Collette Calls: Explaining Gardner's Splits

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Updated on December 3, 2015 10:06PM EST

One of the preseason predictions I made was that Brett Gardner would "easily outpace Jacoby Ellsbury in 2015" at a time when Ellsbury was being drafted four rounds ahead of Gardner in NFBC drafts. Not everyone agreed with me.

@jasoncollette your fantasy baseball work is great overall but Gardner over Ellsbury is the dumbest thing ANYone has said this spring.
— kevin d (@workingman32) April 2, 2015

Gardner did indeed outpace Ellsbury, and it certainly helped that Ellsbury missed a bunch of time due to injury. That said, Gardner could have done so much better himself had he not fought a wrist injury all season. He blames the wrist issue on a hit-by-pitch in early April against the Orioles and again a few days later against Toronto. He was also hit on June 12 and July 29.

He received a series of cortisone shots throughout the first half of the season to help with the pain. Cortisone is a steroid, and team physicians go by a general rule when using it: no more than three to four in a calendar year. New Yankees hitting coach Alan Cockrell said as much earlier this month:

"I know that that bothered him off and on the entire year," said Cockrell. "I know he was getting some cortisone and some things like that to try to help him, and they did in spurts, but you can only get three (cortisone shots) in a year … (Gardner) downplayed it and I probably shouldn't

@jasoncollette your fantasy baseball work is great overall but Gardner over Ellsbury is the dumbest thing ANYone has said this spring.
— kevin d (@workingman32) April 2, 2015

Once Gardner reached his limit on the shots, his performance suffered mightily. He went from a .302/.377/.484 line in the first half that got him into the All-Star Game to a .206/.300/.292 line in the second half when we was below replacement level but was sent out there nearly every day.

News reports from scouts in the second half included comments such as:

He looks a little jumpy, looks like he's pressing
Swing has been choppy and he doesn't look comfortable
He is struggling with two-strike breaking balls away -- "possible he isn't seeing the ball well there"
He looks impatient
He looks hurt

The first two comments can be illustrated by this video where Gardner comes up with the bases loaded and two outs and takes an ugly hack at a first pitch two-seamer that he weakly grounds to the right side to kill a rally. The third point is shown in the table below with the understanding that the league as a whole struggles against two-strike breaking balls away:

SPLIT	P	BA	SLG	ISO	BABIP	Miss %	Contact %	Chase %	SwSTR %	SWING %
1st H	190	.209	.233	.023	.360	35	65	21	11	32
2nd H	169	.152	.152	.000	.238	30	70	29	11	37
MLB	tons	.211	.305	.094	.290	35	65	32	16	44

The comment about Gardner looking impatient shows up in his swing rates as well as the percentages of pitches he chased out of the zone in the second half. The comment about him being hurt is on record as if were not obvious just watching him play in the second half as his performance went into the tank down the stretch.

Another area of concern for Gardner has been his recent struggles against right-handed pitching. Last year could be partially excused to his injury, but 2014 was not much to write home about either in terms of batting average.

Season	P	PA	BA	SLG	ISO	BABIP	Miss %	Contact %	Chase %
2010	1843	398	.287	.391	.104	.348	10	90	19
2011	1921	464	.265	.393	.128	.311	10	90	23
2013	1699	407	.285	.410	.125	.342	14	86	28
2014	2011	447	.253	.450	.197	.294	15	85	21
2015	1879	456	.252	.399	.147	.297	21	79	22

Over the past two seasons, Gardner's batting average against righties has declined to where it was in his previous full seasons of work and last season, and his contact rate against righties fell off the table.

SPLIT	P	BA	SLG	ISO	BABIP	Contact %	Chase %	SwSTR %	SWING %
1st H	1091	.307	.487	.180	.369	81	21	7	37
2nd H	788	.179	.283	.104	.203	76	23	9	38

The encouraging note should be that Gardner did well against them in the first half when he could play through the pain with the help of the Cortisone shots, but then everything fell apart when the pain was too much. Simply put, a batter is nothing with bad wrists as they can't generate the speed needed to make hard contact on a consistent basis.

On a positive note, Gardner has made progress in recent seasons in handling left-handed pitching, which used to be a problem for him.

Season	P	PA	BA	SLG	ISO	BABIP	Miss %	Contact %	Chase %
2010	785	171	.252	.353	.101	.314	11	89	20
2011	545	124	.233	.272	.039	.270	9	91	15
2013	878	202	.247	.427	.180	.341	17	83	26
2014	810	189	.262	.354	.091	.331	16	84	20
2015	853	200	.276	.400	.124	.346	22	78	22

Despite his issues making contact last season, Gardner enjoyed his best season in terms of batting average against lefties, continuing the statistical improvements he had in 2014 against them.

Gardner is 32 years old and has played nearly every day for the Yankees in five of the past six seasons. As a smallish guy whose game is built on speed and has shown a tendency of breaking down in the second half due to the wear and tear of a full season and the dangers of the game, we're entering a time in his career where the statistics could drop off. That said, he's still the only player in baseball that has hit at least 15 homers, stolen at least 20 bases and has scored at least 85 runs in both of the past two seasons. Yet, he's still going nearly two full rounds behind Jacoby Ellsbury.

If he can continue the improvements against lefties, replicate his first-half success from last season against righties and stay healthy, he could complete the unfinished business he started in 2015.