FanPost

Heisey: No reverse splits in minors


There has been much discussion regarding Chris Heisey's inexplicable apparent "bizarro" splits in which he has recently hit right-handed pitchers much better than lefties, which runs contrary to logic, physics, and everything my grandpa told me while seated on a barstool.

While Heisey DOES have bizarro splits in MLB over the last two years, this is likely due to the small sample size of 150 ABs vs. lefties in MLB, many of which were compiled during a lingering mid-2011 injury where he was forced into the lineup while still hurting. Additionally, Heisey has suffered a .232 BABIP vs MLB LHP, which is CRAZY low.

According to FanGraphs:

The average BABIP for hitters is around .290 to .310. If you see any player that deviates from this average to an extreme, they’re likely due for regression.

To help us understand whether he truly hits righties better than lefties, it makes sense for us to compare this small sample size to another pool of information: his minor league numbers.

Using minorleaguesplits.com spreadsheets, I was able to get Heisey's minor league numbers from 2008-2010 (2006 and 2007 would not load for me, so I'm calling those irrelevant for simplicity/laziness purposes).

From 2008-10 in the minors, Heisey has 342 PAs vs. RHP and 104 PAs vs. LHP.

MLB AVG vs. RHP: .288

minors AVG vs. RHP: .271

MLB AVG vs. LHP: .180

minors AVG vs. LHP: .323

MLB OBP vs. RHP: .346

minors OBP vs. RHP: .314

MLB OBP vs. LHP: .248

minors OBP vs. LHP:.400

MLB SLG vs. RHP: .539

minors SLG vs. RHP: .452

MLB SLG vs. LHP: .300

minors SLG vs. LHP: .516

MLB OPS vs. RHP: .885

minors OPS vs. RHP: .766

MLB OPS vs. LHP: .548

minors OPS vs. LHP: .916

MLB BABIP VS. RHP: .323

minors BABIP vs. RHP: .315

MLB BABIP vs. LHP: .232

minors BABIP vs. LHP:.360

So while this glance is far from perfect, I think we can see here that what we have witnessed for Heisey has been a streak of bad luck from a BABIP perspective when facing LHP at the MLB level. Get ready for some serious regression in 2012, as Heisey will likely hit righties far better than lefties.

Now we know. And knowing is half the battle!

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