Mike Jacobs's Three 2009 Seasons

by royalsreview on May 18, 2009 12:30 AM EDT in News Comment 25 comments

More photos » by Charlie Riedel - AP

Kansas City Royals' Mike Jacobs, leads the AL in weighted tobacco in mouth per PA (wTiMppa). (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Mike Jacobs is hot again, and as an act of goodwill, I'd like to point that out in a little RR post. Let the archives reflect I was not 100% negative.

Jacobs has homered in three of his last four games, and is hitting .357/.357/1.000 in that stretch. Looking at his game log, his hot stretch seems to have started around May 4th.

Jacobs, as you'll recall, hit well to start the season, then nearly went hitless for two weeks, before bouncing back (apparently) with his most recent surge (I bet Jacobs drank Surge back in the late 1990s).

Cherry-picking the data for the most extreme results, you get three distinct patches -- mini-seasons if you will -- of Jacobsball.

	PAs	BA	OBP	SLG	HR
April 7-21	47	.326	.383	.698	4
April 22- May 3	40	.111	.200	.139	0
May 4-15	40	.361	.425	.750	4
Total	127	.270	.339	.539	8

At the moment, Jacobs HR rate is right in line with what he did last year (6.3%, 6.2% in '08), which is good I suppose, though a bit of a bummer since he's had to go on a spree to catch up. His strikeouts and walks are both up a tick from last season however, which may suggest a new approach at the plate. At the moment, his walk rate of 8.7% is his highest since 2006.

My impression was that Trey had done a decent job shielding Jacobs from lefties, but the numbers don't quite bear that out. He's still racked up 46 PAs against LHPs this year, against 81 versus RHPs. At best, it's been a partial shielding, and it wouldn't suprise me if uneven distribution of PAs against LHPs is in part whats driving these swings in MJs performance. For the record, his line against lefties is .262/.326/.310, while versus righties he's .274/.346/.671. All eight of his homers are against northpaws.

Thanks to Butler's stunning emergence as a somewhat competent gloveman, Jacobs has only played 81 innings at first this season. Among the twelve players considered full-time AL DHs on Fangraphs, Jacobs is 6th in wOBA, 6th in wRAA and 10th in WPA.

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Read More: Mike Jacobs (DH - KAN), Kansas City Royals, Save Surge(Save Surge.org)

Comments

Jacobs, Crisp and Bloomquist...

are all OPS’ing over 800 so far this year.

by djk royal on May 16, 2009 4:14 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I wonder how bloomquist will handle the media crunch during his pursuit of .400

its a good thing he’ll have George Brett around to lean on

by royalsreview on May 16, 2009 4:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Is it just me

or does Jacobs remind you a little of Dave Kingman??

by Royalfan on May 16, 2009 5:14 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

great comparison

Kingman was a more capable defender, though

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by devil_fingers on May 16, 2009 6:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Jacobs brings the long ball power that KC has been sorely lacking

In the old days, Balboni wasn’t much for fielding and high average – was also slow a foot. But he could hit the bombs. In the AL, you need a guy who go deep. Remember Dougie and Gload, Hal Morris, and the like. For me, give me 1B who can go yard! Best 1B combo in Butler and Jacobs since Sweeney was healthy.

I’d like to see Kila as trade bait down the stretch – top 100 prospect at beginning of year with power and plate discipline to tempt the Pirates, Nationals, Rockies or Orioles.

by daveyork on May 16, 2009 5:20 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I'd really rather not trade Kila.

Him and Billy as a 1B/DH platoon looks good to me.

If you were thinking, you wouldn't have thought that.

by Warden11 on May 16, 2009 5:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

you'd platoon Billy Butler already?

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by devil_fingers on May 16, 2009 6:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

not necessarily,

but Billy and Kila is better than Billy and Mike for me…looking 2-3 years down the road.

If you were thinking, you wouldn't have thought that.

by Warden11 on May 16, 2009 10:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

oh, yeah, that makes more sense

I still think bring Shealy/House up now to platoon with Jacobs, and then don’t bring Jacobs back after this season (trade — hopefully high) and use Kila as the other half of the platoon next season or whenever.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by devil_fingers on May 16, 2009 11:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Shealy will obviously never a be a Royal.

Might as well trade him now for whatever we can get.

If you were thinking, you wouldn't have thought that.

by Warden11 on May 17, 2009 12:50 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Irrational

The irrational side of me does not care what Jacobs’ OBP, BA, wOBA, or +/- on defense is, as long as he breaks that dubious record of 36 home runs set two eras ago. Ball go far, young man!

The rational side of me believes that Trey has generally been doing a good job maximizing his value, keeping him off the diamond other than on offense.

Get treated. Royally.

by Royals Nation on May 16, 2009 5:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Jacobs is doing exactly what they got him for

and that is hitting the long ball. Everyone obviously knew about the BA, OBP, etc. 32 bombs last year is 32 bombs. If he breaks Balboni’s team record he will be worth the one year investment. If he hits that many hopefully it will be one of the things that keeps the Royals in contention.

by stram#1 on May 16, 2009 6:25 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Jacobs is doing a great job so far

More than meeting his contract expectations (Nunez aside).

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by devil_fingers on May 16, 2009 6:22 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Although this year of the deal might look okay so far, we’ll see how things turn out by the end, and the second year might be the kicker. Mike Jacobs’ salary isn’t too onerous, but once one adjusts for arbitration values, one realizes just how unlikely it is that he’ll hit well enough to “earn” it.

The one worrisome thing is that Jacobs has precisely the profile to get a big arb raise, given that these arbitration hearings apparently take place in the 1960s.

by royalsreview on May 16, 2009 10:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

yeah, I don't see a seconario under which it's a good idea to bring him back

if he doesn’t hit well, then, well, that answers itself

If he does continue hitting well, sell high

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by devil_fingers on May 16, 2009 11:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

mmmmmmmm surge......greatest pop ever.....

by Fernando Vina School of Linguistics on May 16, 2009 6:27 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

And congratulations on finally using wOBA in a post

is this the first time?

by the way, for a park-adjusted wRAA (which is just runs above/below average according to linear weights; wOBA is just a rate stat version of lwts), go down to the “Batting” column of the “Value” section of the player pages or leaderboards.

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at Driveline Mechanics.

by devil_fingers on May 16, 2009 6:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs