Schafer vs. Bossman Junior

First, let me say that anyone that tells you that they knew Jordan Schafer would, through 31 games and 85 plate appearances, do this: 309/434/426, or even anything remotely close to that, is a scoundrel of the highest order.  Secondly, if that same individual were to say “Hey, I think BJ Upton is gonna do this: 155/246/264,” I would view them with the same amount of skepticism, but I would appreciate their ability to dictate such precise statistics off the top of their head, and maybe we could hang out.  The most disturbing thing about this entire scenario is the fact that that person is 100% correct, and most likely has a future making a lot more money than me. 

Through 46 games, the aforementioned slash lines are where the two players in question currently stand, and recently, we have seen a lot of Schafer, more than any reasonable person could have expected, unless you’re his mom.  This has not necessarily been a bad thing either, as his BB% of 17.6% leads the team, and is certainly a sight for sore eyes considering the type of production the Braves have seen from the leadoff spot up to this point of the season.  Simply put, he is creating opportunities for Heyward, Upton, and the rest of the lineup to drive him in, and coupled with his defensive prowess, he has been one of the most pleasant surprises during a season prone to high degrees of pleasantness.

As for Upton, well, I think it is fairly obvious that this is not the start that he, nor Frank Wren, nor Braves fans in general, had in mind when he signed his 5 yr-$75.5M deal during the winter.  We all knew coming into the season that he was not going to be an OBP machine, but we hoped his power and speed would make up for it.  I read “If BJ Upton can hit 240 with power and speed, that’s valuable” countless times throughout the baseball nerdosphere after he signed, and those sentiments are not far off the mark of what I was expecting, and dare I say hoping, to see. 

If you put your ear to the ground and listen, you can almost hear the impassioned plea of a substantial portion of the fan base saying “Jordan…Jordan…play Jordan…boo BJ”, and there is something to be said for his performance so far.  As a fan, I couldn’t be happier for him and the Braves, but I will not go as far as to say that I think he should be the starter over Upton.  He shouldn’t be.  Why do I say this, you ask?  Let’s look at the peripheral statistics and build a case. 

First, BABIP:

Schafer: .426 (career avg .316, .304 in 2012)

Upton: .211 (career avg .318, .294 in 2012)

Speed guys typically have higher BABIP numbers, due to the fact that they are a better bet to beat out a slow ground ball, as well as the fact that their speed makes the play tougher on the defender because he has less time to perform his normal duties than he would otherwise.  As the numbers clearly indicate, Jordan has significantly outperformed his career average up to this point.  Regression to the mean dictates that over the course of a large sample, say, 500 plate appearances, the BABIP number would end up much closer to his career average, which is a truer indicator of what can be expected from Schafer’s skill set going forward.  The opposite holds true for Upton, whose performance to this point has been less than adequate, but a number like this indicates a certain degree of luck working against Upton early in the year.  Not that he is completely absolved of responsibility for his performance, as there are other reasons to be addressed further in the reading, but this is a number we can fully expect to see increase.  This is not to say that I think Schafer and Upton will both end up exactly at their career averages at the end of this season, because I do not.  There is a very strong possibility that Schafer will outperform his career BABIP this season, and that Upton will fail to even reach his, but ultimately, both of the numbers we are using in this instance are outliers relative to the career performance for each player, and we cannot use them to make forward-looking decisions.  Also, it is worth noting that Schafer has not accumulated enough plate appearances (~1100, or 2.5 years’ worth) at the major league level (or at the minor league level, for that matter) for his BABIP statistic to stabilize in the eyes of the Sabermetric community, just in case you were curious.

Now let us look at K% and BB%:

Schafer: K%- 23.5%, BB%-17.6% (K% career avg 26.5%, BB% career avg 10.8%)

Upton: K%-32.7%, BB%-9.5% (K% career avg 25.4%, BB% career avg 10.5%)

These stats stabilize considerably faster than BABIP, with K% around 150 plate appearances, and BB% around 200 plate appearances.  In the case of Schafer, again, it is really hard to look at these statistics and expect to glean anything substantive from them, but in studying his swing and contact rates, the signs are encouraging.  Another hundred PAs may tell us a different story, though, because he does not have enough at this point for us to really be able to interpret these numbers confidently.  Upton is a different animal.  He is striking out a lot more than he has in years’ past, and with him, we are getting to the point where we cannot expect much more than marginal changes in his K%/BB% going forward.   When looking at his swing and contact rates, two numbers immediately jump out at me: his contact rate on balls in the strike zone is down from his career average of 81.2% to 71.6%, the lowest contact rate of his career.  Further to that point, his overall contact %, independent of the pitch being a ball or strike, is down from 75% to 67.6%, also the lowest rate of his career thus far.  With this being Upton’s first time through the league, his struggles may be attributable to an adjustment period, but that is not something I can offer any insight into.  He is seeing a few more curveballs and cutters, and a few less fastballs and sliders, but overall, it does not appear as if the NL is pitching him appreciably different than the AL was. 

A look at the batted ball percentages for each player offers a possible explanation for Upton’s troubles.  For Schafer, the numbers are right in-line with his career norms, but once again, we have not seen him at the plate enough to be able to make a judgment one way or the other.  For Upton, *sigh*, we seem to discover a culprit that could help explain his struggles thus far.  He is not driving the ball the way he has in the past.  His career line drive percentage is 17.6%.  So far this season, he is at 12.8%.  The most alarming stat I have seen in this study is his infield fly ball percentage, which currently sits at 28.9%.  28.9%.  28 point freaking 9 percent.  I do not have to tell you that this indicates a very poor performance on his part.  

There has been one recurrent theme throughout this post that speaks volumes about the topic at hand, which is the fact that we do not know enough about Schafer to know what he can offer this team as an everyday player.  Has he improved since last season?  It certainly seems that way.  Schafer’s performance this season gives the impression that he is coming to terms with the fact that he can maximize his value by getting on base (via walks, singles, etc) in front of the meat of the lineup, and he has done an excellent job of that so far.  Does that mean he will continue to do so?  As much as I would like that to be true, the evidence at hand leads me to believe that he will not.

As for Upton, I find it hard to believe he will continue to hit this poorly.  Even in the past few games, he has been driving the ball with authority.  I would like to see him take more pitches and try to work the count, especially now that he is hitting in the 8^th spot in the lineup almost exclusively (though that is certain to change once he gets going).  If he can work a deep count with the pitcher on deck, baseball logic follows that the opposing pitcher may be more inclined to pitch around Upton and face the pitcher, instead of risking a mistake to a hitter that, in spite of his issues in 2013, can still put one in the seats. 

Schafer can play an invaluable role on this team.  It is becoming increasingly clear that he is a better 4^th outfielder option than both Reed Johnson and Evan Gattis, but to say that he should be starting in place of Upton is shortsighted.  As nice as his play has been these past few weeks, it is overly optimistic to think that it will continue, in the same way it was overly optimistic to think that Chris Johnson was going to lead the NL in batting average all season.  Upton is still an above-average CFer, and even with his poor start offensively, he is still a safe bet to turn it around and post a respectable slash line throughout the rest of the season.  He should be afforded every opportunity to do so. 

(Stats courtesy of FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference)