Melky Cabrera is a polarizing figure amongst Yankees fans. While most love his exuberance and obvious love for the game, his talent has been questioned by many, including myself. Even when things were going well for Melky in the past, you always felt like the other shoe was bound to drop. He did not seem to have the swing to make consistent solid contact, and his approach at the plate was often awful. Yet all of that has changed. Melky has an wOBA of .350, which is a career high and 10th among all qualified center fielders. Typically worse from the right side, he is hitting lefties at a .303/.378/.525 clip. In the field, his UZR is -.2, but is .8 in center. Let’s take a closer look at the numbers to identify exactly what is behind the resurgence of Melky Cabrera.
Power: Melky is driving the ball with more regularity, as evidenced by his 20.5% line drive rate, which is the highest of his career. This has lead to an ISO of .169 and a SLG of .457, both career highs by a large margin. While some would suggest that he has been helped by Yankee Stadium, as he has 7 home runs at home and 3 on the road, his slugging numbers are actually pretty similar at home (.463) and on the road (.449), and his OPS is slightly higher on the road(.811 v. .806). Of course, the question remains, what has caused this increase in power? Why is Melky hitting more line drives? I think the next section can help uncover some answers.
Plate Discipline: Melky’s changed approach at the plate has been apparent to the naked eye. He seems less anxious at the plate, and has become less prone to swinging at a pitch near his eyes, something that had plagued him for much of his career. The numbers support this observation. Melky is walking at his highest rate since 2006 (9.3%), and is seeing slightly more pitches per PA (3.9) than he has in the past. He has also brought his K-rate (12.9%) back to 2006 levels after having it balloon on him last season. His O-Swing % (percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the zone) is his lowest since 2006 (24.6%). Pitchers can no longer throw pitches in the dirt or at Melky’s eyes and expect him to swing, which makes it more likely that he will see some good pitches to hit.
What do these numbers tell us? They suggest that Melky has become a bit more selective at the plate this season when compared to his last two abysmal seasons. This has lead to more walks, fewer strikeouts, and is allowing him to wait for his pitch and drive the ball with regularity. Is this turnaround sustainable? Who knows. It is important to remember that he is only 24. We often forget that Melky was in the majors for good at 21, and view him as a finished product. Considering that many players do not even see the majors until they hit Melky’s current age, it is difficult to say that he has reached his ceiling, or that his performance thus far is a fluke. It is reasonable to suggest that Melky could possibly have had another gear than what he had shown prior to 2009, and that he is just now realizing some of his potential.
Melky lost his job at the end of 2008 and was told to work on his plate discipline and approach at the plate. By being more selective, he is eating up more pitches per at-bat and making better and more consistent contact. He lost the job coming out of spring training, but it is hard not to be impressed with the way he handled that situation and prepared himself for his opportunity. He has had a solid season thus far, and his at-bats are no longer a sight to avoid. Another month or two of play like this, and I think those of us who did not believe in Melky will be gladly forced to admit that we were wrong. I look forward to it.
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29 Responses to What Is Behind Melky's Turnaround?
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TIQ IQ
Please don’t say Melky is 24 when he turns 25 in a few days. I am still not a fan.
He is 24 now, which is why I said it. Him being 25 soon does not change my point. And don’t worry Scott, I know where you stand on him.Can you at least concede that he has had a good year?
Melky is 25 in less then a week so to me that is 25! I do not think Melky is a consistent player. While he is having a decent year he still makes to many stupid plays. For example last Friday instead of throwing to 2nd base he tries to be the hero and throw to third allowing the go ahead runner to reach scoring position. The runner eventually scored putting the Yankees behind instead of the score tied. This is why I do not like Melky and never will. He is not a good fundamental baseball player an imo never will be.
That stuff is overrated imo. He did it like three times all season, big deal.
Wow! So you excuse fundamental mistakes? I don’t and I see him make them all the time. This is why I would prefer and hope he is traded.
Yeah he makes some fundamental mistakes in CF fielding balls but I think if he moves to LF most of those problems will go away and it will allow him to use his arm a lot more, but you can’t fault the guy for throwing home (even though I didn’t agree) he did lead the league in outfield assists and throw outs at the plate in his rookie year and he only played a half year.
I think that if you move him to left though, his bat suddenly becomes below average for his position rather than above. And I agree on the second point: Melky through a lot guys out running, and it has given him a bit of faith in his arm that may lead to some ill advised throws.
Try and get a beer a day before you turn 21 they won’t let you, go get a pack of cigarettes a day before you turn 18 won’t happen, age is age not what your close to.
I’m not so sure the guy has always had power he just never put it together through to halves of the season… last year he had like 8 HRs but all in one half, this year he already has 10 and I think he will eventually get to the point where he is consistently hitting 18-20 and if he can bat .280-.290 that’s some almost Damon production in the 9 hole.
I’m not sure he has that kind of power. If he does show something like that, then his defense would likely make him an asset at a corner spot- he would basically give you similar value to Swisher- less offense, more defense.
I don’t think he will pop 25 HRs or more but 18- 20 is no real big feat for Melky and in fact I am extremely disappointed he has yet to do so and I think he would have already is he had developed his bat in triple A.
That’s fair. Last year I would have told you that you were crazy, but his power stroke looks a lot better this year- more line drives, less soft fly balls.
Great article and comments. I thought that Melky had a good first two years and then regressed in year 3. If year 3 never occured we would be saying that Melky is progressing on all fronts in a pretty linear way.
2007 was a dropoff from 2006, and 2008 was even worse. He had two down years, but that happens with young players sometimes. I have to give you props Jd, you have always been a pro-Melky guy.
His defense forced the Yankees to keep him in the majors because no one else at the time could even play CF with any kind of range or arm but his bat suffered for it.
I wonder about that all the time. Do hitters get “ruined” if they play poorly everyday in the majors, or is facing MLB pitchers better than facing MiLB pitchers? I guess it can hurt your confidence and mess with your approach.
I think you hit it on the head with the confidence thing I think depending on your level of confidence and how you react to adversity it can be either or it can make you better or ruin you and I think we have seen examples of both… obviously for Joba and Melky it was a tougher learning curve but it didn’t destroy them but both are very strong mentally a guy like Hughes we saw some struggles and he didn’t correct them at the major level he had to keep going down and adjusting in triple A.
I think that Melky will eventually be a perenial .290 to .310 hitter with 10-15 hour power. He has enough versatility to play all the outfield positions and has one of the better arms in baseball. If that is correct, then Melky has good value especially given his salary. Finally, he has youth – a quality that is sorely missing from the yankees.
if he hits .280 – .290 I think he will hit closer to 18 but if he wants to be pure average and hit .300+ he will probably hit around 15 I’ll take either from him truthfully because he has value both ways and as a 9 hitter he may be one of the best in the league. How many 9 holes hit .290?
Moshe,
Thanks for the props. I needlessly bust your chops about melky but the fact is that apart from one blog you have been fair to him. I am not blind about this guy. He makes dumb plays and it gets pretty ugly when he struggles. Last year he became an automatic out in the second half and we have two long months to go. if he finishes the way he started then we will all be happy boys. I am pleased with his resilience.
You see the video of him and the porn star Mary Carry where she’s like interviewing him and there both in bed? They don’t have sex on cam or nothing but I couldn’t even believe the media in NY didn’t have a field day with that.
That video was pretty ridiculous. And the whole time, Melky was just sitting on his bed with no shirt on, eating peanuts.
Haha. And she was clearly drunk, too. It’s an awkward video to say the least.
MC: “Are you gay?”
Melky: “I have sons!”
Ha, so strange.
His smile gave away what they had just done… Good for him using his status to the fullest, good thing Arod didn’t try and pull that they would be saying he was quitting baseball to roid up and be in porn haha.
posts like this is why i check this site everyday….glad to c somebody giving melky some good analysis…
This site is a must everyday if for no other reason than actual baseball fans post for the most part not just kids on a forum.
We love having you guys stop by. It’s fun discussing this stuff with other knowledgeable fans.
Thanks a lot. As TOCH said, its all about the discussion- blog is nothing without the comments.
This is really odd and cool at the same time.
I wrote about the same thing on the same exact day for statspeak.net
http://statspeak.net/2009/08/the-demise-and-rise-of-melky-cabrera.html#comments
I googled sabermetric yankee blogs and this was the first result I clicked on.