Right fielder Curtis Granderson was officially diagnosed with pinkeye on Tuesday, Mets officials confirmed. As a precaution, the team sent him home on Monday, as pinkeye is extremely contagious. While the hope is no one else on the team contracts pinkeye, I bet Granderson is hoping that his 2015 season will be very contagious heading into the start of the 2016 season.
Granderson enjoyed his best season as a New York Met last year, and also his best statistical year since 2012 while with the crosstown New York Yankees. Granderson returned to batting leadoff full-time last year, the first since 2009. His patient eye at the plate and the power he provided was a big part of the Mets’ success last year.
As a table-setter, Granderson shared the top spot with Los Angeles Angels slugger Mike Trout for pitches per plate appearance with 4.37. This gives the batters behind him the opportunity to see the opposing pitcher’s repertoire, and use it for their own adjustments at the plate. His patience paid off as he was 9th in MLB with 91 walks, and 14th with 98 runs scored.
What’s more is that in order for Granderson to score these runs, the rest of the Mets lineup had to do their job in moving him over and ultimately driving him in. For the first half of last year, the Mets offense was in flux. In the first half of last year, the Mets had a team OPS of .660. The second half saw an increase of over 100 points, at .770 OPS. The Mets scored 310 runs in 89 games in the first half. The second half, which they played in 73 games, saw an increase of 63 runs, for a total of 373 runs scored.
When looking at Granderson’s stats on baseball-reference, he had a respectable .757 OPS and 43 runs scored in 89 games played in the first half of 2015. When the Mets brought in reinforcements through trades, the promotion of Michael Conforto, and the returns of David Wright and Travis d’Arnaud, Granderson’s second half numbers saw a huge increase in production. In 68 games played in the second half, Granderson saw his OPS rise to .898, his slugging balloon to .506, and he enjoyed a remarkable 55 runs scored. Amazing what having a lengthy lineup will do for one’s overall production!
This should be encouraging news for Mets fans and Granderson heading into 2016. With a full year of Conforto and Yoenis Cespedes, along with healthy seasons from Wright and d’Arnaud, Granderson I believe, could be in for another big year with the Mets. Having the offensive weapons behind him for a full year should result in greater production from Granderson. And it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Look at what Granderson accomplished when he played with solid offensive teams in Detroit and the Yankees. When you have an environment of productive and smart hitters in the lineup, results will follow.
Taking a look at Fangraphs, Granderson’s stats from last year stand out even more than originally thought. For starters, Granderson’s wRC+, which accounts for runs created, weighed for park effects was 11th amongst all MLB outfielders at 132. This means that Granderson accounted for 32% more runs created than a league average hitter. Add in the fact that Granderson was the only leadoff hitter of that group and it makes it all the more impressive. You’ll notice from the names in front of Granderson, that a lot of the leaders are normally middle of the order bats. Bryce Harper, Trout, Nelson Cruz, Jose Bautista, and J.D. Martinez are a few of the names ahead of Granderson on this list.
Granderson is essentially a pull hitter, as evidenced by his 48.3% of batted balls last year, 3rd among outfielders. The impressive part is that Granderson had the highest percentage of line drive balls in play, at 27.1%. This seems to infer that he doesn’t get cheated on pitches, and has the bat speed and power to drive the ball, resulting in his 26 home runs. More evidence of this is his hard ball percentage, which quantifies the balls in play as hit with hard speed. Granderson registered at 37%, good for 8th among outfielders. That’s higher than Ryan Braun, Cespedes, Nelson Cruz, and Justin Upton.
Granderson’s patience at the plate paid off well for him last year, as he recorded a .364 OBP, his highest since 2011. Looking closer at how he achieved such a high OBP, let’s look at the percentage of swings inside and outside the strike zone. Per Fangraphs, Granderson only swung at 20.5% of pitches outside the strike zone in 2015, his lowest number since 2009. His O-Contact percentage, which displays the percentage of times a batter makes contact when swinging at pitches outside the strike zone was the highest of his career last year at 65.4%. This could indicate that even though Granderson had a patient eye for pitches outside the strike zone, when he swung he didn’t get cheated.
While the news out of Port St. Lucie so far has involved the dynamic pitching rotation the Mets are set to deploy this season and the star power of Cespedes, we can’t overlook how solid Granderson was for the Mets last year. Add in the fact that he was one of the only productive hitters the Mets had in the World Series (3 home runs and 1.060 OPS), and one can see how prominent a role he plays. What his impressive statistics don’t show is what an integral leader Grandy has become in the clubhouse and how infectious his passion for the game is. So rest up Grandy and lose the pinkeye, because we’ll need more of the same in 2016.
