03/15: YBCP 07: Hideki Matsui
Posted by: James
Hideki Matsui
Age: 32 Years Old (Turns 33 in June).
Three-year History, three-year splits and last year's splits.
Outlook: Hideki Matsui was the model of reliability over the course of his career and maintained very impressive consecutive games streaks both in MLB (518 games) and combined with his Japanese league experience (1,768 games). Those streaks came to a crashing end on May 11th against the Red Sox when Godzilla dove for a ball and ended up severely hurting his wrist. Now, wrist injuries are a dangerous thing as they can linger and often take quite a long time to recover from (just ask Nick Johnson). However, it is a testament to both Matsui's resilience and work ethic that he was able to heal, get himself into playing condition before the end of the season and then tattoo the ball on his return.
In any case, it's a little surprising that 4 years into his Yankees tenure, I'm still not entirely sure what to expect from Godzilla. He was a ground-ball machine in his first season, then showed a big-time jump in power in the midst of a great season in 2004 and while his power numbers slumped in 2005, Godzilla set career highs in batting average (.306), hits (192), doubles (45), triples (3), RBI (116) and total bases (312). So, you have one down year, one high year and one year in the middle (leaning towards higher). Last year, In his limited playing time, Matsui displayed the same amount of power that he had in 2005 and a better batting eye (much more in line with his stellar 2004). In addition, he ended up hitting far more flyballs than he had at any time in his career while showing struggles against left-handers for the first time in his career. Now, whether those numbers were just a statistical anomoly is something that we won't be completely sure of until the year is over. Whatever happens, it's great to see Godzilla ready to play the full season and with his determination, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if he felt he needed to redeem himself for last year and make up for lost time.
Please post your predictions for the following stat line in the comments section:
Age: 32 Years Old (Turns 33 in June).
Three-year History, three-year splits and last year's splits.
| SEASON | Team | G | AB | H | 1B | 2B | 3B | HR | R | RBI | BB | SO | SB | CS | AVG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Yankees | 162 | 584 | 174 | 107 | 34 | 2 | 31 | 109 | 108 | 88 | 103 | 3 | 0 | .298 |
| 2005 | Yankees | 162 | 629 | 192 | 121 | 45 | 3 | 23 | 108 | 116 | 63 | 78 | 2 | 2 | .305 |
| 2006 | Yankees | 51 | 172 | 52 | 35 | 9 | 0 | 8 | 32 | 29 | 27 | 23 | 1 | 0 | .302 |
| 2007 | 129 | 485 | 147 | 92 | 29 | 1 | 25 | 87 | 90 | 75 | 76 | 2 | 1 | .303 | |
| 2007 | CHONE | 447 | 129 | 84 | 26 | 1 | 18 | 69 | 64 | 51 | 66 | 2 | 1 | .289 | |
| 2007 | Marcel | 326 | 97 | 62 | 20 | 1 | 14 | 57 | 57 | 39 | 50 | 2 | 1 | .298 | |
| 2007 | ZiPS | 498 | 146 | 95 | 31 | 1 | 19 | 85 | 100 | 58 | 77 | 1 | 1 | .293 |
| SEASON | Team | BB% | K% | BB/K | OBP | SLG | OPS | ISO | BABIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Yankees | 13.1 % | 17.6 % | 0.85 | .390 | .522 | .912 | .224 | .318 |
| 2005 | Yankees | 9.1 % | 12.4 % | 0.81 | .367 | .496 | .863 | .191 | .320 |
| 2006 | Yankees | 13.6 % | 13.4 % | 1.17 | .393 | .494 | .887 | .192 | .312 |
| 2007 | Bill James | 13.4 % | 15.7 % | 0.99 | .399 | .522 | .920 | .219 | .318 |
| 2007 | CHONE | 10.2 % | 14.8 % | 0.77 | .364 | .472 | .836 | .183 | .306 |
| 2007 | Marcel | 10.7 % | 15.3 % | 0.78 | .372 | .494 | .866 | .196 | .317 |
| 2007 | ZiPS | 10.4 % | 15.5 % | 0.75 | .367 | .474 | .841 | .181 | .316 |
Outlook: Hideki Matsui was the model of reliability over the course of his career and maintained very impressive consecutive games streaks both in MLB (518 games) and combined with his Japanese league experience (1,768 games). Those streaks came to a crashing end on May 11th against the Red Sox when Godzilla dove for a ball and ended up severely hurting his wrist. Now, wrist injuries are a dangerous thing as they can linger and often take quite a long time to recover from (just ask Nick Johnson). However, it is a testament to both Matsui's resilience and work ethic that he was able to heal, get himself into playing condition before the end of the season and then tattoo the ball on his return.
In any case, it's a little surprising that 4 years into his Yankees tenure, I'm still not entirely sure what to expect from Godzilla. He was a ground-ball machine in his first season, then showed a big-time jump in power in the midst of a great season in 2004 and while his power numbers slumped in 2005, Godzilla set career highs in batting average (.306), hits (192), doubles (45), triples (3), RBI (116) and total bases (312). So, you have one down year, one high year and one year in the middle (leaning towards higher). Last year, In his limited playing time, Matsui displayed the same amount of power that he had in 2005 and a better batting eye (much more in line with his stellar 2004). In addition, he ended up hitting far more flyballs than he had at any time in his career while showing struggles against left-handers for the first time in his career. Now, whether those numbers were just a statistical anomoly is something that we won't be completely sure of until the year is over. Whatever happens, it's great to see Godzilla ready to play the full season and with his determination, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if he felt he needed to redeem himself for last year and make up for lost time.
Please post your predictions for the following stat line in the comments section:
| AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OBP | SLG |
|---|
Patrick wrote:
100 R
25 HR
113 RBI
2 SB
.306 AVG
.391 OBA
.501 SLG