12
2012
Jason Bay Sees 30-Homer Seasons Ahead, Scout Disagrees
An article by Hojo's Mojo
Andy Martino of the Daily News, spoke with Jason Bay and over the weekend and the Mets’ $66 million left-fielder sees a return to his 30-homer seasons despite his struggles the last two years.
Now 33, Bay believes his troubles are not related to age or mechanics and attributes the problems to overthinking.
“All those years I did well, I never worried about what I was doing,” says the 2004 NL Rookie of the Year, and three-time All-Star.
“There were good days, and there were bad days, and that was that. But I never analyzed. (The past two years), I over-analyzed everything. I was trying to make everything perfect. My hands here, my feet here; I wasn’t really a hitter. I was trying to make myself into a robot.”
Bay believes that he resolved his issues toward the end of last season and points to his hot finish in September. He told hitting coach Dave Hudgens, “F— it, I’m scrapping everything, and I’m just going to swing. I’m just going to stand up there, hold the bat and swing.”
Bay hit .313 in September, and re-learned what his two daughters and son, all 5 years old and younger, probably haven’t forgotten yet: Have fun, don’t think, just do.”
He knows that many will consider this unlikely. One scout, who observed Bay often last year, says, “You can just see it’s not there. The bat speed has slowed. When guys lose that pop, the balls just don’t jump off the bat the way they used to. That’s life.”
Former Met and Bay’s best friend Jeff Francoeur, believes it was the heavy burden of his contract at a time when the Mets Madoff related financial issues came to light, and that the walls at Citi Field got into his head.
“When I was there, I couldn’t say it. Now that I’m gone, I can say it. That was a tough deal. It can get in your head. David won’t tell you, and Jason won’t tell you, but I can tell you: It got in their heads.”
Bay told Martino he still believes ’100 percent’ that he can again hit 30 home runs in a season.
He knows that many will consider this unlikely. One scout, who observed Bay often last year, says, “You can just see it’s not there. The bat speed has slowed. When guys lose that pop, the balls just don’t jump off the bat the way they used to. That’s life.”
Bay will earn $16 million each of the next two seasons and has a $17 million vesting option that could kick in with 500 plate appearances this season and another 500 in 2013. If he gets off to a slow start, I’m not convinced the Mets will hang in with him as they have so far, especially with the knowledge of that option.
I think one of the reasons the Mets were searching for a left-handed hitting outfielder was to have a platoon partner for Bay, but that’s just my opinion and not based on anything that was reported.
Of course if Bay can revert back to the intimidating slugger he was with the Red Sox and Pirates, then that option becomes less of a concern and it would be great for him as a player and also the Mets who have needed him to be the middle of the order presence they thought they were getting.
About the Author: Rob Johnson
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 25 | 18 | .581 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 21 | .523 | 2.5 |
| Phillies | 21 | 23 | .477 | 4.5 |
| Mets | 17 | 24 | .415 | 7.0 |
| Marlins | 12 | 32 | .273 | 13.5 |
Last updated: 05/19/2013
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I can totally see Jason Bay repeating what Howard Johnson did for the Mets late in his career, which I wrote about recently.
http://studiousmetsimus.blogspot.com/2012/01/jason-bays-struggles-seem-awfully.html
HoJo was an All-Star in ’91, then had two awful seasons for the Mets in ’92 and ’93. Both of those seasons saw him on the disabled list, but prior to his first DL stint in ’92, he had already lost his power stroke. Bay was an All-Star in ’09 before becoming a Met, came to New York, lost his power stroke, then spent time on the DL in ’10 and to start the ’11 season.
Johnson was 31 years old during the 1992 season, the year where he went downhill and never recovered. How old was Bay when he became a Met. 31. The similarities are striking. I’m hoping he doesn’t become another late-career HoJo, but I’m not very optimistic about his chances to return to his 30-homer days.
Bay’s option won’t be given a chance to vest unless both the Mets and he are doing really well.
He’s already deferred half of his first years salary so he’s already going to be on the payroll for years to come.
Bay’s been better at Citi than on the road his first two years so don’t give me any garbage about the fence being in peoples heads. Living up to the contact and the additional pressure I can see but the fence? Don’t buy it. If he was hitting the ball well he’d be banging doubles down the line and hitting the fence on the fly, in fact the lack of doubles is what’s really concerning.
Until September he had just hit a couple of bloop doubles all year, in any park.
Jason Bay has always done his damage as a flat out pull hitter on counts he can look one pitch, one location. 1-1, 2-1, 3-1. That’s really it. For his entire career he’s struck out over 50% of the time he gets to strike 2. Can’t see that changing at 32.
What I would like to see is Bay looking one pitch, one location on the first pitch of the AB and tee off when he gets it, maybe that would help him get into more 2-1 counts in the second half of the season. His D hasn’t been bad and the fence can only help him in that regard, he always makes the right throw and surprisingly is a damn good base runner and he’ll take ball 3 and ball 4 so he doesn’t kill your lineup but unless both he and the Mets are doing really well no way he gets 500 AB’s.
Can anyone imagine the 2014 version after seeing the 2010 and 2011 one?
Come on Agee, you think when you’re in your own head and overthinking everything and tinkering with everything in your swing it’s only going to affect you at home but you’re going to rake on the road? It doesn’t work like that. The baseball swing is muscle memory. The body gets used to things and then that is how it’s going to be. It doesn’t just turn off because you’r e in a different city. The fences are 100% the reason. I don’t know if you ever played the game, but the second you start thinking about anything but the pitch being thrown to you, you are screwed. These balls are coming to you at 90 mph from 60 feet away.
You think it’s just a coincidence that these players just dropped off the table the first year in Citi? It’s just a coincidence David Wright went from a 30-35 homerun player to a 9 homer run player? It’ just coincidence that Jason Bay went from being a 36 home run hitter to hitting 18 in two years? He was also hitting 30 in pittsburgh which is no citizens bank.
We’re talking about a 27 and a 31 year old, not a 35 and a 39 year old. They didn’t just forget how to play baseball in one offseason. David Wright had to get jacked up and strike out at a mark reynolds rate to hit 29 in 2010, after he was routinely hitting 30 in the previous three or four years. That was while hitting .300 and striking out 110 times.
And this is coming FIRST HAND from Jeff Franceour, someone that is in the clubhouse with these guys every day and is friends with these guys. He is telling us straight up that the park was in their heads.
Alright Chris, where are Bay’s doubles down the line? Where are the line drives? Where are the hot shots? Where are the balls banging off the wall or one hopping it? Those must have all come in games I missed.
Are pitchers pitching to the park? Of course so you don’t make any adjustments? You don’t get on top of the plate? You don’t open up a little? Wright and Bay haven’t been covering the outside of the plate for a while now and what’s the reason for getting beat up and over the middle? Cause their late. Bay used to kill that pitch, is that the fences fault too?
What’s the idea of having **** in your head anyway when your playing ball? There’s just one thing that should be in your head when your playing. Winning the game. That’s it. Instead these guys are trying to beat the park instead of just trying to win the game.
Their trying to get their number.
I’ve played with loads of guys through the years who are always trying to hit one out regardless of the fact that they rarely do and that approach is what leads to 0-4′s more than anything else. With all the additional space out there they should have been trying to hit line drives instead of muscling up and plenty of opposing players have no problem hitting the restaurant or the the stands in RF and Bay in particular hasn’t been barreling up at all since he got here. He hits mostly GB’s and he can’t catch up to pitches he used to feast on and don’t discount the effect of not being able to get a quick pick me up before the game either. It’s not just steroids that got banned.
One of the hardest things to do (I’ve been told as I’ve never been a HR hitter) is to hit one when your trying to hit one. Just hit the ball hard. These guys are going about things the wrong way you think they never played in a park with no fence when they were young?
We saw the same articles last year and Bay got worse. I’ll peg him at a max of .260/.330/.400 with about 20 doubles and 18 HR’s and that’s a max and we’ll be extremely lucky to even come close to that and I’m being hopeful.
The pitching staff on the other hand isn’t going to like it one bit especially Gee and Pelfrey against LH hitters.
The ‘wall’ impacted DW that first year also and he was also better at Citi than ‘away’ that year. It’s in your head…and Bay had that concussion the first year also.
i think he’ll be energized with the ‘friendlier confines’ of Citi. But all we can do is root.
I think we’re going to see a huge comeback season from Bay. With the emergence of Duda and the healthy return of Ike Davis, there will be less pressure on him to carry the big load at the plate. I expect Wright to bounce back as well. Offensively this team will be solid and hold their own. It’s the pitching that is the problem.
I’m not so sure that our pitching is going to lose us that many games this year. I have seen the projections and I disagree with them. Pelfrey Gee and certainly Niese are capable of going 6 innings a start and pitching to a 4.50 ERA. This means that our starting pitching should not be giving up much more than 3 runs a game. Now that leaves the bullpen with three innings to pitch and if they give up a run then we are at 4. I’m hoping our offense will average about 5 runs per game at least. Just by looking at that if errors are limited and they play fundemental baseball they should come out with at least a .500 season. I know this is all highley speculative but if I was the coach this is were my head is at. There is no specific reason why this team cannot succeed. I do agree that our pitching is not ideal but givin the choice I’d rather have a cast of 5 consistantly mediocre pitchers than an offense that can’t score runs. I may be wrong but this is were I see Philly next year.
I hope he does have his confidence back and goes up there without feeling some anxiety. Bay seems like a good dude and a bounce back to respectability would be awesome for him and the team.
Here come the IFs again. The Mets have lead the league in IFs for years. IF this happens then that might happen. IF player A can do this, then that might happen.
Sure, IF Bay has a former Bay season, IF David Wright does too, IF Duda has a good season, IF Ike Davis does, IF Daniel Murphy gets the rocks out of his head…..THEN they’d have a pretty good hitting team.
But with the Mets, it’s never ONE IF.
Could be worst, you could be a Cub fan.
“if” should be the theme for this years team.
Not just this year I’m afraid!
“With the Mets it’s never one if.”
Truer words have never been spoken.
Since 2002 almost 60% of our position players who had at least 100 AB’s in a season have produced a seasonal WAR of anywhere from negative to 0.99.
60 percent! Either some fraction of less than 1 win better than a AAAA player or worse than a AAAA player including players we have given up #1 and # 2 picks for or traded prospects for,
Some notable performances in this regard as well as ones for guys that just added payroll and didn’t cost picks but were being counted on to be contributors:
2002 – Burnitz 1.0, Vaughn 0.8,
2003 – Alomar 0.5, Cedeno 0.0, Vaughn -0.6.
2004 – Hildago 0,4, Matsui 0.4, Zeile -0.2.
2005 – Mientkiewicz 0.4, Matsui 0.2, Cairo -0.2
2006 – Nady 0.3 (half a season), Floyd 0.1, Green 0.1 (1 month), Matsui -0.3 (two months)
2007 – Delgado 0.8, Green 0.4, Valentin 0.2,
2008 – Castillo 0.7, Alou 0.2,
2009 – Church 0.7, Schneider 0.4
2010 – Castillo 0.7, Francouer 0.2, (2.3rds of a season), Barajas 0.1, (2.3rds of a season),
2011 – Bay 0.7.
This doesn’t mean every trade or signing was a bad one considering the alternatives, just that the lack of alternatives in AA and AAA were what necessitated most of these moves and remember these were are just the hitters, and only the years in which they produced less than a full win better than the average quadruple A player. There are loads of instances in which they were somewhere between only a win to two wins better. In fact 15.6 % of players with at least 100 AB’s in a season met this critera meaning that 75% of our position players over the last decade actually produced anywhere from 1.99 wins per season better than the AAAA player all the way down to worse than the average AAAA player.
75%.
Some may not like WAR as a baseline but compare and contrast the same numbers with Atlanta (56.7), Philly (55.9), Boston (54.0) and NYY (48.4) over the last decade to our 75% and it feels right.
Beyondtheboxscore has more of this dated 2/2/12
Couldn’t agree more Dave. Every year it’s the same old bullshit.If,if,if. I’m so sick and tired of the if factor with this team. Build the team around Ike and the young pitchers coming up and be done with it already.
Too bad Alderson can’t unload him on the pirates like Cashman is doing with Burnett. Anyone who has watched this guy knows he is probably done. Get Duda in left and get a RFer or play Hairston there. Hairston is probably better than Bay at this time.
Bay still hit OK vs. LHP last year. It was vs. RHP that he didn’t deserve to be in the majors.
i buy it. #1, i think it very odd that a power guy ‘loses it’ because of ‘age’ at 31 – 33 – 33 ‘these days.HoJo or no HoJo, i think it’s rare. #2 i agree that the ‘walls at Citi’ got to him. Damn, they got to me and i don’t play there!
Plus, he was hurt the first year, then last year Ike got hurt, Wright got hurt, Murph got hurt, etc.
i think with a full complement around him…Wright, Ike, Duda…i think Bay smacks at least 30 Hrs for us this year.
i agree – i see him coming back big this year too. The last part of the season his swing was coming back – it was quick, he was staying back on the ball and pulling it and hitting some HRs deep into the LCF stands at Citi. I say 27 HRs.
And to the others – NO HE WILL NOT BE PLATOONING.
The only way he’ll lose ABs is because of that vesting option and not anything else (unless of course he never recovers than it’s about a man at the end of his career and not a platoon situation and that would be sad to see cuz i like Bay)
If he is as useless vs. RHP this season as he was last season, then yes, he WILL be platooning eventually.
The Walls got to them I think everyone is in agreement there…
What affect did they have? Simple and just look at the ABs to illustrate it…
What pitches were Wright and Bay most often vulnerable to?
The Low Outside pitch!
What makes you vulnerable there?
Trying to PULL the ball!
Why do you try to pull the ball?
Because you know the fences are at their closest down the LF Line!
You can not pull a low and outside pitch you will either ground out weakly to the right side or strikeout! (See Wrights K totals the last few years!)
So the fences are pulled in now what affect might that have?
Will they STOP trying to pull the ball or try to pull the ball EVEN MORE to take advantage of that fence change?
It could go either way!
As I have always said, if the fences were the issue and hurting them then why didn’t they hit those HRs on the road where the dimensions were not in thier head?
Thier issues were an issue of the HEAD not the fences!
And until they can bring those HEADS in it is unlikely we will see any resurgence from either player!
Wright seems to be the best shot at coming back!
but both have to start IGNORING the dimensions and get back to what made them great hitters!
Making good contact with the baseball, Going with the pitch and accepting where it lands it lands!
Hi Metsi,
The reason why Bay and others didn’t fare better on the road is because hitters cannot change their swings and approach back and forth. David Wright said so in interviews – one must be consistent in their stance and follow through otherwise it will throw them off altogether.
Citi Field caused Wright, Beltran and Bay to re-adjust their natural swings and it prevented them from continuing to be the hitters that they were.
After the 2009 season Joe Jirardi said one important element for winning the world series that year was that the Steinbrenner family built a new ballpark that took advantage of the team’s strength (i.e., power). We know that the Wilpon family built a new ballpark that short-circuited the team’s strength (i.e. power) for the sake of gimmicks which shows how little they know about baseball. I cannot forget David Wright’s startled reaction when first seeing the fences that Friday evening before the Boston Red Sox exhibition game.
And let’s not forget of free agents avoiding the Mets knowing their own power production would nosedive. Of course, the Mets not having the money to spend on them avoided the issue entirely.
this is exactly why the new dimensions are likely to help the met batters more than the opposition. Guys coming in for 3 games don’t change their entire approach to fit the park the way home team batters sometimes do.
Nathan,
A 4.50 ERA for a starting pitcher going just six innings is not going to win games unless he’s backed up with the offensive power that Chris Capuano got last season, which was seventh best in the league.
Yes, it works out to three runs over six innings but that is an average per game. If he has one good start allowing just one earned run over six frames it means two others in which he gave up four. That’s two bad performances every three starts. For three starters that turns into only three good outings every nine games. Not enough for Santana and Dickey to offset. And within those starts there might be a good performance in which they go seven and several in which they go only four or five. This means more innings coming out of the bullpen which could result not only in more runs given up but many a tired arm come September as well.
Now I do believe the Mets are going to score more runs this year . I am glad Frenchy came out and said how much Citi Field both frustrated and messed up the mind set of the Met hitters. That’s why I especially expected a big bounce back year from Bay – until having reservations after reading that report about his bat speed going down. I hope that was due more to Jason’s fooling around with his swing rather than it was being a sign of age.
But getting back to those three starters, no matter how much improved our scoring might be, the third to fifth starters each sporting a 4.50 ERA would be difficult for that added run production to overcome and for any team to win with consistency.
So i heard this story about bay. Here it is.
When MLB started regular blood testing for roids in 2008, Bay had to stop taking them. Then he had a so-so season at boston. the red sox, knowing he was fully roid dependent unloaded him on the mets. month by month his arms got skinnier and skinnier, his bat speed slowed, and his hitting worsened. Oh and his injuries mounted too. Eventually by 2012 he had the build of a marathon runner and the bat speed of a high school sophmore and the OPS of a girl.
By the way, insert ‘wright’ everywhere i wrote bay and you almost get the same true story.
Wow, ignorance thy have a new leader.
As much as I would like to see it happen ( Bay hitting 30+ ), I have to agree that the likelihood of it happening is pretty remote at this time. I don’t buy into the fences making that much of a difference. As with David Wright, I believe it is mechanics. When Wright goes the other way he is a better hitter, when he looks to pull he misses a lot. Bay has altered his approach at the plate and has suffered in his first 2 years in Citifield. He’s not covering the outside part of the plate and was pressing with RISP. If both men can over come these bad habits, we may possibly see 4 Mets approach 30+ homers ( Duda & Ike too). I just won’t be holding my breath!
L.. J.,
That’s my concern with Bay as well – that the imprint of Citi Field might still remain in his mind and he has thus messed around too much with the dynamics of his stance and swing to return to the player he once was.
There was a paragraph that got repeated twice, by the way…
I feel that Bay deserves this season to show if he can hit 25-30 hr’s. His defense and baserunning are fine. Jason steadily succumbed to the pressure afforded him by a mammoth contract and playing in the Big Apple. The fences, HoJo comparisons, and anything else aside, there may be something to not banging balls off the green monster rather that the previously cavernous Citi. I have to agree with the notion of having healthy peers around him can contribute to a comeback.
You heard it here first. NL “Comeback Player of the Year” 2012…..Jason Bay.
A s Met fan you have to root for it. All I think Mr. Bay needs is a hot start in spring with season starting streak of long ball; out of the park, down the liine, and in the gaps and Met fans will quickly forget the last two years.
LGM! and “Let’s Go Bay”