What is wrong with Manny?

One of the things that we all know is that Manny Ramirez is having an awful year, right?. Awful by Manny standards, anyway.



Batting average is down. On-base percentage is down. Slugging percentage is down. He's having an un-Manny season so far. To try to see why that is, I looked at some other numbers, trying to break it down and see what he's still doing, and what's worse.



Well, his isolated power is pretty typical Manny. The difference between his OBP and AVG is larger than usual, but his 2B and HR rates are pretty much what you'd expect. His strikeout rate is a little bit up, but so is his walk rate. The number that just leaps out here is the rate at which he hits singles. He normally, throughout his career, hits a single in about 14% of his plate appearances. The year, he's only doing it in about 8%. That's a huge drop-off. For his career, he's hit .315 on balls in play ( (H-HR)/(PA-HR-SO-BB) ). This year, he's hitting .226.

And it accounts for all of the other differences, as you'll see in a minute.

Manny Ramirez

	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	PA	Avg	OBP	SLG
2005	133	32	7	1	10	24	36	4	0	3	164	0.241	0.366	0.534

Through 38 games, Manny's had 164 plate appearances. He has 32 hits, of which 18 were for extra bases, and he's made 101 outs. Only 14 of the hits are singles. At his career average pace, Manny should have 22-24 singles. He's hit 65 balls that the defense has turned into outs. What happens if we take 8 of those balls that were outs, a little bit less than 1 for every 4 games, and have it miss an infielder or drop in front of an outfielder for a single?

Manny Ramirez

	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	HBP	SH	SF	PA	Avg	OBP	SLG
2005 - adjusted	133	40	7	1	10	24	36	4	0	3	164	0.301	0.415	0.594

All of sudden, everything looks like a normal Manny season. Batting average is up where it should be, OBP is up where it should be, SLG is up where it should be - everything.

Manny Ramirez - Rate stats

	Avg	OBP	SLG	OPS	ISO	OBP-AVG	BB/PA	SO/PA	HR/PA	2B/PA	1B/PA
Career	0.316	0.411	0.599	1.01	0.283	0.095	0.133	0.187	0.059	0.058	0.148
2005	0.241	0.366	0.534	0.9	0.293	0.125	0.146	0.22	0.061	0.043	0.085
2005 adjusted	0.301	0.415	0.594	1.009	0.293	0.114	0.146	0.22	0.061	0.043	0.134

So what's wrong with Manny? Nothing. Not a thing. He's hit into a little bit of bad luck. Period. Like Friday night in Seattle, where he hit a single to center and instead is credited with a fielder's choice because Nixon mis-read it and was forced at 2nd when he went back to first. Manny's demonstrating the same patience, the same ability to reach base, the same ability to hit for power. He's hit into a little bit of bad luck over the first six weeks, and that's all.


Update: Sully at The House That Dewey Built also has some Manny stuff today...