Hayes is currently hurt and rehabbing his back in the ML's. He's being brought along slowly.
Someone needs to make an appointment with these guys:
Someone needs to make an appointment with these guys:
OT: Pirates Ke'Bryan Hayes a bust?
- Thread starter PittPoker
- Start date
You just don't believe in facts. His career batting average is .256, and the average for all players in MLB this year is .248. Which means that he is an above average hitter. Or as you would have it, more than half of MLB hitters are abysmal.
Here's the problem with that statement. Someone is only engaging in hyperbole if they are intentionally exaggerating something. He isn't. He truly believes, despite any facts to the contrary, that Hayes is a complete bust.
When you really believe what you said it isn't hyperbole.
Hayes is currently hurt and rehabbing his back in the ML's. He's being brought along slowly.
Someone needs to make an appointment with these guys:
I think he'd be better off with these guys:
Nuance is definitely needed here.
I wouldn't call Hayes a bust, but he is most definitely a poor hitter at this point. His .291 wOBA is well below the league average of .320 (this is actually in "awful" territory"), and his offensive contribution to WAR is *negative*. He's a phenomenal 99th percentile defender though, so his overall WAR is positive in the 1.3 range.
Hayes is really a fascinating case as a hitter. He hits the ball pretty damn hard, and he does it often. Avg exit velo is 92.2mph (91st percentile), max at 113.1 (85th). and he's got a super healthy hard hit rate of almost 48%.
In past seasons his problem was that he simply didn't hit enough balls in the air. An average launch angle of <5 degrees and groundball rate north of 50% meant he'd never get to much power in games. Makes sense right? You need to hit the ball hard AND you need to hit it in the air for it to leave the park or at least do damage in the gaps.
Now this year. Hayes continues to hit the ball hard. Hardest of his career in fact. More interesting: he increased his average launch angle to a much more ideal 13 degrees. Cut his groundball rate down to nearly 40%. These were all very exciting developments, and yet the expected power boost never materialized. What happened?
Fangraphs had a great article on this disappointment back in June: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/kebryan-hayes-is-almost-elevating/
TL;DR -- When Hayes hits the ball in the air, it's usually *too* high and/or not sufficiently hard. The majority of his hard hit balls come with poor, low launch angles. Average launch angle can be misleading and what we really need is a measure of % hit at ideal angle with sufficient oomph.
Anyway, Hayes is still fairly young. He needs to make some tweaks and get to his power, otherwise he's looking at a career of significantly below average offensive production. A few more walks would help as well. Absolutely not out of the question that a great athlete who already does hit the ball hard can successfully make said adjustments. So the verdict is still out, although results to this point are disappointing. On the bright side, he's a truly special defender and that gives him value if he can even get his offensive production close to league average. And as others have pointed out, Hayes isn't really expensive if you know anything about how MLB contracts work. It's just that a 2-3 WAR third baseman isn't a grand slam of a signing at that price, and everyone was hoping it would be.
Another good night for Hayes. He’s batting .253 now. I’m starting to think that the only concern moving forward is his health. If he were healthy this year he’d probably have 15 home runs for the year. Not great power of course, but acceptable for a guy who defends the way he does and makes 8 million per year.
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After the home run moments ago, one gets the strange feeling that somehow Hayes senses when Poker ups its criticisms and responds accordingly. If this is true, I hope poker keeps it up and Hayes might end up in the Hall of Fame. Lol
I can’t believe he’s only hitting one run homers. He should have hit a three run homer there.
Actually, Poker and his pal Boob Smizik will surely be shocked by this, but since May 31, that's now 71 days, Hayes is hitting .319/.328/.531.
And for the record, that does not include the at bat he's going to get here in the 9th inning in a couple minutes. Because, you know, it hasn't happened yet.
Don’t you know, Joe. Selective samples only matter when they support your point of view.
Yeah, exactly. Just like with the discussion yesterday on the Pirates' (and other teams) record. If you look at the right end points things look completely different. Unless there is some reason to think otherwise (for a player, mostly injury), better to just look at the whole season rather than look for the end points that you think make your point for you.
Hayes still sucks. He'll be 1 for 23 soon enough.
And I'm sure you'll be quick to come here posting about it, only to disappear during the next stretch he has where he hits well. It's a nice routine we've established this summer.
Wow you really are a piece of work again huh. No I'm not disappearing, I prefer to talk baseball in the summer on blogs that focus on it. I'll post here from time to time but when Pitt isn't playing I rarely come to the boards. And speaking of disappearing, when Hayes was stinking up the place for weeks and weeks and weeks I didn't see you on here discussing it. Now that he hits for 2 games in a row you want to beat your chest. It's comical.
Let's see you here the next time Hayes goes 1 for 19 which knowing him will be pretty soon.
You realize that you present really strong opinions, right? And that those strong opinions will result in people presenting counter arguments? Disagreeing with you doesn't make me a piece of work. It just means I think your entire take here has been hyperbolic and without nuance.
I see this thread is still going on. Hayes is a league average hitter who is one of the best defensive third basemen in the majors. That was the expectation when he was signed to the extension, so why are we considering him a bust now? It’s too early to say injuries haven’t made the contract worth it.
Ok, maybe that should be directed to Poker then.
A double and 2 more RBI's so far today.
C’mon man, you’re short-changing him, it was a triple not a double!!
He's a Bust.......as in BUSTIN' OUT!!!
His contract will be one of the best bargains in baseball!!!
I mean all of you are piling on poker, but he did this at the beginning of June then was god awful for the next two months plus being hurt.
The fact is, he has not proven to be even an average hitter over long stretches and is much closer to awful than good
The fact is, he has not proven to be even an average hitter over long stretches and is much closer to awful than good
I disagree. Discounting the 2020 Covid season, he quite literally has been a league average hitter his entire career. The streakiness tends to distract people- that’s a valid criticism- but there’s nothing to suggest he’s an awful hitter when assessing his entire body of work.
Current 2023 MLB BA: .248
Current 2023 Hayes BA: .255
2022 MLB BA: .243
2022 Hayes BA: .244
2021 MLB BA: .244
2021 Hayes BA: .257
2020 MLB BA: .245
2020 Hayes BA: .376 (over 24 games)*
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RE: KennyHeisman8:
The fact is, he has not proven to be even an average poster over long stretches and is much closer to awful than good
PS: Narduzzi is the best football coach at Pitt since Sherrill!!
Using an ONLY BA is a pretty outdated method. Throw in ops, ops+, and in general every other advanced stat and it tells a story he kind of stinks. Jose tabata’s careee ba was .275 so was he good?
He wasn’t, but he’s better than Hayes
See, this is exactly the problem. In your and Poker's world he's been god awful since the beginning of June.
Meanwhile, here in the real world since May 31 he is now hitting .319/.331/.538. Which is anything but god awful. And which anyone who knows anything at all about baseball knows.
But he, and apparently you, think that if you are just loud enough the facts won't matter.
That’s fair, and Hayes’ OPS is lower than league averages. However, I don’t think comparing him to someone like Tabata is apples-to-apples because Tabata was also a below average defender while Hayes is arguably the best defensive third baseman in baseball. I think that alone makes his contract worth it when you have other hitters who complement his offense. Just my opinion, though.
The fact is actually that it was a premature overreaction that was no different than wanting Capel fired before the first media timeout of every game thread.
Speaking of which, what in the heck was the center fielder thinking there? He charges hard into the gap and dives for the ball, and comes up way short. He had no chance to catch that ball, and that was pretty apparent right from the off. Obviously the inning plays out completely differently there if that's a single and first and third, maybe the Pirates score two runs anyway, but in a 7-5 game those two runs that inning were big.
League average is not the standard to which a #1 should be compared with. Here is who he should be compared to, * are those who would "arguably" be better fielders
2022 3rd baseman NL
*Arenado Stl .293/.358/.533 with 30 homers and 103 RBIs
Machado SD .298/.366/.531 with 32 homers and 102 RBIs
Riley Atl. .273/.349/.528 wth 38 Homers and 93 RBIs
Turner LAD .278/.350/.438 with 13 Homers 81 RBIs
*Ryan McMahon .246/.327/.414 with 20 Homers and 67 RBIs
Hayes Pitt .244/.315/.345 with 7 Homers and 41 RBIs
He sucks minus a couple weeks here or there. His swing is still terrible, slices the ball all the time. He'll be back stinking up the place soon.
Good post. Solid. It's amazing to me the Hayes fanboys on here that want to beat their chest because he had a really nice series but has been terrible as a hitter almost his whole career. Couldn't hit in the minors either. But according to like 3 or 4 on here he's worth way more than his contract and the Pirates got a steal lol. Too funny.
