Yanger Zone, Part Duex - From Maverick to Topper Harley

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man.
It is a dimension as vast as space and timeless as infinity.
It is the middle ground between ball and strike,
between hitting and walking dejectedly back to the bench,
and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his ability.
This is the dimension of imagination.
It is an area which we call . . . the Yanger Zone.


When a good Major League baseball player manages to go a week without getting a hit, it is kind of a big deal.  Coming into this week, it had happened twice all season.  The first, Starling Marteparty, bounced back from his 0-fer week with a vengeful 469/485/688 line that was a statement saying, "I had a rough week, but I am definitely a MLB caliber player so get off my back."  The second, Yangervis Solarte bounced back from his 0-fer week with...an 0-fer week.  Holy Shit Son! Yanger done done it again.   Going hitless in back to back weeks is a pretty impressive feat.  In fact, Solarte hasnt had a hit since a 2 hit game way back on June 8th in Kansas City.  Since then, he's been in Seattle and Oakland and played at home against Toronto and Baltimore, and all he has to show for it are 4 walks, a run scored and an RBI (Steve Delabar actually walked him with the bases loaded.  Guess what team he plays for...yup the Blue Jays.  I think they would walk a one armed 75 year old man 3 out of every 10 plate appearances).  Yangervis pretty much single handedly murdered Uncle Jimmy's batting average and slugging % in each of the last 2 weeks (even through UJ won the BA category this week thanks to a couple of Hitless Bastards not hitting).

Its a tough thing, when to know that a player is what they are and when they are having a rough stretch, especially with young players.  For every Albert Pujols, there are 7363 (approximate) Pat Listachs and Jerome Waltons.  Those guys come into the league and set the world on fire, some for a couple of months, some like Listach and Walton, for an entire year.  But then the league catches up with them or their hot streak ends, or their 3rd magic wish to be a good professional baseball hits its expiration date.  Whatever the reason, they are never the same.  Check out Yanger's month by month splits (thanks B-R.com!)

Split	G	GS	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	TB									sOPS+
April/March	22	21	89	76	8	23	9	0	1	13	0	0	12	12	.303	.404	.461	.865	35									146
May	27	26	110	98	14	29	2	0	5	13	0	0	8	10	.296	.339	.469	.809	46									126
June	17	16	63	54	4	8	3	0	0	3	0	0	8	9	.148	.270	.204	.474	11									38

Yowzers.  Thats like walking into the ocean and strolling along the Continental Shelf then suddenly hitting the Continental Slope and heading towards the Abyssal Plain.  Or, like thinking youre going to co-pilot an F-14 with Maverick and getting in the cockpit and flying out over the Indian Ocean, getting 2 hours in and realizing it was Topper Harley wearing a Tom Cruise mask the whole time.

I am not saying that guys that go through this can never rebound and become productive hitters, but there are layers of the batter-pitcher interface that most people never come to fully understand.  At the highest levels, there is a copious amount of data available to teams on each and every hitter.  Everything from pitch type/location/speed movement on each and every swing and miss, pop up, groundball or hit is there to mine for tendencies.  And the good teams (especially the A's and Cardinals) use that data to prepare a a detailed plan for each pitching situation for each pitcher for every hitter on an opposing roster.  Basically, if you cant hit a slider that starts in off the plate and dives over the outside corner, you can expect to get a slider that starts in off the plate and dives over the outside corner a fair number of times until you prove you can hit it.  But there isnt as much data for players just coming into the league.  Thus the huge start to a career and then the Sophomore Slump.  For the hitters that put in the time and make the adjustments and become at least adequate against their previous weakness, pitchers will move on to the next weakest spot in a waltz of sorts.  Some guys just never can make the adjustment once "the book" on them has been written.  Those are the one and doners, or rather, the one and never successful againers.  Occasionally you get someone like Frank Thomas who comes into the league and mashes in their first year, and then mashes in their second, and then mashes some more in every other season of their career until age or injury starts slowing their bat a bit or someone like Tony Gwynn who kept hitting even when his waist line was bigger than the GDP of some small Carribean nation, but those are the super duper stars, the freaks of nature who are no doubt, first ballot Hall of Famers.  For most MLB hitters, the ability to make adjustments is the never seen attribute that distinguishes good players from bad ones over the long term.

For fantasy purposes, the ability to bounce back can inform our decisions on whether we want to drop players or hold onto them for when they rebound (the ones who take longer to rebound but eventually do are inevitably labeled streaky).

Kyler and I have been going back on forth on this in regards to Jean Segura.  I wont dive into the stats or the argument because I would like to get to the recaps at some point while I am still young, but Kyler thinks that Segura, who started off his rookie season with an unbelievable first half season, is going through a slump and will rebound to be a borderline all-star caliber player in the not too distant future (Uncle Jimmy prays that this is true).  I think that the Segura that showed up at the beginning of last year was a player on the biggest hot streak of his career coupled with the league not knowing much about him.  His numbers since then, to me, say that he is much closer to what he has been in the season and a half since and he hasnt shown me that he can adjust to what pitchers are doing against him. 

Whats the verdict on the Yanger Zone?  I know what I think but I am not sure what Uncle Jimmy thinks, and the Yankees obviously think he will work it out or that they dont have any other options.