Jose Ramirez is starting to remind me of Carlos Baerga, who pretty suddenly went from All-Star to journeyman after about 6 years with the team back in the 90's. Jose has more speed and power than Baerga did, but his drop off in productivity has been even more precipitous than Carlos's was. Back then there were rumors of Baerga and Jose Mesa closing down a lot of bars around town, but I have no idea if they were true. Likewise, I have no idea what has happened to Ramirez except that last August teams started pitching him differently and he has yet to adjust to it. According to Tom Hamilton last night, Ramirez very rarely sees a fastball for a strike. They are attacking him early in the count with breaking pitches and change-ups, and putting him away with high fastballs out of the strike zone.
Jose Ramirez is starting to remind me of Carlos Baerga, who pretty suddenly went from All-Star to journeyman after about 6 years with the team back in the 90's. Jose has more speed and power than Baerga did, but his drop off in productivity has been even more precipitous than Carlos's was. Back then there were rumors of Baerga and Jose Mesa closing down a lot of bars around town, but I have no idea if they were true. Likewise, I have no idea what has happened to Ramirez except that last August teams started pitching him differently and he has yet to adjust to it. According to Tom Hamilton last night, Ramirez very rarely sees a fastball for a strike. They are attacking him early in the count with breaking pitches and change-ups, and putting him away with high fastballs out of the strike zone.
Yeah, I don't think that different pitching explains Ramirez's drop-off. (maybe only a little)(it's not like they were pitching him underhand)
According to Tom Hamilton last night, Ramirez very rarely sees a fastball for a strike. They are attacking him early in the count with breaking pitches and change-ups, and putting him away with high fastballs out of the strike zone.
FS1 put up a graph during Saturday's NYY vs CLE game while Ramirez was batting that showed this year he is seeing a higher rate of fastballs this year as compared to last.
The graph showed:
2018
51% of pitches were fastballs and his BA was .304
2019
54% of pitches were fastballs and his BA is .201
Jose's drop-off in production since last August is almost mind boggling. I can only imagine how much this is messing with his head while at the plate at this point.
I think Ramirez's problems are pretty obvious. At least too me after watching my first game on tv last week. I live in NC and rarely get to see games. I tend to listen to them on my Sirius/XM.
His mechanics are all out of whack. He dips his shoulder for what I can only guess is to get the increased launch angle. He swings too hard and is always trying to pull the ball
He need to get on the batting tee then in the cage and spend time taking smooth swings driving the ball to the opposite field.
Until he changes his mental approach at the plate of trying to hit every pitch out of teh park, he is going to stay in this slump.
To me, it is blatantly obvious. Not sure if the hitting coach doesn't see it or just can't get him to understand it.
Last edited by Jester; 06/10/1901:32 PM.
Don't blame the clown for acting like a clown. Ask yourself why you keep going to the circus.
Seven Reasons Behind Jose Ramirez's Strange and Steep Decline By TOM VERDUCCI June 10, 2019
CLEVELAND — Jose Ramirez is broken, and nobody around the Indians seems to know why.
It is one of the strangest, steepest declines in recent memory. In a span of 102 games, beginning Aug. 18, 2018, Ramirez fell from being one of the five to 10 best players to the worst hitter in baseball, at least by batting average among regulars. The Cleveland third baseman has batted .189 over those 102 games. No one else with at least 250 at-bats has been worse. It has been not just his hitting. His defense has collapsed in that same span.
“It’s been hard on him,” said Victor Rodriguez, one of the Indians’ hitting coaches. “We tell him every day, ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your season.’ But it’s hard not to worry when the numbers are staring at you every day.”
To understand the magnitude of this collapse, you have to understand the historic proportions of how well Ramirez played in the previous three seasons. Once thought of as a utility player–the Indians signed a toasty 37-year-old Juan Uribe in 2016 to be their third baseman because nobody thought Ramirez was ready to be an everyday player–Ramirez broke through that year with a .312/.363/.462 season. Then in 2017 he finished third in MVP voting and again in 2018 (even with his late-season collapse last year) while posting OPS+ of 145 and 150 at ages 24 and 25.
Only great players, not fluky players, post back-to-back seasons that good in their prime years. Only 25 players who have been retired for at least five years posted an OPS+ of 145 or better at ages 24 and 25. Twenty of them are Hall of Famers. The other five are borderline Hall of Famers: Fred McGriff, Will Clark, Don Mattingly, Dick Allen and Charlie Keller.
Ramirez, a switch-hitter, stood right over home plate like a sentry, daring pitchers to try to beat him inside with fastballs. Nobody could.
With his strong hands and rounded but powerful body, Ramirez flashed one of the quickest swings in all the game. From Opening Day 2017 to Aug. 18, 2018, Ramirez pulled 42 fastballs for home runs. Nobody else turned on more than 33 fastballs for home runs.
And then, it just stopped.
Since then Ramirez has pulled just four fastballs for home runs. He hasn’t hit a homer of any kind since May 16–even with the baseball flying like never before. His power is missing. His ability to hit the ball squarely has declined.
The root cause of how such a good hitter could become so bad so quickly remains a mystery. But the symptoms are obvious. Here is an examination of Ramirez’s decline by comparing his numbers in 2017-18 before Aug. 18, 2018, and what he has done since:
1. Ramirez can no longer hit fastballs.
Batting Average vs. Fastballs Before Aug. 18 .336 After Aug. 18 .190
2. Ramirez is facing more shifts.
Percent of Pitches Facing a Shift Before Aug. 18 18.1% After Aug. 18 60.1%
“Sometimes he sees the shift,” Rodriguez said, “and like he did [Friday] night he gets a fastball in and tries to hit it the other way. And that’s when he pops up. I tell him, ‘You have to hit the same, like the shift is not there.’ Do what you always do.”
3. His batting average on balls in play has cratered:
BABIP Before Aug. 18 .301 After Aug. 18 .209
4. But that’s not just due to bad luck. It’s because he’s not hitting the ball as hard …
Exit Velocity Before Aug. 18 88.6 mph After Aug. 18 87.8 mph
5. And because he is hitting more pop-ups than anybody in baseball …
Ramirez’s biggest problem is that he is getting pitches to hit and too often pulling them foul or popping them up. Pitchers actually are throwing him more fastballs this year.
Pop-Ups / MLB Rank Before Aug. 18 82 / 14 After Aug. 18 44 / 1
6. He regularly is pulling foul balls.
“A lot of them,” manager Terry Francona said. “And they have been way foul. [Friday] night he had one down the line and I told [bench coach] Brad Mills, ‘At least that one’s not that foul.’”
7. His mechanics have suffered.
“Sometimes you’ll see him drag his back foot when he swings,” Rodriguez said. “You have no base when you do that.”
Slumps hit everyone. Chris Davis had a massive one. Paul Goldschmidt has had one in each of the past two seasons in which a great hitter looks lost for four weeks at a time.
Some players, even great ones, fall off a cliff quickly: Roberto Alomar, Mattingly, Dale Murphy, maybe Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto. But age and injury often are obvious to blame.
Surprised nobody mentioned Big Papi getting shot yesterday. Hopefully he can make a full recovery, but terrible news about someone who's generally considered a good guy. From what I've read, it looked like an attempted murder. Some guy came up behind him, and shot him in the back in a crowded bar. Then tried to run off. Everyone else caught the guy and beat him half-to death before he was arrested.
I think Hamilton's point wasn't that Ramirez isn't seeing fastballs, its that he wasn't seeing them for strikes. Tom said he was seeing fastballs late in the count that were above the strikezone, which might also explain the higher rate of popups and the lower exit velo. He's not getting as many fastballs that he can square up and drive. I also believe that the defensive shifts are messing with his head.
I think Ramirez's problems are pretty obvious. At least too me after watching my first game on tv last week. I live in NC and rarely get to see games. I tend to listen to them on my Sirius/XM.
His mechanics are all out of whack. He dips his shoulder for what I can only guess is to get the increased launch angle. He swings too hard and is always trying to pull the ball
He need to get on the batting tee then in the cage and spend time taking smooth swings driving the ball to the opposite field.
Until he changes his mental approach at the plate of trying to hit every pitch out of teh park, he is going to stay in this slump.
To me, it is blatantly obvious. Not sure if the hitting coach doesn't see it or just can't get him to understand it.
I agree with your take. He got home run crazy and swings too hard and tries to lift the ball. When he fixes his mechanics at the plate we will see the old Jose. He is plenty strong and has more than enough bat speed.
Romans 10:9 "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
Interesting stat about Ramirez, although I don't know what it means, is that he's a career .277 hitter and he's hitting .276 right-handed this year, but has dropped to .169 left-handed. Last year he hit .298 RH and .304 LH. What the hell?
Interesting stat about Ramirez, although I don't know what it means, is that he's a career .277 hitter and he's hitting .276 right-handed this year, but has dropped to .169 left-handed. Last year he hit .298 RH and .304 LH. What the hell?
It's certainly mental.
Possibly, his mental approach to being physically ready.
You gotta love thinking baseball 24 hours a day. And you work to being the best player you possibly can be. Then all of a sudden you fall in love and your new girlfriend blows your socks off. She's all you can think about.
Interesting stat about Ramirez, although I don't know what it means, is that he's a career .277 hitter and he's hitting .276 right-handed this year, but has dropped to .169 left-handed. Last year he hit .298 RH and .304 LH. What the hell?
This could go back to him and how the shift is impacting him mentally at plate. Scott Boras mentioned how shifts hurt LH hitters more than RH hitters when Bryce Harper was set to become a FA. He has some valid points.....
"I've certainly come to the conclusion that shifting is grandly discriminatory in the game against power left-handed hitters. The reason for that is, you see that four men are at one side of the infield. Right-handed hitters, they have a great advantage in this regard. They can only put two and a half there because the second baseman can't go too far away and the first baseman is obviously way over.
"The other thing is, 70 percent of pitchers are right-handed, so they're getting sliders and breaking balls that are naturally inclined for them to hit where the ball is pitched and go the other way. Right-handed hitters can take a natural approach to the game as they were trained in their youth. They can hit a slider or curveball the other way, whereas left-handers, they're saying you're supposed to hit everything now the other way. The breaking ball's coming, the slider's coming, the fastballs are in, and you're now supposed to take inside-out swings?
"That's not how a power hitter's trained. You're affecting baseball on many, many levels in a negative way. You want hitters rewarded on both sides of the plate equally. If this continues, you're going to see the absolute absorption by parents of left-handed hitters ... I don't think it's good for the game. It's clear that hard-hit balls have almost 100 to 150 points lower average for left-handed hitters than right-handed hitters for exit velocities above 93 mph. When you see stats like that, you know there's reason for change. The game should be equal for both sides whether you're a right or left-handed hitter."
Meh, I'm tired of interleague play. I don't care about playing the Reds; there's really no rivalry that anyone cares about, unlike Bengals vs Browns. I wish they'd go back to a balanced schedule within their respective leagues, so we could see the Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles, and other AL teams more than once a year. I could also do without seeing the Twins, White Sox, Tigers, and Royals 19 freaking times a year.
Meh, I'm tired of interleague play. I don't care about playing the Reds; there's really no rivalry that anyone cares about, unlike Bengals vs Browns. I wish they'd go back to a balanced schedule within their respective leagues, so we could see the Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles, and other AL teams more than once a year. I could also do without seeing the Twins, White Sox, Tigers, and Royals 19 freaking times a year.
Yeah. me too. I really don't care about the "Ohio State Rivalry".
I much more look forward to those Indians/Yankee and Indians/Red Sox games.
By the way, here in Connecticut, the state is very close to half Yankee fans and half Red Sox fans.
North half Red Sox. South half Yankees fans. (and Rocky Hill is very, very close to the geographic center point of the state.)
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
They're raising everyone's awareness of prostate cancer in observance of Father's Day. MLB will not rest until everybody's awareness is through the freaking roof.
In yesterday's game, Martin hit a double, advanced on a flyball to medium CF (most wouldn't have tried), and then made a straight steal of home. That was aggressive and impressive.
1. #GMstrong 2. "I'm just trying to be the best Nick I can be." ~ Nick Chubb 3. Forgive me Elf, I didn’t have faith. ~ Tulsa 4. ClemenZa #1
He may have heard or read the rumors that he was going to be DFA'd, because he has definitely picked up his game recently.
Speaking of, I see Cody Allen was DFA'd by the Angels yesterday. I wonder if he'd consider a minor league deal that would allow him to get his stuff together at Columbus and maybe rejoin the Indians if they decide to trade Brad Hand.
They traded a minor leaguer and cash to Seattle for Edwin. When they get Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton back soon, that lineup will be something else. There's some talk that they'll send Clint Frazier back to AAA because there won't be any at bats available for him, and he has 11 homers. There's also some talk (by sports writers) that Frazier coming back to C-town could be part of a deal sending Trevor Bauer to the Yankees.
Staff ace Bieber
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(Chief Meyers hit for the cycle back in 1912 when 10 homers won the season home run crown)
