Hanley Ramirez, What's Wrong?

     Article first published as What's Wrong with Hanley Ramirez? on Technorati.

   Hanley Ramirez, an amazing athlete, who always excels, is struggle through first two months of the season. The pressure is on as fans and critics alike seem to think that he's super human and should always be a dominating player. There's no room for any kind of drop in performance. But before you jump all over the guy; before you start clamoring for his replacement; before you say that he's over the hill or he's getting paid way too much; you need to ask some questions and look further into the issues before we get all bent out of shape.

                              Is Hanley just a slow starter? 

  Does it usually take a month or two to heat up? Some players just have a tendency to start off slow, but warm up as the months go by. So lets look at Hanley's career in April.

Apr '06:                                                               Total:
 .304, AVG, 2 HR, 8 RBI            .292 AVG, 15 HR, 59 RBI

Apr '07
.364, AVG, 4 HR, 7 RBI             .332 AVG, 29 HR, 81 RBI

 Apr '08
.333, AVG, 8 HR, 18 RBI           .301 AVG, 33 HR, 67 RBI

Apr '09
.289, AVG, 2 HR, 12 RBI           .342 AVG, 24 HR, 106 RBI

Apr '10
.279, AVG, 2 HR, 7 RBI             .300 AVG, 21 HR, 76 RBI
Apr '11
.200, AVG, 0 HR, 9 RBI             .208 AVG, 1 HR, 13 RBI 

 

  Judging by stats alone, you see that his April stats hover around .295, 3 HR and 10 RBI for the first month, which is a good start. So what has happened to Hanley to make him struggle? From his first season, in which he won Rookie of the Year honors, he didn't experience any kind of sophomore slump. I don't think anyone expected this.

                                        Is this a contract issue? 

  Issues like these usually arise from contract disputes (like a certain first baseman named Albert). Sadly, Hanley cannot use that excuse. He is in the third year of a lucrative contract. Unless, of course, you try to tell me that six year $70 million dollar contract is a really big distraction. Or maybe the money IS the problem. And then you see the year he signed (2009), he hit for the highest average and hit the most RBIs in his career, while swatting 24 dingers. Sorry Hanley, no dice there.

                              
                                       Not enough offensive support? 

   When a few players are struggling, it has a ripple affect on everyone else. Just like a team hot streak can be a positive, a team on a cold streak can be very big negative.

  If a star player has no one around him to either be on base or protect him in the line up (meaning having another hitter that is as dangerous hitting behind him, forcing pitchers to pitch to him as opposed to just walking him) his stats will suffer, whether it's his RBI totals or hitting for average and home runs.

  Let's take a look at the stat sheets. How are the Florida Marlins doing this year? As of today, they had a record of 21-16 and were 2.0 games behind the Phillies. Not bad. How about the offensive numbers of Hanley's teammates?

3B-Greg Dobbs.338, 2 HR & 12 RBI
1B-Gaby Sanchez .331, 6 HR & 23 RBI
OF-Emilio Bonifacio .301, 1 HR & 6 RBI
OF-Mike Stanton has .229, 5 HR & 14 RBI
OF-Chris Coghlan has .264, 4 HR & 19 RBI 

 Obviously getting enough support; these five players alone are leading the team to their 23-16 record. Especially with how Sanchez and Stanton are hitting right now, there is plenty of fire power to back up him up. No they're not at his level yet, but it's not like he's Ryan Zimmerman and has nobody on the team that can hit for power. By the looks of it, the only thing that's missing is Ramirez. If he starts hitting like we all know he can, the Marlins will be a dangerous team — maybe the team that can upset the Philles star studded rotation and win the division.

                               Has he at least been able to play solid defense?

 Sort of. His career .968 field percentage isn't the Gold Glove caliber that scouts thoughts he could be, and has room for improvement. Currently he sits with a .953 field percentage but has committed 6 errors in 32 games (tied for 7th in the MLB). While Hanley is ranking high with errors, he is very prone to having high numbers in this area. For his career he's compiled 104 errors or an average of 17.3 errors per season. So nothing new there.

                                                Just an off year? 

   Can it really be as simple as an off year? Can we chalk this up to just a bad year? I don't think Hanley is having a bad year, maybe a few months. But I really think that Hanley is to good of an athlete and loves baseball way too much to play this way for an entire season. He will start to turn it around.

"What defines Hanley is his love for the game. He truly seems to relish every moment he is at the ballpark. That has turned him into a young leader on the Marlins," from JockBio.com

All stats and profiles courtesy of: http://www.mlb.com/
Player profile: http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=434670#sectionType=splitsCareer&statType=1&season=2006&gameType='R'
http://www.jockbio.com/Bios/Hanley/Hanley_bio.html