Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Magglio's struggles

Magglio Ordonez is off to a horrible start for the Tigers, a start that is widely attributed to his surgically repaired right ankle. He is batting .169 with a .411 OPS.

Still there is some reason to hope he can turn it around. First, I guess, being healthy would help. But Maggs is making contact at a high rate and hasn't seen his strikeout rate increase, so it's not like he can't put wood on the ball.

His line drive rate is a little lower than usual, but still pretty good. The most noticeable change in his batting profile is a spike in ground balls. This is most likely the result of not being able to drive off that right foot. His GB% of 57.4 is well above his career 44.4 mark.

Maggs also might be a little unlucky. Following are BABIPs for ground balls, fly balls and line drives. The first number is the AL average; the second is Maggs.

Ground balls: .223 AL -- .100 Maggs (4-for-40)
Fly balls: .136 AL -- .000 Maggs (0-for-17)
Line drives: .718 -- .818 Maggs (9-for-11)

Maggs' BABIP overall is .191; the AL average is .285. If Maggs' stats mirrored the AL averages above, he would have about seven more hits and be batting .260.

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