Bats/Throws: L/R
DOB: March 16, 1981 (35 on Opening Day)
Contract status: Third year of 4yr/$60 million deal ($16 million salary)
2015 Recap
What a difference a year makes. After a very disappointing 2014 season, Curtis Granderson had his best year at the plate since 2011. After a dismal .227/.326/.388 from the slugger in 2014, Granderson hit .259/.364/.457 with 26 home runs, coming out to a 132 wRC+.
Granderson saw a significant increase in his power, with his ISO rising from .161 to .198, his best since 2012. He aso added six homers to his 2014 total of 20.
Defensively, Granderson had an excellent year as well. He ended the year with a positive 11 DRS and 5.9 UZR. Both are huge swings from the year before. In fact, he improved so much that he was named a Gold Glove Award finalist.
All in all, Granderson’s across the board improvements did wonders for his overall value. Both Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference valued him at 5.1 Wins Above Replacement after giving him a 1.2 mark in 2014.
2016 Projections
Steamer – 682 PAs, .232/.329/.412, 24 HR
Marcel – 606 PAs, .240/.333/.414, 20 HR
It’s not reasonable to expect Granderson to match or exceed his 2015 numbers next season, but most signs indicate he has changed his approach for good. He will definitely exceed his projections.
Granderson has become a completely different hitter since leaving the Yankees a few years ago. At one point a free-swinger with incredible power, he has become a tactical, discipled hitter with a great eye. In his last year with the Yankees, Granderson swung at 44.8 percent of pitches. This past season, that number dropped to just 37.7 percent. Now, that’s not necessarily a good thing, but Granderson has been swinging at far fewer pitches outside the strike zone and missing on far fewer of his swings. His contact percentage is up over 12 percent from two years ago. He is hitting more pitches both inside and outside the strike zone.
What is the result of all this? Granderson saw his line drive rate jump from 18.9 percent to 27.1 percent. He significantly decreased his pull rate, hitting more balls up the middle and to left field. No longer is he the pull-happy slugger he was with the Yankees.
Ironically, the change has come under new hitting coach Kevin Long, who also coached him when he was a pull-happy Yankees slugger. Granderson and Long worked on simplifying his swing, and the difference is noticeable. There is far less movement in the loading stage of Grandy’s swing, and he’s keeping his hands much more still.
Check out what his swing looked like in 2014:
Of course he still hit a home run in this video, but he had a bit of a looping action going on with his hands. That’s fine for pulling an inside pitch over the right field fence, but can become a problem in other situations.
Now take a look at his swing in the World Series this year, where he hits a home run to dead center field. He still has a little hitch with his hands as a timing mechanism, but is otherwise quiet. Especially for someone like Granderson, limiting that pre-swing movement can really open up the middle and outer part of the plate.
The results were clear: Granderson was able to access much more of the zone than he was in 2014. Check out his whiffs (miss) per swing by zone in 2014:
Now compare that to 2015:
All of this leads me to believe that Granderson can put up numbers pretty close to what he did in 2015. Call it a mechanical change, call it a changed approach, or call it a combination of both. Granderson is simply a different hitter than he was in 2014. His numbers weren’t driven by an unreasonably-high BABIP nor was his power fueled by a high HR/FB rate (although both were elevated).
There is virtually no chance Granderson hits 30 or 40 home runs next season, but he’s probably all the better for it. Having a multi-dimensional hitter like 2015 Grandy is exactly what the Met lineup needs. Even with his advancing age, something along the lines of .250/.355/.450 for Granderson is not only plausible, but would provide tremendous value at the top of the Mets’ order.
