33 replies to this topic

[Plympton91]

This guy is fast becoming one of my least favorite Red Sox of all time. His power disappeared last July, and this year he's barely an improvement over Lars Anderson's MLE. They knew he was damaged goods when they traded for him, then let a one mmonth hot streak convince them to spend a boatload of money and now we're stuck with yet another potential albatross contract. Time to let this guy hear the boo birds until he picks it up. His play has been atrocioius.

[curly2]

I don't care about fans letting him hear it, I just want him and the team to fix whatever is wrong. After tonight he is .262/.317/.407/.724.

What's even worse is the quality of at-bats he's having. He has gone 19 games without a walk. I double even Shea Hillenbrand pulled it off.

If it is his shoulder, they need to attend to it, even if it means season-ending surgery. Obviously I hope it's anything BUT that, but right now he's not helping.

[absintheofmalaise]

This guy is fast becoming one of my least favorite Red Sox of all time. His power disappeared last July, and this year he's barely an improvement over Lars Anderson's MLE. They knew he was damaged goods when they traded for him, then let a one mmonth hot streak convince them to spend a boatload of money and now we're stuck with yet another potential albatross contract. Time to let this guy hear the boo birds until he picks it up. His play has been atrocioius.

You are correct that he is having a down year, but do you really think that booing would help out the situation? I mean, you're talking about a guy who volunteered to play out of position to help the team out here. Anyone else you want to boo? How about Pedroia? He's not hitting great right now. He might have a season ending injury. Aceves blew it tonight. Maybe Aviles. He had a costly error. Maybe you could go down to the Bucket and boo Bard next time he pitches.

[genivive]

How about just giving the guy a few days off?

[absintheofmalaise]

How about just giving the guy a few days off?

That's just silly. You wouldn't get a chance to go boo the guy if he had some days off.

[brs3]

You can pick any guy on the Red Sox to boo, and you pick this guy? The guy who moved to RF, opening up the opportunity to have his bat, Youk's bat, and WMB's bat in the lineup at the same time? The Red Sox are 10-6 since he started putting time in RF. Take a look at the box scores. Who's knocking in runs? Who's winning games? If he stays at 1B the entire time, you don't see Youk, WMB, and Papi, during IL, doing what they've been doing.

[StuckOnYouk]

When Adrian signed that monster deal who would have thought a year or so later that an even-older Papi and Saltalamacchia would flash far more power than him.

Something's up with this guy. Either he re-injured his shoulder at some point around the all-star break or he's having a hellacious mental issue when he's in the box. Cuz this sure as hell aint the same person who was lighting up deep NL West parks making us think he'd hit 50 easy moving to Fenway. And it isn't the guy who was flipping balls over the fence and off the wall in the first half of 2011.

But I still wouldn't boo him. Only a-holes should be booed, and Gonzo is far from it.

[SMU_Sox]

It looks to me like the biggest difference is that he is worse against fastballs than in his entire career (wFB -3.8). To keep this in perspective last year he had a wFB of 40.1 and in 2010 he had a wFB of 20.1.

There are a few trends in his plate discipline.

Adrian Gonzalez Plate Discipline

Year	Team	O-Swing%	Z-Swing%	Swing%	O-Contact%	Zone%
2009	Padres	23.10%	71.30%	44.70%	57.90%	44.80%
2010	Padres	31.80%	70.70%	48.80%	64.50%	43.60%
2011	Red Sox	35.50%	69.90%	49.20%	72.10%	39.80%
2012	Red Sox	36.80%	74.60%	52.10%	75.70%	40.60%

He's swinging at more pitches outside of the zone, swinging more in general, making more contact, and seeing fewer pitches in the strike zone.
I think it would be fair to say some of his plate discipline statistics are trending downward. Why? I don't know. There have been many theories thrown out there but I don't feel comfortable picking one over others.

[Harry Hooper]

Cheating to catch up to fastballs will lead to committing to swing earlier = swinging at more bad pitches.

[SMU_Sox]

Cheating to catch up to fastballs will lead to committing to swing earlier = swinging at more bad pitches.

Yeah but if he is trying to hone in on fastballs at the expense of effectiveness against offspeed pitches you would think he would be a lot better against them, right?
I'd be interested to know what % of fastballs are being thrown in the strike zone against him. Is it that he isn't catching up to fastballs? Guessing wrong on them? Or are pitchers throwing fastballs outside of the zone to him and getting him to chase?

Just an FYI fangraphs lists the effectiveness rate against pitches. I quoted a total earlier but even if you look at averages against pitches A-Gone is still down on his fastball effectiveness (-2.55 cs 1.28 career average, and 2.65 last year). He is doing well against breaking pitches so far this year FWIW.

[Harry Hooper]

Adrian's great strength as a hitter in his MLB career is his ability to wait sooooo long before committing to a swing. This is where his opposite field power stroke comes from.

Being early on an inside fastball makes it hard to drive the ball fair in the air. Being early on an fastball away means you're not going to make hard contact very often.

[LondonSox]

Damn you home run derby. Damn you

[LesterFan]

They knew he was damaged goods when they traded for him, then let a one month hot streak convince them to spend a boatload of money.

I'm pretty sure the contract extension was already agreed upon, and it became official in mid-April last year, before his hot streak.

Does anyone have any data on how often he's swinging at the first pitch, and how it compares to the rest of the league? Feels like he's swinging at the first pitch a shit ton this year.

[fineyoungarm]

Remember the 1st half of last season, when Ortiz would talk to the press about how much he was learning about hitting by watching and talking to Gonzalez? The suggestions he had about adjustments? Commentators, who actually knew something about hitting, would swoon over the perfection of his swing? His mental "calmness" at the plate?

That's what concerns me. He does not seem like the type of player whose head can get him THIS out of tune at the plate. It's not age, of course. So, the fear of injury - but not emough to keep him out of the line up - at least until Ellsbury and Crawford come back??? (Not convinced the latter is this season, btw.)

In any event, whether it's his body or his head, he is not a #3 hitter right now. Help the team (and take some of the pressure off the guy) - drop him down in the order to 5th, maybe 6th (hopefully Salty can handle the pressure of moving up) - for an extended spell.

More btw, I am not comforted that he is tied with Josh Hamilton for doubles at 20. I haven't checked to see where those doubles have gone, but how many would have been HRs last year?

Edited by fineyoungarm, 06 June 2012 - 08:26 AM.

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

He had an 893 OPS after the ASG last year. Let's not pretend he turned into Lugo overnight. Overall last year he put up a 155 OPS+, a fine return for his contract.

This year...I dunno. He's struggling, certainly. But we've already seen Ortiz rebound from a bad year. No reason to expect this guy to crater.

[TomRicardo]

If he is injured, now is the time to rest him. You know while you have a healthy Youkilis and Middlebrooks. I will be livid if we find out he had a shoulder injury they tried (as the Red Sox continue to do) let him play through

[mfried]

Gonzalez is potentially the most dependable hitter in the lineup, but in yesterday's 8-6 loss he led the way in poor at-bats in clutch situations. I think the problem is mental rather than physical. This is the moment for Magadan to help give him a frame of reference.

[trekfan55]

First off he has no business hitting in the 3 spot. Ortiz should be ahead of him.

Second, he needs to get a couple of days off and since they are doing the whole Middlebrooks/Youks/Gonzalez carousel why not give him one or two a week?

Third, I am mostly worried about the bat ABs than anything else. He is swinging at first pitches too often (and doing badly on them) which help pitchers off the hook, and he is swinging and missing at too much crap.

[JimBoSox9]

SoxScout blew my mind in the game thread last night with the revelation that the last time Gonzo drew a walk was MAY 15TH. That's 80 plate appearance without watching four balls. For a guy of his hitting talent, just absurd. He's too good to be this mediocre for too long, but I definitely think it's time to be a little more proactive about fixing him than they have been.

Edit: For reference, that's 3 less walks since 5/15 than Cody Ross has.

Edited by JimBoSox9, 06 June 2012 - 12:06 PM.

[C4CRVT]

When I watch him hit, my perception is that he's misjudging the low outside strikes. I haven't done any in depth analysis but I noticed the same thing with CC last year. Watching a pitch 1" outside the strike zone get called a strike seems to mess him all up. He stopped having confidence that he knows what a low outside strike is and in having to guess defending that corner, everything else is vulnerable becasue he's looking there.

[Mike Greenwall]

When I watch him hit, my perception is that he's misjudging the low outside strikes. I haven't done any in depth analysis but I noticed the same thing with CC last year. Watching a pitch 1" outside the strike zone get called a strike seems to mess him all up. He stopped having confidence that he knows what a low outside strike is and in having to guess defending that corner, everything else is vulnerable becasue he's looking there.

I've noticed the same thing. How many strikeouts have ended up with the one arm extended, swingly wildly at the bottom right side of the plate? He just looks like he has no plan up there. Rest him for a few games.

[Clears Cleaver]

he got fewer pitches to hit in SD than he does now and yet he is swinging at more pitches outside the zone. And, he looks awful on some brekaing pitches and can't catch up to decent fastballs....either he got old very fast or perhaps his eyesight is deteriorating

[Shelterdog]

he got fewer pitches to hit in SD than he does now and yet he is swinging at more pitches outside the zone. And, he looks awful on some brekaing pitches and can't catch up to decent fastballs....either he got old very fast or perhaps his eyesight is deteriorating

Or he's having the same kind of slump that happens to a player or two on pretty much every single team pretty much every single year.

[joyofsox]

SoxScout blew my mind in the game thread last night with the revelation that the last time Gonzo drew a walk was MAY 15TH. That's 80 plate appearance without watching four balls. For a guy of his hitting talent, just absurd. He's too good to be this mediocre for too long, but I definitely think it's time to be a little more proactive about fixing him than they have been.

And he walked in his first PA on May 15, so the streak is officially 83 PAs.

And BV has him hitting 6th tonight.

[Plympton91]

He became a regular at the beginning of the 2006 season. Looking through his monthly splits, he was this bad in April/May of 2006, and also in July/July of 2007. He had a pathetic July in 2009 coupled with a low avg/slg in June 2009 but still a .450 OBP that month. So, it's his worst two month stretch in 2 years, but it's not completely unprecedented. If he would snap out of it, like, right now, that would be good. kthxbye

[glennhoffmania]

I wouldn't be surprised if the shuttling between 1B and RF isn't part of the issue. They need to leave him at 1B full time, and figure out the Youkilis/Middlebrooks situation as soon as possible.

[curly2]

Or he's having the same kind of slump that happens to a player or two on pretty much every single team pretty much every single year.

A slump doesn't usually last a third of the season. For Adrian Gonzalez to have an OPS of .727 on June 6 is more than just a slump.

[Pumpsie]

I know these guys have their eyes tested all the time, but if Adrian hasn't has his tested lately, I'd start there, and I mean really extensive eye tests.

But what's so puzzling to me is that he seemed to fall off a cliff, power-wise, after last year's HR Derby. I have yet to hear a valid explanation of why. Did he hurt himself in that contest? Did it screw up his swing, as so many warn HR contests tend to do? The HR switch clicked off right there and his bat has seemed to be slowing down ever since. It's getting so I don't want to see him coming up with a runner on first...the grounder to second seems almost inevitable in that situation.

We know that the overwhelming majority of posters on this board would NOT make either the Lackey or Crawford signings again. How about the Adrian Gonzalez trade?

Edited by Pumpsie, 06 June 2012 - 04:10 PM.

[mauidano]

Or he's having the same kind of slump that happens to a player or two on pretty much every single team pretty much every single year.

This is pretty much it. Gonzo is a great hitter with a sweet stroke. He'll get it right. I do wish he would improve the plate discipline and stop swinging at so many first pitches. Part of being a great hitter is working the count sometimes. A few walks wouldn't hurt him any. Keep him in the lineup, he'll get it right. He is that good.

Edited by mauidano, 06 June 2012 - 05:01 PM.

[mabrowndog]

Gordon Edes

Gonzalez has not started a game in the No. 6 hole since 9/12/06. He went 4 for 5

Edited by mabrowndog, 06 June 2012 - 05:23 PM.

[Harry Hooper]

Adrian hit 2 homers and 5 doubles in the 20 games before the ASG and 1 homer and 5 doubles in the 20 games after the ASG.

[JimBoSox9]

Wrong thread

Edited by JimBoSox9, 06 June 2012 - 07:00 PM.

[Reverend]

Wrong thread

This.

[bosox79]

Not that its really relevent, but at least he has mashed with runners in scoring position. He sucks in the ideal place to suck if youre gonna suck. i know thats just random and SSS.