Thursday, May 29, 2008
Is Jason Giambi Cooked, Re-revisited
Back on April 20, I asked if Jason Giambi was cooked. He was hitting .109/.288/.283 at the time. I made three key points.
1) It was only 60 plate appearances, which is not nearly enough sample size to make any meaningful distinction from
2) His BABIP was flukishly low, an indicator that he was hitting in some bad luck
3) He had walked more frequently than he had struck out, which was an indicator that he was not particularly overmatched
Four days later on April 26, I looked at his line again. 6 for 13 with 3 HRs had boosted his line up .186/.347/.492.
Since April 26, Giambi has hit .289/.429/.605. And no, it hasn’t all come off Paul Byrd and Mike Timlin. He is fourth in the AL in slugging at .556 and fourth in OPS at .949. He’s 13th in the AL in VORP (second among first basemen). He’s exceeding his 2008 projections pretty handily. He’s playing Gold Glove defense. Well, maybe not that part.
This isn’t a told-you-so entry, because frankly, I didn’t tell you so. All I said was, it’s too soon to tell. I said there was a chance he was finished but the evidence to date was not enough to determine that.
However, now I am reasonably comfortable saying, no, he’s not cooked. Now Robinson Cano on the other hand…
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