Alex Gordon ... Another Struggling Royal

Alex Gordon's 2011 season was the second greatest season for a Royals hitter since George Brett's 1985 season. It is 2012 and Alex is hitting more like pre-2011 then he did last year. Here is a look at his triple slash lines from before 2011, 2011 and 2012.

AVG/OBP/SLG
Pre-2011: 0.244/0.328/0.405
2011: 0.303/0.376/0.502
2012: 0.235/0.330/0.371

The main change is that his AVG is ~60 points higher than the other two samples, which in turn bumped up his OBP and SLG. Here is a look at his BABIP across the years:

BABIP
Pre-2011: 0.294
2011: 0.358
2012: 0.283

The 2012 BABIP value is more like pre-2011 than 2011. Besides his BABIP, here is his xBABIP values over the years:

Year: xBABIP, BABIP
2007: 0.304, 0.303
2008: 0.311, 0.309
2009: 0.292, 0.276
2010: 0.322, 0.254
2011: 0.333, 0.358
2012: 0.307, 0.283
Career: 0.315, 0.311

Generally, Alex's BABIP is where he should be over his career considering his batted ball profile.

His batted ball profile has led Alex to a 0.260/0.342/0.429 triple slash line for his career. I think people should be expecting this type of production from him instead of the career season he had in 2011.