Andre .300: A Solid Young Bat with Room to Grow

This particular title is a reference to Andre 3000 of the Grammy-winning and generally awesome duo known as OutKast. What makes this reference pertinent (aside from the name and the convenient number parallels) is the fact that the Andre about whom this article is written – Ethier – was involved in a pretty awesome duo himself last year, with Manny Ramirez being his metaphorical Big Boi. Together, these two bats helped propel the Dodgers into the playoffs. Manny was just Manny, but Ethier caught fire after Ramirez’s arrival. During September Ethier posted a line of .462/.557/.692 (an OPS of 1.249!!) and had 18 RBI and 18 runs in only 78 AB’s. Clearly, he won’t be able to sustain these numbers over an entire season, but I still like his chances of establishing himself as a solid outfielder.



Ethier will be 27 next year in what will be his fourth full season at the bigs, so we should be expecting him to reach the crest of his talent wave. And while his final month likely accounted for much of his dramatic increases in statistics last year, his stats did improve consistently across the board. Two of Ethier’s stats that showed significant spikes were wOBA (weighted on-base average)* and wRAA (weighted runs above average)**. These are two fabulous and telling new stats that have recently been posted and detailed on Fangraphs, and they are figures to which I will be referring more in the future. Ethier’s wOBA jumped from .336 in ’07 (about average) to .382 in ’08, while his wRAA rocketed from 2.0 in ’07 to 26.5 in ’08. A difference of 24.5 runs is worth about two wins overall (which means exactly what it sounds like), which was exactly how many games the Dodgers finished ahead of the Diamondbacks last year. So yeah, that’s pretty significant.

A gander at a few of Ethier’s other numbers from last year suggests that his overall play may indeed be on the incline. His contact rates, for example, have improved in each of his first three seasons, leading to his 85.4% rate last year. The funny thing about this is that his contact rate at pitches in the strike zone only improved by six-tenths of a percent, while his rate on bad balls actually decreased nearly seven percent. Wait, what? It’s not that he was making contact with more pitches; he was simply swinging at less of them. His overall swing rate dropped from 48.0% in ’07 to 43.8% in ’08, but, more significantly, his swing rate on bad pitches went from a ghastly 33.1% in ’07 to a more respectable 25.7% in ’08. As a result, he saw his walk rate rise above 10% for the first time in his career, which is a good sign for a young hitter.

Maintaining these contact rates – which seems very likely – will help to keep his batting average around or above .300, as it has been for basically his entire career. What would also help this is a repeat of his line drive rate from last year. Ethier posted an LD% of 26.6%. This may or may not seem like much to you, but it actually led the league last year. In fact, only three other people hit line drives in more than a quarter of their batted balls last year. What surprised me was that his BABIP was only .336, which is pretty darn unlucky for having such a good line drive rate. Sustaining this rate may not be possible, but keeping it anywhere close will bode well for him.

Ethier hasn’t done much in terms of power, but I think he has room to grow here. While his average standard distance on homeruns in ’08 was below 400’ (it dropped from 401’ in ’07 to 396.1’ in ’08), his spray chart shows him to have good power to all fields. Most of his power last year was to right-center, with only 5 homers considered “dead-pull shots” to the nearer fence in right. He even showed some opposite field power, hitting 4 homers towards left-center. If you remember any of my previous player profiles, you know that I favor hitters who do more than just hit homers down the line. His flyball totals from last year show that there is room for growth with his homeruns, as his flyball rates were uncharacteristically low. While his homerun-to-flyball ratio was 14.1% (not too shabby, and by far the best in his career), only 32.0% of his batted balls were flyballs. This total is pretty low, which makes sense with his high line drive rate. Some trade-off between these two would likely be beneficial for him, as it would probably help his homerun numbers more than it would hurt his BA (largely because of the unlucky BABIP from last year).

So what’s the catch? One question surrounding Ethier appears to be whether he can post consistent numbers for an entire season. While he had a ridiculous September and was pretty solid for the rest of the season, he did have a stinker of a stretch in June where he hit .195 in 77 AB’s. Honestly, you can probably expect these two extremes to be flukes and take his solid production as a whole over his streakiness. The other major concern about Ethier would be his playing time. It’s no small secret that there’s a logjam in LA’s outfield right now, with either a free agent signing of Dunn or Ramirez occupying left and a tandem of Pierre, Jones, Kemp and Ethier vying for the remaining two positions. I wouldn’t be too concerned about this, either, because Ethier is the only logical fit for right field LA currently has. There’s also talks of Jones going to the Mets, which would also make things better for Ethier. It should be noted, however, that there is at least a chance of some platooning for him next year.

Overall, I think Ethier will be pretty underrated heading into the draft next year, and he could be a very valuable mid-round selection for you. Referring to my previous article, I would probably put Ethier in my middle tier of outfielders. Keep an eye on where he goes in various mock drafts, as his value will not likely change much throughout the winter months. This will give you a better idea of his perceived value, which will tell you if he’s worth where you think he would go in a draft. You can expect a .300 average from him, and 100 runs and RBI aren’t out of the question (especially if LA brings Manny back). He can easily match his homerun total of 20 from last year, but he could even get upwards of the 25-30 range.

-John Dorhauer



* - wOBA, or weighted on-base average, is, at its fundamental core, a combination of OBP and slugging. It basically takes the rate of how often a batter gets on base (OBP) but factors how far along the bases he gets by weighting doubles, triples and homers (slugging). Here’s a post that explains it in more detail:

http://www.insidethebook.com/woba.shtml

** - wRAA, or weighted runs above average, tells you how many runs a player scores more than a league-average player. Instead of taking using a player’s actual run total, however, this total is derived from wOBA. Here’s a post that explains it a little more:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/wrc-and-wraa