Headley’s deadly September

There’s not much of a way around this: 2015 was, on aggregate, just plain bad for Chase Headley. On top of committing a career high 23 errors–seriously, what was up with that?–Chase had the worst offensive season of his career, notching new lows in wOBA (.307) and wRC+ (91), edging out 2010 (.313/98) for his least productive full season ever. Overall, Headley hit .259/.324/.369, .307/91; his ISO clocked in at 110, continuing a downward trend that started after his powerful 2012 (.212): .150 in ’13 and .130 in ’14. There were bright spots for him, specifically July and August. He tore the cover off the ball in those steamy summer months, hitting to a .386/146 wOBA/wRC+in July and .376/139 in August. The other side of the coin, though, was just as bad as that side was good. Headley essentially went belly up in June (.267/64) and September (.220/32). Since it’s most recent, and was most disastrous, we’re going to focus on September here, which also featured a 28.5% strikeout rate and a .045 ISO for Headley, both very indicative of his September struggles.

To figure out what went so wrong in September, we’re going to compare that lost month to the salad days of July and August in my favorite way possible: breaking down how he did and what he did against certain pitch types. You can find July and August’s numbers here and September’s here. As we often do, let’s start with fastballs, good ol’ number one.

Chase feasted on fastballs in his good months, hitting .333 against them. In September, however, that trend was reduced. Part of the reason was he just stopped making contact with them. In July/August, his whiff/swing% on fastballs was 12.96. In September, it hopped up to 16.67%, resulting in 11 total strikeouts on fastballs for the month; he only had eight strikeouts on fastballs in July and August combined. A similar trend appeared in Headley’s “performance” against curveballs in September. While both segements of time were fairly unproductive from a results standpoint, his “process” against curves was hideous in September, when he missed on 63.64% (!!) of the cuts he took against Uncle Charlie. This only resulted in three strikeouts for the month (one total in July/August), but it’s easy to assume that pitchers were using curveballs to get ahead of Headley or put him further behind in counts, exploiting this new hole in his swing.

Aside from the lack of contact against certain pitches, there was a problem with the contact Headley was making in September. There was no sting in Headley’s swing in September, evidenced by the aforementioned .045 ISO he compiled for the season’s final month. Three pitch types and their results can enlighten us here. Against sinkers, changeups, and sliders in particular, Headley was just beating the ball into the ground, resulting in a lot of easy grounders for infielders. When putting those pitches in play, Headley saw increases of 10%; 33.97%; and 53.92% respectively. The sinkers he put in play saw a dramatic decrease in power, going from a .333 ISO in July/August to an .059 ISO in September. Changeups told a similar story. His BA against them in July/August was a robust .321, compared to a meager .182 in September. He also recorded no extra-base hits against changeups in September, whereas he had an ISO of .182 against that pitch in July and August. For pitchers looking for a grounder against Headley, a slider was invaluable, as he produced a worm-burner 83.33% of the time and failed to get even a single hit (!) against sliders for the entire month of September.

Whether it was pitch-recognition, injury, or just a funk in his swing, something went way wrong for Headley in the season’s final month. Between whiffing and hitting grounder after grounder, he must’ve been glad for the season to come to a close. Whatever it was, I’m certain he and whoever the next hitting coach (I nominate Alex Rodriguez for player/coach) will work to fix it.