Doesn't that just warm your heart? Alas, I won't be seeing that sign in person this year, but just you wait, I'll be there next year.Anyway, let's continue our haphazard look at the upcoming year to talk about one of my personal favorites, Curtis Granderson.
Grandy had a pretty good rookie season, all things considered. Hitting leadoff on a 95 win, World Series team, and playing centerfield in Comerica National Park is a lot to ask of a rookie. Granderson definitely was guilty at times of making it easy on the pitcher, as is easily evidenced by his 174 strikeouts.
While I would love for him to have only struck out 74 times, rather than 174, that in and of itself is not the only stat one should look at when evaluating Grandy. He'll be turning 26 in March, so while he's not young, there is still some room and time for him to improve. A quick look at his PECOTA card over at baseball prospectus shows him with a nearly 60% chance of performing at star level in the next few years. It's 5 year forecast shows him in the low 20's in VORP for the next several years. All the fun sabermetric numbers aside, what's he likely to do in the next few seasons?
Well, on the unscientific side of things, I can recall one of the Tigers' coaches saying something to the effect that Curtis Granderson will get every bit out of the talent he has. He has been praised up and down the Tigers organization for his work ethic and dedication, which is certainly not a bad thing to keep in mind when trying to project his future performance. None of that has any tangible effect when he's in the batters box, but we can rest assured that he'll be as prepared as possible for that confrontation.
Last year Curtis ended up with a line of .260/.335/.438. He hit 19 HRs, stole 8 bases, had 59 extra base hits (31 doubles, 9 triples, 19 dingers) and drove in 68.
There are some questions about whether Curtis will stay at the top of the batting order. While batting order isn't terribly important, staying at the top of the lineup may improve his potential to pick up a few steals. He stole 22 bases in Toledo in 2005, so he's not hopeless on the basepath, and double digit steals is probably likely for the upcoming season. The Tigers sent him 13 times last season, and he was only successful 8 of those times. 5 of those stolen base attempts happened in the seasons first month, and he was 3/5. After that, the Tigers were much more cautious about sending Curtis, and his last 3 steal attempts came on July 7, August 2nd, and August 17th. Basically, they stopped sending him.
One of the most vexing thing about Curtis last year was that he seemed to swing through a lot of pitches. His strikeouts were not necessarily a by-product of poor pitch recognition (he did walk 66 times, which isn't terrible) as much as they were an inability to make contact with good pitches he chose to swing at. I'm not sure what that portends for the future.
PECOTA's diagnostics give Grandy a 20% breakout rate, and a 47% improve rate, so better days are likely ahead. It forecasts a drop in strikeouts to the 130 range, which will subsequently likely result an an increase in OBP. Personally, I think with Granderson's work ethic, and room to grow, PECOTA's 75th percentile projection for Curtis sounds about right:
.283 average, 91 runs, 24 HR, 76 RBI, 11 steals.
However, I think he's likely to beat the steals projection easily, as I expect the small ball inclined Jim Leyland to make base stealing a point of emphasis with one of his quicker players. The Tigers basically gave up on sending Curtis last season due to a poor success rate, and I think they'll try to fix that this spring. I think he'll end up with 20 steals when all is said and done. If he achieves 20/20 status, he'll be worthy of having on your team, even in a mixed league format.
