Q&A Session: What’s up with Sean Casey?
posted in 2007 season, Q&A |Usually I save my questions and answers for the end of a month or something monumental. Not that this is monumental, but I found some interestig stuff to present.
What’s up with Sean Casey?
Sean Casey is bad at the plate right now. He was pretty bad during the regular season last season. No one can deny that. His strikeout rate is up. His batting average is atrocious. His on-base percentage looks more like a bad batting average. His slugging… wait, Casey doesn’t slug it, does he?
I went to Fangraphs.com to see what was up. There’s a couple things statistically going on that stand out. He’s got more flyballs than ground balls. I’m sure during windows of his career, that’s true, but over the course of his playing days he’s more of a groundball/line drive batter than a flyball batter. Right now he’s putting it in the air 45% of the time compared to a steady career average of 30%. (Create a hitchart). An amazing 25% are infield fly balls. He doesn’t seem to have the strength to turn these flyballs into home runs, so he’s making some outs. His batting average in balls in play, then, is a paltry .208. That’s probably helped by the easy fly balls he’s hitting I’d guess, more than stellar defensive plays robbing him. The pitchers per plat appearance, walks and strikeouts are otherwise normal.
I’d guess those stats are more symptoms than causation. Rather than say he’s had some bad luck, I’m just going to guess this is a mechanics issue without being able to compare his swing this year and last. I could be wrong.