarantee instant success. Sometimes it takes awhile and sometimes, solid Major League catchers appear out of seemingly nowhere.
Matthew Carruth is a writer for FanGraphs.
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