Riding Mile High

Riding Mile High

            After looking back at many of my articles I’ve written I noticed there seems to be a running them.  I always seem to focus on the player that is struggling or that is having issues at the time.  Very few have actually ended up looking at a player doing good and breaking him down to see if he is legit or not.  So today I want to take a look at one such story of a player that seems to come out of nowhere are to become one of this year’s better stories.  Charlie Blackmon has been one of the driving forces that have turned the joke of a team last year to a playoff contending team this year so lets take a look at what he’s been doing.

	BB%	K%	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	ISO	BABIP	wOBA	wRC+
2014	5.1%	10%	.319	.357	.527	.882	.209	.318	.384	131
2013	2.7%	19%	.309	.336	.467	.803	.159	.366	.350	109
Career	3.5%	14%	.299	.331	.448	.779	.149	.328	.341	101

            There’s one stat that stands out above all the rest here and it’s not the ISO.  Look at those stats and notice he’s actually having the worst BABIP year of his career.  What makes it so significant to me is the fact that Blackmon has played 3 seasons and played at least 40 games in each of those seasons.  That means his best season is also his most “unlucky” it’s more likely a case of regressing to the mean.  The power doesn’t really seem legit in my opinion, it seems to just have come out of no where and the fact it’s so much higher than previous seasons tells me its not the norm.  In the end there’s a lot of good signs here to be very encouraged by his play moving forward.

Batted Ball:

	GB/FB	LD%	GB%	FB%	HR/FB
2014	1.13	19.8%	42.6%	37.7%	14.8%
2013	1.33	27.2%	41.5%	31.3%	9.8%
Career	1.30	22.0%	44.0%	34.0%	9.9%

            Personally when I look at a hitter I’d like to see more LD’s than anything else since LD’s to me show more solid contact and harder hit balls.  The fact that Blackmon’s rate has gone down so much is interesting and note worthy to me.  It obviously coincides with the rise in his FB% and HR/FB but it also means he’s getting under the ball more and that could lead to weak pop ups as well.  It’s working for him now but it is something to at least keep an eye on.  After all this is his first season of hitting for such power so if his HR power dips then this could go south.

Plate Discipline:

	O-Swing	Z-Swing	Swing%	O-Contact	Z-Contact	Contact%	F-Strike%	SwStr%
2014	34.7%	66.8%	49.1%	79.6%	96.4%	89.8%	64.1%	5.2%
2013	37.8%	68.6%	51.8%	71.7%	91.0%	83.4%	62.4%	8.7%
Career	35.4%	63.1%	49.7%	73.8%	93.3%	85.7%	48.0%	7.0%

            We can see here where this increase in BB% comes from.  Blackmon has actually lessened the mount of swings he’s taking making the pitcher make better pitches to him.  This shows how effective its been with a staggering 89.9% Contact% which could be a little high for him but as long as he keeps this new patience it doesn’t mean he automatically will lose this new contact skill.  To be fair to Blackmon he’s always demonstrated a good contact ability and this year he seems to have improved pitched reorganization to really maximize his abilities.  Some of this could be a bit over his head and I do think he will start to regress over time but how much will be determined by his BB% more than anything else.

Hot/Cold Zone:

	1-2	0-3	0-1
.167	1-4	.273	.400	0-1
0-4	.375	.393	.417	.300
1-2	.167	.423	.423	0-3
0-3	0-3	.286	1-4	0-4

            Admittedly this is impressive no matter who you are.  Only 2 spots in the zone are a weak area and the rest is just a hot zone that every pitcher has to watch out for.  Since we know he’s being more selective it makes sense why we see so few pitches outside the zone being hit.  Really this just shows his ability to drive the ball and more importantly his plate coverage has improved covering all areas of the plate.

            So far this has been a very positive look at Charlie Blackmon but there is one area that I think we need to look at just to balance it out.  There’s one thing that people have pointed out about the team in general.  Lets take a look at Blackmon’s splits, more specifically the home and road splits.

Splits: Home/Road

	BB%	K%	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	ISO	BABIP	wOBA	wRC+
Home	6.1%	8.2%	.389	.429	.689	1.117	.300	.368	.479	182
Road	3.8%	12.4%	.258	.291	.371	.662	.113	.277	.293	82

            Wow, that is a major difference and is the main reason why people are a little worried about Blackmon and his sustainability.  At home this guy is just a beast and very few players can match him.  His numbers are actually amazing and the most impressive stat is that 182 wRC+ which puts him 82% better than the rest of league at home.  Though this is also do to his team and you can’t forget about how good his team has been at home.  Now we look at his away stats just look average to below average.  The lucky thing for him is most of these stats rate a slightly below average to average at worst so he does have that going for him.  Why his BB% and K% change so dramatically is kind of a mystery to me, perhaps it’s a simple case of him seeing the ball better but I think that’s the key to his future success.  That BABIP is also pretty low but without calculating what his average BABIP is away we can’t see if its on pace or is just an anomaly.  The other thing that stands out is the wRC+ which like before is more due to the team not just his own struggles.

            Charlie Blackmon has been touted as a player that just needed playing time to fully realize what he can do and for the most part that seems to be the case.  He’s having a terrific season so far but the splits are a bit of a worry and if he starts to get any worse the team could have problems.  I stated a few times that this isn’t just a Blackmon issue this is a team issue but Blackmon, wanted or not, is now a leader of this team and he needs to step up on the road.  The Rockies are a contender this year I no small part do to Blackmon so give him respect, now if he could just take a walk on the road we’d be a lot happier.