Figuring Out Sizemore

BPro '08, on Grady Sizemore:

For a moment, let's ignore that Sizemore is great. His 2007 season is also just plain weird. His walk rate grew dramatically for the second straight season, and he established a new career high in stolen bases by 50 percent, but he also struck out at the highest rate of his career, and his extra-base-hit rate dropped considerably. His PECOTA projection is a logical approximation of his skills, but would you really be surprised if he hit .260? .310? Would it be silly to expect 25 home runs from him yet not shocking if he slugged 36? There are so many directions Sizemore can go from here that his future is largely unpredictable, but whichever way he goes, he'll be good.

312 PAs later, his future is even less clear.

He is having another excellent year, which should surprise nobody--.378 OBP, .529 SLG, 16 SBs in 18 attempts. That's pretty much in line with his 70th percentile PECOTA. The way he's doing it, though, really makes no sense.

So, the walks make sense. They've been trending upward throughout his career, which is logical, and he seems to have peaked at about 14%.

The strikeouts are quite confusing. They were increasing with the walks, but this year he decided to stop doing that, which was an interesting choice.

Then things really get weird. Sizemore's LD% has decreased dramatically; 15.6% this year, against a career average of 20.8%. So you can't really blame that low BABiP on luck, since his career BABiP is the standard 120 points higher than his LD%, so that's right in line. Less line drives means he's hitting more fly balls, but only about 2% more than the last couple years. However, way more of those fly balls are going over the wall, resulting in the huge jump in ISO, above even his 2006 level, when he had 92 extra base hits.

If he were to go back to his career BABiP (.327), and keep the first three rates, we'd have a line of approximately .308/.414/.570. Plus the career 77% SB%. From a "Gold Glove" (read: slightly above average) center fielder.

That is some kind of player, but it's probably impossible. First off, it's hard to believe he's going to keep up this power display. I'm not entirely sure how to interpret the Hit Tracker data, but he's second in the AL in "lucky" home runs with four. Also, it kind of makes sense that he's traded BABiP for homers. Although HRs don't have a direct effect on BABiP, doubles and triples do, and it seems like the homers have come at the expense of some other extra base hits.

In conclusion, I really have no idea. Sizemore is certainly progressing as a player, just not in any logical fashion. It's really an odd phenomenon; knowing a player is going to be very good, but having no idea how they're going to do it.