Franklin Gutierrez, And Today's Thing To Be Concerned About

by Jeff Sullivan on Aug 30, 2010 5:53 PM PDT in Seattle Mariners Stats

Fun facts all around!

You know who's currently sporting a hot sexy .668 OPS? One Franklin Gutierrez, whose 2009 and 2010 spray charts look like the following. (Try to guess which baseball website I'm using a lot right now)

2009

2010

I don't want to go to the trouble of making a .gif, so open each of those images in separate tabs and cycle through them a few times to spot the differences. What do you notice?

What I notice is that a lot of those hit balls are kind of contracting inward. He doesn't seem to be hitting the ball as far this season as he was a year ago - especially to the power alleys. I know he's hit some decent shots down the line to right, but everywhere else, the distances seem shorter.

Supporting this subjective observation are numbers from Hit Tracker Online:

2009, average home run: 398 feet, 103.9mph
2010, average home run: 382 feet, 101.5mph

A year ago, Guti's longest home run went 444 feet, and left the bat at 111.6 miles per hour. This year, we're looking at 413 and 105.7.

I don't know why Guti isn't hitting the ball as hard all of a sudden. I don't know if it's a statistical fluke, or something physical, or something mental, or all of them, or none of them. What I know is that all the early-season talk about how Guti had reached another level is out the window, and until his power comes back, he's going to be an offensive liability.

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Maybe Guti should start hitting the other way?

Oh hell yes.

by dba on Aug 30, 2010 6:22 PM PDT reply actions

A recurrence of the knee(s) tendinitis which bothered him throughout the '09 season?

by msb on Aug 30, 2010 6:36 PM PDT reply actions

Damnit, Franklin.

We want those ridiculous dingers. The really, really sexy fielding is a good tide over though.

"Oh, the usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback."

by the other side on Aug 30, 2010 6:51 PM PDT reply actions

This year is more indicitive of the type of hitter we expected though

by Edgar for Pres on Aug 30, 2010 7:08 PM PDT reply actions

And then we saw last year

Last year changed the expectations.

by Jeff Sullivan on Aug 30, 2010 7:47 PM PDT up reply actions

Bayes? More like Gayes.

by abender20 on Aug 30, 2010 8:38 PM PDT up reply actions 1 recs

I personally think he is injured.

But I’m glad someone else is saying this. I’ve been pointing his struggles out recently and all I’ve got are angry responses.

by Jack Swan on Aug 30, 2010 7:10 PM PDT reply actions

Sigh.....Mariners.

Really, that’s just about my answer to anything with this team anymore.

You're dead to me.

by Goose on Aug 30, 2010 7:32 PM PDT reply actions

I am pretty confident that he will bring sexy back.

by Slow Country on Aug 30, 2010 9:27 PM PDT reply actions

I still go back to around May when he would routinely be caught on camera grimacing

or exhibiting some sort of discomfort. Our announcing crew never pointed it out, and he hasn’t missed games, but his performance the last few months has been awful.

You have to remember that Wak and his crew also made him/suggested that he change his swing mechanics because they felt he had plateaued with his former swing.

I don’t know or what is to blame, but this current Gutierrez isn’t that sexy.

by Rudy4three on Aug 30, 2010 9:46 PM PDT reply actions

Strength Training

Wasn’t there a big article during Spring Training that the Mariners organization hired a new training guru that focused on resistance training? Are our Mariners just not as strong due to training differences? Guti = less power; Figgins = less power. Who else has dropped off? Is it a team-wide phenomena?

by God of Biscuits on Aug 31, 2010 7:09 AM PDT reply actions

That particular training regimen was mandatory for minor leaguers in our system,

but voluntary for major leaguers. I am not willing to totally lay it at the feet of the training, but you may have noticed our minor league system leads all organizations in home runs.

by Sec 108 on Aug 31, 2010 9:07 AM PDT up reply actions