Jon Weisman: James Loney: Try to Remember the Kind of September

On September 2, 2007, James Loney had an OPS of .824 (.361 on-base percentage, .463 slugging percentage). He OPSed 1.141 the rest of the way and finished the season at .919.

On September 2, 2008, James Loney had an OPS of .820 (.361 on-base percentage, .459 slugging percentage). He OPSed .472 the rest of the way and finished the season at .772.

What Kryptonited our September Superman? For one thing, Loney wasn’t as lucky in the final month of 2008. His batting average on balls in play was .227, compared to .393 in September 2007. But Loney’s bad September wasn’t just about balls not finding holes. Loney had four extra base hits in September 2008, compared to 17 (including nine home runs) in September 2007. He had three walks in September 2008 compared to nine in September 2007. His power and plate discipline just seemed to vanish.

Between these extremes lies the present-day James Loney, the one who has a career .833 OPS (114 OPS+) in more than 1,000 plate appearances before his 25th birthday. Like many hitters, he’s streaky, and there’s no doubt that 2008 overall ended up being a step back for him. His slugging percentage dropped more than 100 points, his homers dropped despite nearly 300 extra plate appearances, and his rate of grounding into double plays more than doubled (particularly early in the season: 18 of his 25 GIDP in 2008 came by the end of June).

I don’t have a magic bullet – not for lack of searching - to kill the uncertainty over what went wrong. His line-drive, groundball and flyball percentages remained fairly consistent from year to year, as did his ratio of plate appearances vs. right-handed pitching. I don’t know what pitches he was having trouble with. All I know is that for the first five months of 2008, despite playing every day in the major leagues for the first time in his career, Loney was pretty much as productive as he had been in the same period the year before. Each of the past two Septembers were aberrations.

Given his youth, his reputedly high marks for work ethic and an offseason to reflect on the previous year, I’m betting Loney resumes an upward trajectory in 2009.