Analyzing Chase Utley’s Recent Slump

By now, I’m pretty sure everyone has noticed the Philadelphia Phillies‘ offensive struggles over the last couple of weeks. Of course, when you give Pete Orr, Michael Martinez and Ross Gload significant time, that’s bound to happen. However, one of the regulars is particularly struggling as well: Chase Utley.

Since August 31, Chase Utley has hit a meager .169/.239/.277 in 71 plate appearances. A certainly unsustainable and ridiculously low .182 BABIP is a culprit, but it goes deeper than just simple bad BABIP luck.

Typically, he can help offset such a low average with a good walk rate, but he has not done that either in September. Before last night’s game, he had only one unintentional walk since August 31.

That was his worst stretch since 2007.

A horrendous 11.5 line drive percentage will always hurt a player’s BABIP. His line drive rate has been poor throughout the season, especially when compared to his career mark.

Without the line drives, doubles have been harder to come by. For his career, almost 53 percent of his doubles have come off line drives, Therefore, when his line drive rate drops by almost half of what it normally is, the effect is huge.

The next question is finding out where the line drives have disappeared.

Line Drive %	2011	Career
Opposite Field	11.7%	16.1%
Middle	13.0%	19.6%
Pull	12.9%	22.8%

 

His line drives have been down across the board, but especially when pulling the ball. That brings us a hypothesis that maybe his bat and hand speed are slowing down. To prove it further, we’ll look at how many fly balls are being turned into homers.

Pulled Fly Balls	2011	Career
FB%	23.8%	26.4%
HR/FB%	17.1%	32.3%

Along with line drives, his power when pulling the ball appears to have dropped off a cliff. The amount of fly balls that turn into homers has dropped by almost half. In addition, he’s not hitting as many fly balls.

Couple that with his reduction in line drives, and it means he is hitting a lot more grounders to second and first base.

Some of you may say he’s just been unlucky, as HR/FB percentage can be a very luck-dependent statistic. Again, we have to take it another step further.

Looking at Hit Tracker, through his career, Chase Utley’s average speed off the bat has consistently hovered around 102.6 to 103.4 miles per hour. This year, it’s down to 100.1.

In addition, eight of his 10 homers have been classified under the “Just Enough” or “Lucky” category. By comparison, just four of his 16 homers in 2010 and six of his 31 homers in 2009 were classified the same.

Utley’s September slump is not just mere bad luck at play, but rather indicative of something more. The loss of power and reduction in solid contact when turning on the ball is alarming, and a season-long trend rather than just a one month trend.

Whether it is an undisclosed injury or simply old age is difficult to say, but I don’t expect Chase Utley circa 2009 to reappear the rest of the season.

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