Yankees defeat Devil Rays 7-3, and a Bobby Abreu discussion

The Yanks won last night as Derek Jeter, A-Rod, and Bobby Abreu all homered. Andy Pettitte, who was coming off two straight horrendous performances that inflated his ERA from 3.24 to 4.25, was a little shaky but he got the win.

Let's talk about Bobby Abreu, whose offensive performance is now commonly believed to be the deciding factor in the team's ability to score runs. In the five seasons prior to 2007, Abreu never ended a year with an OBP under .405 or a SLG under .462. He also averaged over 30 steals per season at a reasonable 79% success rate. Does that sound like a declining player to you? Me neither.

For whatever reason, he had a startlingly bad first half by his standards, hitting .276/.356/.390. A 102 adjusted OPS (OPS+) simply isn't Bobby Abreu. If you consider him to be the same player he's been over the previously mentioned past five years, that OPS+ would fall over 2.5 standard deviations away from the mean were it to remain steady for the remainder of his 2007 campaign.

So is this season's Bobby Abreu the sensational five-tool player he's been for nearly ten years, or is it the 2003 Bernie Williams version? Is he merely slumping or is he beginning to decline?

Let's take a look at his BABIP over the course of his career:


That wasn't Bobby Abreu's BABIP over the course of his career. That was duck rape, a fascinating topic in itself. Here is Bobby Abreu's BABIP over the course of his career, courtesy of fangraphs.com:


His 2007 BABIP is slightly out of alignment, but not enough to explain how bad he's been this year. Another relevant peripheral statistic in analyzing Bobby Abreu's drop-off is pitches seen per plate appearance. Bobby Abreu has been an on-base monster over the course of his career because of his superb batter's eye and willingness to work the count. If he loses those abilities, he loses much of his effectiveness. Here is a Bobby Abreu season-by-season NP/PA chart (data unavailable before 1999):


There's a concerning sharp drop-off from his previous five seasons, but he's still above his 1999 and 2001 NP/PA. Lastly, let's take a look at his GB/FB/LD distribution, again thanks to fangraphs.com:


Again, there is a troubling decline in line drives this season, but he's still been successful with such peripherals in other seasons (in this case, 2004).

Taking all of this data and mallard mating habits into consideration, I think it's pretty clear what's going on with Bobby Abreu, and the answer to our original question (slump or decline?) falls between the two extremes. After hitting 15HR last season, the lowest full season total of his career, Bobby Abreu is doing the whole "trying too hard because of the pressure in New York" thing. He's trying to hit home runs when he should be doing what he does best, just getting on base. This is resulting in him seeing less pitches per plate appearance and hitting more fly balls than he should be. It is obvious that Abreu no longer has 30HR power, but there's no reason for him not to get on base over 40% of the time.

My prediction is that he'll make the appropriate adjustments in his approach to hitting in the second half of the season. A batter of his caliber simply has to be excellent at making such adjustments. Provided that he avoids injury in the second half, I'm forecasting a final OPS+ of 113 with a standard deviation of 6.