Comments on: Pirates Notebook: Bedard Makes First Start Since Injury

By: Kevin_Creagh

Kevin_Creagh — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:07:00 +0000

Let me preface this by saying Barmes is tough to watch right now, so I’m not apologizing for his putrid performance. However….
Here’s some of his swing percentages via Fangraphs:
Outside zone Swing% 2011 — 36.7%, career O Swing % – 34.5%
O Swing% 2012 – 50%
Inside Zone Swing%2011 — 66.1%, career Z Swing % — 66.6%
Z Swing% 2012 – 70.1%
O Contact% 2011 — 69.4%, career O Contact % – 68.0%
O Contact % 2012 – 62.9%
Zone Contact % 2011 – 88.3%, Zone Contact career – 88.8%
Zone Contact % 2012 — 82.4%
Finally, his swinging strike percentage last year was 9.3% (career 8.9%) and is 15.2% in 2012.
What does all this mean? Not to dumb this too much, but “he’s swinging too much”. His rates have all been fairly steady thru his career, so it’s hard for me to imagine he is falling off the cliff this badly in 1 year with no huge warning flags last year.
My answer? He’s trying to hard to impress a new team after signing a “big money” multiple year deal for the first time in his career. He needs to relax and take a pitch.

By: leadoff

leadoff — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:58:00 +0000

He is in a hurry for sure, the game looks like it is too fast for him, he is not reading the pitch or taking the time to read the pitch, he is guessing also, many of his swings have him off balance, I guess you say he is all messed up, IMO, they need to find a way to slow him down and get him to start punching the ball the other way, much like what they are trying to do with Pedro, he does not have to try and hit every ball out of the park.

By: ecbucs

ecbucs — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:32:00 +0000

I was at game last night and I’m very worried that Barmes is close to being done at the plate. If pitchers are able to throw it low and outside he will swing and miss every time. The only pitches he can hit are mistakes. I don’t know if his bat speed or pitch recognition have decreased a lot in the past couple years but he seems to swing at everything and might be doing that just to catch up with the pitch.