(photo by David Zalubowski/AP)

Here’s what Byrnesie did in April of this year. Last year’s stats are in parentheses:

BA .276 (.237), OBP .347
(.318), SLG .429 (.373), 3 HRs (1), 7
Doubles (3), 15 RBI (5), 13 Runs (7), BB 12
(7), Stolen Bases 6 (1), K/BB 1.33 (1.43).

On the whole, a much better start to the season than he had last year. Areas where he did not improve were triples (0 this year, 1 last year), absolute number of Ks (16 this year, 10 last year), XBH/H (.345 this year, .357 last year), and  CS (2 this year, 0 last year).

But triples, unless you are Jose Reyes or Carl Crawford, are nice but not terribly important. Eric is on a pace to finish with 80 Ks, which is better than the 88 he had last year, and his K/BB ratio month-over-month is slightly better. The lower XBH/H reflects the higher batting average, i.e. he is getting singles where last year he made outs. We’ll take that trade-off hands down. The 2 CS are the result of a busted hit-and-run and Byrnes’ belief that a hit-and-run was on when it really wasn’t. His success rate might not be as high this year than last (.892) because he plans to be more aggressive this year. But on the straight steal, Byrnesie is still a smart and careful baserunner. So we don’t expect him to get thrown out at the rate Alfonso Soriano does.

Best of all: 105 ABs (last year 59) putting him on pace to get over 600 ABs for the first time in his major league career. And it’s about time, too! We Byrnes fans know that consistent results come with consistent playing time for him. The best thing BoMel can do for him (and the team) is to pencil him in the lineup just about every day. A day or two (at most!) off a month, for rest purposes, is OK. But too much bench time because BoMel wants to play THE MATCH GAME will only hurt Byrnes’ effectiveness.

Now onto May, historically Eric’s best month. He’ll have to do a lot to top last year’s May, when he went .364/.404/.717, but in certain ways he isn’t far off from his May ’06 numbers now. He had 16 RBIs and 5 stolen bases then. We just need to see a little more power from him. He had 8 homers and 11 doubles last May. If he can end May with a batting average of .295 or better, I’m sure team and fans will be pleased.

BYRNES, BABY, BYRNES!

ByrnesBlogger1

Jeff DaVanon is starting in CF and batting leadoff in tonight’s series opener against the Rockies, who are starting righty BK Kim. (Counsell is 9th tonight).

DTLFL has, fortunately, found no reports that Byrnes is injured or ill. We hope this is in fact the truth and we did not miss something.

Today cannot be a legitimate rest day for Byrnes because the entire team was off yesterday.

Neither Byrnes nor DaVanon have a record against BK Kim. Kim, as is typical for righties, pitches better against righties, but his ERA against them is 4.14, which suggests he doesn’t dominate them. (Byrnes is a righty. DaVanon is a switch hitter who is better from the left side).

The lefty Luis Gonzalez has too small a record to tell us much: just 1-3.

(S. Green is another story; he’s 6/13  against BK and 2nd on the D’Backs in BA at .310. We have no issues with him being in there!)

Since the disaster of June 24th, when Byrnes when 0-6 with 4 K’s and a bloody nose from a missed diving catch, he is BA. 13/35 (.371) XBH/H 6/13 (.461), SLG 20/35 (.571), K/BB 4/3 (1.33; he’s usually over 2.00). He’s batted in 4 runs, scored 5 and advanced 6 runners.

He’s gotten at least one hit in 8 of the 9 games he’s started since that awful 6/24, and in the one game in which he did not get a hit, he drew a walk and scored a run. I say he’s rather warm right now.

Byrnes leads the D’Backs in SLG and XBH/H, is tied with Chad Tracy for the lead in HRs (and has quite fewer ABs and K’s than Tracy). He’s second in doubles (and one of the best doubles hitters in the league), and third in BA (.295). He has also gotten a pair of stolen bases lately to tie Craig Counsell for the team lead in that category, but Byrnes has a much better success rate than Counsell).

Byrnes’ BA = .295, DaVanon = 277, Gonzo = .260.

Once again, we are seeing the "regular" D’Back lineup minus it’s "regular" center fielder, Eric Byrnes.

Byrnesie is just one XBH of any sort away from exceed his total in that category for all of abysmal, aberrant 2005, and just two doubles shy of exceeding the total in THAT category. I was hoping he’d get past those two figures tonight.

Oh well, I am late for the gym.

Kéllia "Fire Bob Melvin!" Ramares
Oakland, CA

Colloquially, the All Star Break is considered the halfway point of the season. But the regular baseball season, 162 games long, is halfway done when Game 81 is played. For the Arizona Diamondbacks, that happened on July 1.

Here are some of the percentages with which Eric finished the first half of the season:

BA .291, SLG. 534, XBH/H .472 Success Stealing .889 K/BB 2.29

DTLFL gives Eric Byrnes a mid-term grade of B+. He would have gotten an A- had he finished the first half in the low .300s. He would have gotten an A if he had managed to do that while hitting at least 24 doubles.

He has already bettered the total of HRs and SB that he had in all of abysmal, aberrant 2005. By the end of July he should be past the abysmal, aberrant 2005 totals of 40 RBI and 49 R. He ended the first half of 2006 with 31 RBI and 39 R.

Byrnes is on pace to collect 144 hits, of which 24 would be homers, 40 would be doubles and 4 would be triples, and he would have 264 Total Bases. He is on pace to draw 42 BB and to K 96 times. He is also on pace to swipe 16 bags in 2006 while getting caught only twice. If he achieves these totals, he would have new personal bests in homers, doubles, batting average, slugging percentage, and XBH/H. And he would barely miss new personal bests in total bases (264 to 266) walks (42 to 46) and stolen bases (16 to 17).

Looking Good in Snakeskin: At the end of 81 games. Byrnes was tied for the lead in homers with Chad Tracy and he closed out the first half of 2006 leading the Diamondbacks in SLG, XBH/H, and success in stealing. He was tied for 2nd with Jeff DaVanon in number of steals. (Craig Counsell has 9 to their 8, but he’s been caught 6 times. Byrnes has been caught only once, DaVanon twice). At the halfway point, Byrnes was third on the team in batting average, doubles, and total bases. He was fourth in RBI and R.

Looking back at the benchmarks: On March 28, DTLFL announced some targets we wanted to see Byrnesis hit this year.

We no longer think the benchmark of 30 SB is possible. The addition of Byrnes and Orlando Hudson have not turned the D’Backs into a running team. So what we’d really like to see now is anything over 17, which would be a new personal best. Twenty is a nice round number. He’s currently on pace for 16.

We are very concerned that Byrnes will not meet our benchmark of appearing in 143 games, his previous best (in 2004). He won’t make it if he does not play 20 games. He’s on pace to not play 28 games. Concurrently, his career high in ABs is 569 (2004). He’s on pace for 494 thisyear. That’s a waste.

Byrnes is on pace for 62 RBI. This is far below our benchmark of 90 and we have major doubts about his getting there. His previous best is 73, so anything above that sets a new personal best, and we’d like to see that. Eighty is a nice round number. For him to have 74+ RBI, two things have to happen. One is that he has to be a bit more clutch. The other is that he has to have more opportunities for RBIs. In the first half of the year he made 270 plate appearances by our count, 165 of them with the bases empty. He’s had whole games when he’s batted 4 or 5 times with the bases empty. Solo homers don’t get you to 90 RBI.

We did not set a runs scored benchmark because, except for homers, runs scored constitute other people’s RBIs and we had no idea what the others would do. Byrnes ended the first half of the year fourth on the team with 39 R. Obviously, Byrnes has to get on base in order to be driven in, but then the others have to drive him in. DTLFL is concerned about the proportion of times he is left on base. Someone whose batting average is hovering around .290 should have more than 39 R halfway through the season.

By looking at the stats list for the morning of July 3, 2006, just after Game 82 of the season, we see the following NL stats:

Carlos Beltran NYM .293 & 60 R

Jose Reyes NYM .291 & 70 R

Bobby Abreu Phi .290 & 53 R

ERIC BYRNES ARI .288 & 39 R

Carlos Lee MIL .284 & 53 R

Jason Bay PIT .281 & 52 R

Randy Winn SF .279 & 50 R

Phoenix, I think we have a problem.

Byrnes’ personal best is 91 runs. Given what other guys near his batting average are doing, he should have had at least 50 by now, which would have put him on pace for 100. He is actually on pace to score 78 this year.

DTLFL is still looking for Byrnesie to meet or exceed our benchmarks of a .303 BA with 25 HRs and 45 DBs.

Room for Improvement: We’d love to give Byrnesie an A at the end of the year. A year even better than 2004 would be so great, given the people who gave up on him during and after abysmal, aberrant 2005, and others who think that, even discounting abysmal, aberrant 2005, Byrnes has established a level as just an average player. (I agree that he’s not Hall of Fame material, but I think he’s better than average). For an A year to happen, he needs to get better in some areas.

More clutchness: By hand-count of The Eric Byrnes Pitch Count Reports for the first 81 games, DTLFL finds that Byrnesie made 62 plate appearances with RISP in the first half of the season. The results were 13 PAs in which he got at least 1 RBI, 9 in which he walked, and 1 in which he was HBP. Though Byrnesie was batting .291 at the end of 81 games, he was a .250 hitter with RISP. This gives manager Bob Melvin a legitimate reason to bat Byrnes 2, even though he has the SLG of a 4 or 5 and is tied for the team lead in homers.

May 29 was a particularly illustrative day. Against the Mets at Shea, Byrnes hit 2 solo homers. But he struck out the two times in that same game that he came up with RISP.

Looking at the NL stats list for July 3, 2006, after Game 82, we find the following:

Carlos Delgado NYM 290 AB & .531 SLG & 55 RBI

Freddie Sanchez PIT 270 AB & .530 SLG & 45 RBI

Jacque Jones CHC 266 AB & .530 SLG & 43 RBI

ERIC BYRNES ARI 250 AB & .528 SLG & 31 RBI

Pat Burrell PHI 245 AB & .527 SLG & 55 RBI

Alfonso Soriano WSH 334 AB & .527 SLG & 51 RBI

Dan Uggla FLA 277 AB &.516 SLG & 44 RBI

Byrnesie, I think we have a problem. The physical ability is clearly there. So the problem is between the ears. Your stats from 2003, 2004 and the first half of 2006 show that you are a professional power hitter. Even in abysmal, aberrant 2005, your XBH/H was 37/93 (.398). The problem then was that you just didn’t get enough hits.That’s not going to be a problem this year. But you are not getting the RBIs that are commensurate with your BA, SLG and XBH/H.

DTLFL doesn’t think cowardice is the issue, rather we think trying too hard is the problem. Relax, Byrnesie. Identify yourself as a slugger even though you are not yet batting in the heart of the order where you really belong. You ARE one of your team’s hitting leaders. You ARE one of the best doubles hitters in the National League. (There’s only 15 hitters with more doubles than you in the league as of today). Heck, you are one of the best doubles hitters in the majors! In the entire major leagues, there are only 25 guys who have hit more doubles than you so far. The major leaguers who woke up this morning with the same number of doubles as you (20) include Johnny Damon, Paul Lo Duca, Vernon Wells and David Wright. Joe Mauer, of the eye-popping .392 BA, has 22 two-baggers.

You need to engage in situational hitting, i.e. you don’t have to swing for the fence every time there is a RISP. Sometimes, a single is all you need. (Remember Carlos Lee in your first away series this year, when Geoff Jenkins was intentionally walked to get to Lee?) Sometimes, hitting to the opposite field is better than pulling, etc. But do not engage in situational thinking. Think of yourself the same way whether there are or there are not RISP. You are a darned good professional hitter. Pitchers should be afraid to face you with RISP. You should never be pinch-hit for or asked to sac bunt. Don’t try to prove anything to anyone. Just be yourself. As the Nike commercial says, "Just do it."

Better batting average in initial plate appearances: DTLFL has mentioned this a few times before. Byrnes’ overall batting average would be better if he got more hits or walks his first times up. It could be that he’s the type of hitter that needs to see more pitches that he gets watching the leadoff hitter and then going up there himself. (And sometimes, he bats leadoff, which aggravates the situation). This is another argument for moving him into the heart of the order, so that he can get more feedback from teammates before he goes up there. Such feedback is especially important this year, when Byrnes has changed leagues and is seeing the pitches of many unfamiliar pitchers and the strike zones of many unfamiliar umpires.

As for what he himself can do in these situations, DTLFL suggests patience. Not that he should let a hanging slider over the plate go by. But that working the count that first time up will give him a chance to see more pitches and there might be one to his liking in the larger array. Plus, going deep into the count early drives up the starter’s pitch count and helps get him out of there faster. As we know from watching the D’Backs in June, teams typically lose when their starters don’t go deep into the game.

Fewer Strike Outs: DTLFL would like to see Byrnes slow down the pace of his strikeouts. He’s headed for 96 this year. (Chad Tracy should have that total by mid-July). Ninety-six would be better than the 111 Byrnes had in 2004. But we would like to see him show a bit more plate discipline. We know he knows the strike zone well. He’s looked at some close pitches that were called balls. But we’ve seen him swing at some obvious balls as well because he thinks he can drive them. As Diamondhacks has observed. Byrnes is a ****** for a high (out of the zone) fastball.

Three balls should be a hitter’s count, but with Byrnes, it often seems that the pitcher has him where he wants him after ball three. If Eric can strike out less and walk more, pitchers would be more likely to think that they have to throw a strike after ball three and then Byrnesie can pound it. Driving the K/BB ratio down as close to 1.50 as possible would drive the batting average up. Our original benchmark was 1.00, but we will be happy with anything under 2.00 and positively thrilled if he’s near 1.50.

More opposite field hitting: Byrnes’ BA goes down when he gets stuck on the notion that he has to pull everything. There are XBH Down The RIGHT Field Line as well as Down The Left Field Line. We hope his recent triple proved that point. More opposite field hitting will avoid ground outs to short and third on the outside pitches that are still the favored way to get him out.

Better sliding technique: A reporter for MLB.com recently compared Byrnes’ sliding technique to someone jumping into a backyard swimming pool. We saw this for ourselves recently; it nearly cost Byrnesie a stolen base. Byrnes starts his slide a bit too soon, thus slowing him up. And that backyard swimming pool style also adds a little time. Sliding into a base is like ski racing. Tiny technical flaws add unwanted time in a make-or-break situation. Byrnes has the speed and aggressiveness to grab an extra base on an outfielder who bobbles the ball, plays a carom ineffectively, or does not have a cannon arm. Better sliding technique adds to his opportunities to be at 2nd or 3rd when his teammates come up looking for RBI, and it will maintain his high success rate for stealing bases.

So, to sum it up DTLFL gives Eric Byrnes a B+ for performance in the first half of 2006 and, as always, A++ for effort. We note again with delight that he legged out a swinging bunt in the 7th inning of Game 1 of the series in Oakland that closed out the first half of the season. That infield hit sparked the go-ahead rally that provided the first win of a three-game sweep. We look forward to more such sparks in the 2nd half of ’06 as well as several conflagrations set by his breaking open or winning a game with some timely RBI.

Kéllia "The Byrnesblogger" Ramares
Oakland, CA

Consider some stats as of the morning of June 24: Eric Byrnes is the Diamondbacks’ co-leader in homers. He and Chad Tracy both have 12. Shawn Green is in 3rd place with 7.

Byrnes is the team leader in slugging percentage (total bases divided by ABs) at .543. Second place is a tie between Johnny Estrada and Chad Tracy at .465.

Speaking of bases, Byrnes is second on the team in total bases with 121. (Chad Tracy has 134).

Byrnes is the runaway leader in XBH/H, i.e. the percentage of his hits that go for extra-bases. He’s 31/65 (.477). Chad Tracy is second with 31/79 (.392)

Byrnes is 3rd on the team in doubles, with 18. The team leader is Luis Gonzalez with 20, Chad Tracy is second with 19.

Byrnes is second on the team in stolen bases, with 8, but he has a much better success rate than team leader Craig Counsell, who has 9 stolen bases but has been caught 6 times. Byrnes has been caught only once.

Eric Byrnes is third on the team in batting average. At .291 he’s just behind Shawn Green at .293 and not far from team leader Johnny Estrada at .308.

Byrnesie’s in a three-way tie with Counsell and S. Green for third in runs scored with 36; Luis Gonzalez has 45 and Chad Tracy has 40.

There are two stats in which Byrnesie is weaker than we’d like to see. One is RBIs. There he ranks 6th (with 28). Of course, the entire team is showing weakness in that area. The D’Backs team leaders are Tracy and Estrada, with 40 each, closely followed by Conor Jackson with 39.

Why is Estrada, a .300+ hitter who is leading the team in RBIs, batting 7th?

The National League leaders are Ryan Howard (Phi) and Albert Pujols (StL) with 66, Lance Berkman (Hou) with 65 and Andruw Jones (Atl) with 64. If D’Backs hitters would drive in runs at the rate at which D’Backs pitchers are giving them up, the team would win more and the team leaders would be further up the league leader list in the RBI category.

But I digress. Back to Eric Byrnes.

DTLFL is most unhappy with Byrnesie’s AB totals. Despite being first, second or third in many offensive categories, Byrnes is only sixth in AB’s. He has 223 ABs. The team leader is Chad Tracy with 288. Among the starters, only rookie 1B Conor Jackson with 205 and catcher Johnny Estrada, who has 198 ABs and plays the most physically demanding position on the field, have fewer official times at the plate than Eric Byrnes.

Chad Tracy, the team leader in AB’s (and 4th in the NL in K’s), has appeared in 72 of the 74 games the D’Backs have played so far. And he has started almost all of those 72. I can recall one time he came off the bench as a pinch hitter. He was being given most of the day off after turning his ankle in a plate appearance in the game the night before. Eric Byrnes has appeared on only 61 of 74 games and has started only 52 of the 61. (He has NOT been on the DL). In one of those games in which he did not start, Byrnes appeared as an eighth-inning pinch runner, getting 0 AB (and not being driven in). In the other 8 games he was a pinch-hitter, getting only 1 AB, except in one game where he was left in and batted twice. (And DTLFL thinks this is a poor use of Byrnes. Pinch hitting is not one of his strengths).

I say Eric Byrnes isn’t getting enough playing time. He should have started 70 games already. What say you?

K.R.

A quick (for me) stats-oriented post because I have a bunch of other things I need to do this afternoon:

As of today, June 19, 2006, (D’Backs 5 – Pirates 4 in ll), Eric Byrnes, who went 3-6 with 1 R, with 2 of the 3 hits being DBs, is now 29/62 or .468 in the category of XBH/H. But he  led off today…and led off…and led off.

Why is someone who is clearly no banjo hitter batting 1st, 2nd or 8th? Especially since the guy who usually bats clean-up (Luis Gonzalez) hasn’t homered since April 20th…especially since the guy who shares the team’s homer lead with Eric (Chad Tracy) also leads the team in strikeouts…by a whole lot? Especially since the team’s famous, highly-paid, high-batting average guy (Shawn Green) has an XBH/H of only .288 (21/73)?

The one thing I can think of is that Byrnesie is a little lacking when it comes to RBIs with RISP. Could it be that, because he comes to bat with RISP so relatively few times, he doesn’t get enough practice at it? Or that he tries too hard when it does occur, because he gets relatively few chances at it? I don’t know.

What I do know is that, this afternoon or this evening, manager Bob Melvin should sit Eric down and say,  "Byrnesie, I’m making some changes in the lineup order and consequently in roles. The stats show that a very high percentage of your hits are going for extra bases. Of the top dozen RBI men in the league, only two, Pujols, and Lee of Milwaukee, have a higher XBH/H than you; Burrell is very close behind you. But they all have at least 50 RBIs and you only have 26. The team needs to take better advantage of your high extra-base percentage so I’m moving you to fifth in the lineup.  That should give you more opportunities to bat with RISP than you’ve had this season. Your job now will be to increase your RBI total.

Now, I can give you more opportunity to pile up RBIs by changing the batting order, but you also have to take advantage of the increased opportunties. The stats are also showing that you hit better without RISP than you do with. In order to improve your performance with RISP, I want to you work extra with (hitting instructor Mike) Aldrete on situational hitting, even if it means sacrificing some of this very high XBH/H. You don’t need to hit a homer every time you’ve got a runner on second; I wouldn’t mind a few more singles from you if they bring in some runs. And I want you to see the team’s sports psychologist to talk about clutch hitting. There’s no shame in that. It’s just another tool. Let’s see if we can’t get you in among the Top 12 RBI guys."

That’s the talk I think Melvin should have with Byrnes ASAP. Of course, that would imply a confidence in Byrnes I don’t think Melvin has, but a goil kin dream, cain’t she?

Here’s also what I think the D’Backs basic batting order should be: Counsell, Gonzalez, Jackson, Estrada, Byrnes, Tracy, Green, Hudson, P. (With substitutions for legitimate rest days and times when a particular hitter owns a particular pitcher. Thanks to Matt of Diamondhacks, who pointed out that Damion Easley has a great record against Kevin Millwood, but didn’t get a chance to face him when the D’Backs played the Rangers recently. That’s a waste!)

BTW, Byrnesie’s BA is now up to .294 and he has a 4-game hitting streak that includes a homer and two doubles. That homer was Homer No. 11, which exceeds his total for all of absymal, aberrant 2005. He needs only one more stolen base to exceed his total number of steals for abysmal, aberrant 2005. (Fifth is not a high-stolen base hole, but an occasional steal threat from that spot can mess with a pitcher’s concentration).

Kéllia "Byrnesie in the 5-hole" Ramares
Oakland, CA