Before we go any further, this analysis is not intended as a criticism of Miguel Tejada.  It is also not an attempt to say that he should be traded.  It is simply a quick analysis of his season – a game of what-if.

 

The first thing that jumps out when looking at Tejada’s raw numbers is his home run totals since coming to Baltimore: 34 – 26 – 22.  A lot of us assumed his drop in home runs last year was due to the situation with Palmeiro.  This year seems to be an indication that maybe there was more to it than just the Palmeiro situation. 

 

There’s another disturbing trend with Tejada’s numbers: ISO.  His Isolated Power (SLG minus BA) the last three years has been .224 – .211 – .166.  This isn’t the first time he’s had an ISO drop.  His ISO’s the last three years in Oakland were .209 – .199 – .193.  He was able to rebound quite nicely from that slide, so there’s no reason he can’t do it again, right?  Well, there are two reasons to question the likelihood of a full rebound.  First, a drop from .209 to .193 is a lot less drastic than a drop from .224 to .166.  Secondly, his “Oakland decline” was coupled with fairly stable groundball and flyball rates, while the current decline is coupled with a steadily rising groundball rate.

 

His annual FB% (flyballs divided by balls in play) the last five seasons have been 35.1 – 34.9 – 34.2 – 33.4 – 26.5.  This is obviously significant because fewer flyballs means fewer home runs.  This trend is also a concern because as power hitters get older they tend to hit more groundballs.  The bright side is that this rate just isn’t likely to go any lower.  26.5 is also so far below the previous four seasons, but that it has to be looked at as an aberration – at least until next season.

 

Either way, even an ISO of .166 is .033 points higher than the average shortstop.  So even with an obvious decline in power, Miguel Tejada is still probably the premier power hitting shortstop in the game.

 

One way he’s made up for a decline in power this year has been with what have been by far the highest BA and OBP of his career.  So how likely is this to continue? 

 

One statistic that really fuels a player’s batting average is BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play).  While batters have quite a bit of control over BABIP, they still don’t have as much control over it as they do other stats (even though they have much more control over it than do pitchers).  It isn’t a coincidence that Tejada’s 2006 BABIP of .347 is by far the best of his career.  Of course, that could be a bad sign in terms of his future performance.  .347 is .057 points higher than his career average of .290 coming into the 2006 season, as well as .030 points higher than his previous career high.

 

We should not be surprised to see a significant decline in Tejada’s 2007 BABIP.  So what would a drop mean to his overall numbers?  We can get an idea by making adjustments to his 2006 Hits, Doubles and Triples.  We can adjust his BABIP by adjusting the number of hits he gets.  We would then have to adjust his doubles and triples since they would change as his number of hits changes.

 

Tejada had an overall BABIP of .313 during his first two seasons in Baltimore.  Adjusting his 2006 hits total from 202 down to 185 would lower his BABIP to .314.  Adjust his 2B% (percentage of in-play hits that became doubles) so that it is close to what it was in 2006, and he ends up with 33 doubles.  He had no triples, so no adjustment is needed.  What do you end up with?  A line of .302 / .353 / .463 / .816 with an ISO of .162 (compared to an actual line of .330 / .379 / .496 / .874 with a .166 ISO).  Again, while that represents a .058 point drop in OPS, .816 is still much better than a typical SS OPS of about .744.  Of course, considering the black holes of 1B and LF in the Orioles lineup, a .058 point drop at another position is significant.

 

So what if his BABIP drops to say .300, or even down to his previous career BABIP of .290?  We ran the numbers to find out.  Making the same adjustments as made above, the following chart shows his prospective numbers with the aforementioned BABIP’s (AL is the average 2006 AL SS):

 

 

As touched on earlier, don’t take this as a prediction of Tejada’s 2007 performance.  It is simply a game of what if.  Factors in his favor include what has to be considered an aberration of a FB%, and Tejada being in what we’re all hoping will be an improved lineup next year.  Unless they make significant upgrades at other positions to offset his loss, here’s a vote for keeping Miguel Tejada in Baltimore for at least another season.  Unless, of course, someone blows them away with an offer.