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June 10, 2006
Mark Teixeira's Power Outage
Mark Teixeira has a grand total of six homers in sixty games played. 110 Major Leaguers have more. Even traded 1B Adrian Gonzalez has seven, albeit with much worse figures in other categories.
Often reduced power is a symptom of bad hitting overall, but not in Teixeira’s case. He’s hitting a robust .290, walking more often and striking out less than at any time in his career, and is on pace to hit a career-best 51 doubles, which very slightly ameliorates the lack of homers. His ground/fly ratio hasn’t changed. He does have only one HBP, on pace for three, after getting no fewer than ten in any prior season. Is he standing farther from the plate? I don’t know. Teixeira appears just fine except for that stunning 65% drop in his homer rate.
I did find one bizarre and fascinating statistic. Unlike previous seasons, Teixeira has batted very poorly the first time he faces a pitcher:
| 1st appearance against pitcher | % of Total PA |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
OPS |
| 2004-2005 | 56% | .294 | .375 | .578 | .953 |
| 2006 | 53% | .213 | .308 | .315 | .623 |
As the team’s #3 hitter, Teixeira always bats in the first inning, and, of course, is facing the starting pitcher for the first time. Late in games he’s almost always facing a reliever. Thus, his newfound problem has resulted in middle-inning brilliance bookended by misery:
| 2006 | % of Total PA |
AVG |
OBP |
SLG |
OPS |
| 1st appearance against Starting Pitcher | 22% | .241 | .317 | .278 | .595 |
| 2nd-4th appearances against Starting Pitcher | 47% | .378 | .461 | .613 | 1.074 |
| Appearances against relievers | 31% | .191 | .306 | .342 | .648 |
In sixty first-inning plate appearances, Teixeira has eleven singles, two doubles, no triples or homers, six walks, and exactly two runs batted in. Two! He batted in the #3 slot most of last season, so there’s no issue with acclimation.
As with Wilkerson’s early-season woes, I suspect Teixeira will rebound. In the meantime, his first-inning at-bats deserve careful scrutiny.
Posted by Lucas at June 10, 2006 07:15 PM