Start me up

Inevitably, the first week of Major League Baseball brings about a few candidates for breakout seasons. Players arise from under the radar with huge hitting performances or a couple of crazy outings on the mound, but only a few have the underlying skills to maintain that sort of performance. Nonetheless, we are all prone to overreaction in April for a couple of reasons. First of all, the first dozen games fall under greater scrutiny since it breaks up the professional sports doldrums toward the end of the NBA and NHL regular seasons; with all eyes on the diamond, those who shine the brightest gain disproportionate exposure. Secondly, players look better as a function of how we look at a stat sheet. Anybody can have a couple of great weeks- hitting three homers in a week happens dozens of times through the year. Doing it in the first week of the season, though, thrusts a player to the top of the league leaderboard. Rates stats are even more impressive, as a .500 batting average looks incredible at any point, but we only see it as a cumulative stat very early in the year.

Sometimes, streaking out of the gate leads to a breakout season or a career year. Consider Brian Roberts in 2005. After two singles in his first two games, Roberts went on a tear with 22 hits in his next 12 games, including five homers and three triples. His batting average peaked at .449 during that streak, and he stretched out the strong performance over the ensuing months. He managed three hitting streaks of at least 10 games in the first half of the season, kept his average above .370 consistently through May, and remained at .358/.432/.618 with 14 round trippers on July 4^th. He wore down a bit after his first All-Star appearance, but still posted a career best .314/.387/.515 at the end of the season, demonstrating that a strong start can hint of great things to come.

On the other hand, a fluky-looking start is often exactly what it appears to be. Chris Shelton’s insane bat tricks catapulted the Tigers to a strong start last season, and seven homeruns in nine games made it appear that he was on track for a monster year. No one realistically expected him to maintain his 1.835 OPS from April 10^th, but few anticipated how precipitous his decline would be. I distinctly recall an ESPN poll asking how many homeruns Shelton would mash by season’s end, and the overwhelming majority voted that he would hit at least 30, some even going as high as 40. I took pride in my restraint for picking the 20-29 HR range, and I ended up missing the mark as well. On the Price is Right, Bob Barker would have had to disdainfully inform the viewing public that we had all overbid: despite adding three more dingers in April, Shelton failed to set a career high in homers despite it being his first year as a starter. He was bad enough in May and June that the Tigers added popless wonder Sean Casey in July to improve their offensive output at first base. After starting out in four digits for almost three weeks, Shelton’s slugging percentage bottomed out on the last day of the season at .466.

Roberts and Shelton contrast sharply, and each case provides an anecdotal example of the divergent paths a season can take from a strong start. Like every other season, 2007 has seen a few players come scorching out of spring training. Some will spoil like Shelton after additional exposure to the sun. Others, like Roberts, are flashing improvements or development that hints at a new level of performance, albeit one slightly below the eye-popping levels we have witnessed thusfar. What follows is an assessment of a few of this year’s surprising hot starts and the likelihood that they will persist.

Alex Rodriguez- Smart baseball people said it time and again: don’t believe the hype. A-Rod had a few poorly timed slumps, and probably legitimately started pressing due to the extra attention over the last couple of years. A few members of the New York media even asked if A-Rod had started to decline, whether he would ever reach the levels he established in Texas for the Bombers. A dramatic walk-off grand slam, 11 RBIs in 6 games, and an OPS over 1.400 later, A-Rod started hearing an elusive sound for his sore eardrums- cheers from the Bronx crowd. Obviously, his current pace is unsustainable, but with his previously established level of performance, A-Rod’s hot start is more of a reminder that he is a perennial MVP contender than a breakout. With the grip of the albatross slightly loosening around his neck, look for more big things from Derek Jeter’s red-headed step sister.

Grady Sizemore­­- Unseasonably intense blizzards on the Jake took the bat out of Sizemore’s hands over the weekend, but three quick homeruns got his name in the headlines. A .429 average and seven runs in three games have also helped to get Sizemore some well deserved press. While his list of accomplishments is considerably shorter than A-Rod’s, Sizemore is also no Chris Shelton. Coming off of a 134 run season with an OPS over .900 with premium centerfield defense, Sizemore has already established himself in the murderers’ row of a lineup also featuring Travis Hafner and Victor Martinez. A meaningful step forward here might mean his first .300 average or 30 homer season, but if Sizemore merely replicates his 2006 value for a few more years, he will have had a tremendously successful career.

Mike Jacobs- The Florida first baseman has posted a downright Sheltonian .435/.500/.870 line in his first six games, including six extra base hits out of his ten total hits. At 26, it is conceivable that Jacobs has taken a big step forward from his .262/.325/.473 line last season, showing the bat that he flashed in 100 ABs with the Mets in 2005, where he hammered 11 HRs for a .710 slugging average. It was that power potential that made Jacobs a major piece of the deal that sent Carlos Delgado to New York, and the Marlins hold out hope that he will get some of it back this year. While I believe that his start is mostly aberrant, I also think that Jacobs is due for a noticeable step forward as he moves toward his peak years. PECOTA’s projection of .271/.340/.493 sounds reasonable, perhaps with a slightly stronger slugging percentage. With a fuller implement of playing time, I can even see the possibility of a 30 homerun season if I squint hard enough.

Akinori Iwamura- A .529 average for Tampa’s Japanese import makes him the odds on favorite for inducing the most “Who the hell…?” comments from curmudgeonly fans squinting at the leader board in the Sunday newspaper. The Baseball Tonight crew tackled Iwamura’s hot start on Sunday’s show, commenting that the D-Rays anticipated tremendous defensive value while worrying that he may not provide enough of a well-rounded offensive game to be an above-average player. Recent Japanese imports have demonstrated that batting average is far easier to translate across the Pacific than homerun power, so Iwamura’s three consecutive 30+ HR years are likely a thing of the past. High strikeout rates in his past could mean one of two things- either he swung out of his shoes in Japan knowing that he could hit homeruns and will adjust to hit for more contact in the States, or that he lacks adequate pitch recognition skills. I believe that the answer draws more from column A than from column B, and that Iwamura will make the necessary adjustments to be an average big league hitter. Nonetheless, do not be afraid to hold your breath waiting for him to come back to Earth; a big regression to the mean is definitely in the cards. Even if Iwamura continues to exceed expectations with the bat, he is probably the team’s sixth most dangerous batter in an optimistic view (behind Crawford, Gomes, Baldelli, Young, and Dukes), not to mention top prospect Evan Longoria, coming quickly down the pipeline to challenge Iwamura at third base.