Top Stories of 2006 -- Jimmy Rollins hit streak ends

by WholeCamels on Dec 12, 2006 10:45 PM EST in News

Over the next few weeks, The Good Phight will review some of the top stories of the 2006 baseball season. To that end, we're going to focus on in-season, on-the-field events.

The first major story of the 2006 season was also one of the biggest stories of that offseason; namely, shortstop Jimmy Rollins' still-breathing 36 game hitting streak.

Last winter, baseball fans were treated to countless feature stories, interview, and articles from all corners of print and broadcast media, from ESPN to George Will, profiling the press friendly and photogenic Phillies shortstop. Already the longest streak ever for an African-American player, debate raged as to whether a streak interrupted by the offseason would count as a streak in the event Rollins were to challenge the league record streaks of Pete Rose and Joe DiMaggio.

We never found out the answer, however, as Jimmy's streak ended at (unofficially) 38 games in the third game of the season; fittingly, the third game of a home series sweep at the hands of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Undeterred, Rollins went on to have a peculiar and excellent season, socking 25 homers, topping his previous career high of 14, and playing a key role in the Phillies' second half deja vu near-miss Wild Card surge. While a long-shot candidate to have another lengthy hitting streak, late last summer and into this September we were given a chance to cheer on one of the game's most genuinely likeable and entertaining young stars.

The Good Philes:

Jimmy Rollins: Anatomy of a Hit Streak

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Comments

nothing compares

...to September Jimmy. if he can't find a stroke for the first half of the season, i hope he at least brings this A+ game again during late season.

by gr on Dec 13, 2006 12:26 PM EST reply actions

Mr. September

Career splits for the month: .289/.343/.481
For April: .266/.326/.375

Actually, JImmy's second-worst month, by career, is July (.262/.324/.389), but his first-half/second-half splits bear out the impression that he finds another gear late: before the break, he's a fairly lame .266/.317/.402 hitter, but after, he's .284/.343/.454.

Also, I think I'd forgotten than he had 83 RBI last year. Considering how almost all of that came from the leadoff spot, that's pretty astonishing in its own right.

by dajafi on Dec 13, 2006 8:19 PM EST up reply actions

overgeneraliztion

going back to the numbers, which i hadn't looked at since the season, its apparent that i overgeneralized. actually, in each of the last three years, he's had a stellar month near the end -- but not exclusively september:

06
sept: 267/303/527
aug: 344/405/580

05
sept: 402/455/648
aug: 188/238/256

04
sept: 310/352/504
aug: 298/389/533

and in 03, he was terrible in aug (233/290/340) and ok in sept (260/345/438). so, it appears this is how myths are born. mistakes like these should get me a gig at WIP.

by gr on Dec 14, 2006 1:46 PM EST up reply actions

ROLLINS TAKES HIS TIME WAKING UP

With Rollins you can break down the dichotomy more effectively by starting even LATER in the season than the mid-point or All-Star break. Best example I have found is August 23, 2005, when Rollins woke up that morning as Rickey Henderson, reincarnate, after going to bed the night before, and for the entire season, to that point, as Endy Chavez, circa Philadelphia and Washington, 2005.

This is a critical matter deserving full scrutiny of the ballclub. Rollins in 2006 was again deployed all season as the leadoff hitter, to the great detriment of the club, until he again, belatedly, jacked it up a notch. What burns me about this is that the Phillies wasted the considerable leadoff ability David Dellucci demonstrated in Texas just the year before, when he was, by my measurement criteria, the BEST leadoff man in the entire American League.

In 2005 Rollins averaged 17 total bases (including walks and HBP) per 27 outs, when leading off an inning. Both Utley and Abreu were in the high 20's. Of the Phillies eight regular position starters in 2005, Rollins graded SEVENTH on this total bases per 27 outs basis, while leading off an inning. Only the offensively-invisible David Bell graded worse.

Why didn't the Phillies know by mid-season, 2005, that Jimmy Rollins was their seventh-best leadoff hitter, and do something about it? I pointed this out to Mike Arbuckle in a detailed study, but of course it fell on deaf ears.

This club, of course, has just missed the playoffs the last two years, and for the above and a multitude of other valid reasons, I have to put it the repeated regular season failures on management, not so much on the players who are not at fault for their being mis-deployed.

by robbybonfire on Dec 14, 2006 2:05 PM EST reply actions

batting order is insignificant

by taco pal on Dec 15, 2006 3:24 PM EST up reply actions

BETTER TAKE ANOTHER LOOK AT THAT COMMENT

What IS significant is when a leadoff hitter lingers in the .315-,325 OBP range for most or all of a season. Research I undertook in 2005 determined that when a Phillies batter leading off an inning reached on an extra base hit, the Phillies scored at the rate of 11 runs per nine innings in that situation. When the Phillies leadoff hitter reached first base via walk or single, the Phillies scored at the rate of 4 runs per nine innings in that situation. And when the Phillies leadoff hitter was retired, the Phillies scored at the rate of 2 runs per nine innings in that situation.

This fits nicely with a Bill James observation in one of his Baseball Abstracts to the effect that when the leadoff batter reaches base, teams score 3.5-1 more runs than they do in innings in which the leadoff man is retired.

Please - don't take Bill James' or my word for it. Just do the research for any one month of your choosing to bring yourself into the light, here.

Therefore, per your above comment "Batting order is insignificant," you can amend that to read, "Having a high OBA leadoff hitter with some power is tremendously helpful to an offense."

In a typical year, Jimmy Rollins gets 24% of all Phillies inning leadoff AB's. Therefore, when he is going badly, as is typical until August, it is imperative that the club get him out of there. Imperative but futile to point out, as we know. Phillies management just plays through a fog from April to September.

by robbybonfire on Dec 16, 2006 8:09 AM EST up reply actions