for some reason i had morgan ensberg and morgan burkhart confused. i'd like to know what he's doing these days. it looks like he last played in 2005.

Is it just me, or are veterans dropping like flies all of a sudden?

Maybe its the infusion of young superstar talent. Maybe its the roid cycles wearing off. But there are definitely less runs being scored.

Well, it's true that there are fewer runs being scored than last year's total average. However, compared to last years' April/early May, run scoring is basically static. The cooler weather tends to deflate run scoring; give it some time.

Despite the fact that I watch or listen to pretty much every Yankee game, and read about the ones I miss I somehow have no idea what kind of line Ensberg is putting up this year. I mean, I have a rough idea that he's not lighting the world on fire but...jeeze, I couldn't even come up with a reasonable guess at his numbers. Let's say, .240/.310/.370 in 80 AB.

And his actual line is: .226/.250/.274 in 62 AB. Ouch. Where have you gone indeed.

Ensberg is almost Eric Byrnes bad. Actually, he might be better...

Ensberg looks awful. He actually looked alright at the start of the season but has mostly sucked since then. I really thought he had something left to show, maybe he does, but I'd imagine the Yanks are running out of patience. If Betemit can see again, Ensberg's time may become even more limited.

I’m starting to wonder if the Yankee bench has a curse on it, from Don Zimmer or something. They get these guys, like Duncan and Betemit and Ensberg and Bellhorn and Clark and Dellucci and White and Lofton and Phelps and Wilson who on paper should be useful bats off the bench and good role players and then they get here, they get some time and they forget how to ####### hit. I know in part that's the nature of the bench player because of how few ABs they get, but I would have expected one of these guys to hit for the Yanks. Some of them went on to be useful bench players for other teams, so it's not like they were all at the end of their rope. The only positives I can think of are Tino Martinez and maybe John Olerud (who really wasn't that good).

His 2005 was far from a fluke—his batting average on balls in play, which hitters have relatively little control over, stood at .301, roughly league average.

You mean pitchers. Hitters have plenty of control over this. Hit the ball really hard and you'll do better than if you hit a bunch of weak grounders. Guys like Ryan Howard (.342) Thome (.339) and Andres Galarraga (.340) do not have high career BABIPs through dumb luck.

What happened to Wilson Betemit. Injured? That still looks like a great trade for the Yanks... a 25-year old infielder that can slug .450 is not easy to come by.

Didn't Ensberg have some pretty bad shoulder injuries?

What happened to Wilson Betemit. Injured?

Well, not "injured" exactly - he had a bout with conjunctivitis, AKA "pink eye". But he's now back.

-- MWE

I’m starting to wonder if the Yankee bench has a curse on it, from Don Zimmer or something.

I don't know about that. There have been some pretty good fill-ins the last couple of years, even if they've been of the "pleasant surprise" variety. Melky and Bernie in 2006, for example.

You mean pitchers. Hitters have plenty of control over this.

Ugh. This was an inelegant way of presenting- what I meant was that their BABIP does tend to vary widely by season for most individual hitters. Good catch, though- am I off on the belief that BABIP does tend to vary widely for most hitters?

Ensberg looked absolutely hideous during the end of his stint with the Astros - he just sat there looking at pitches go by, and apparently he found pitchers pitching around him, so he continues to do it. He had no business being out there.

Jimmy P Posted: May 09, 2008 at 02:18 PM (#2774780)

Didn't Ensberg have some pretty bad shoulder injuries?

- yup

in the end of may 06, when he was killing the ball.

he only stayed out a few weeks and when he came back he was never the same. he must have been doing bad stuff to try to deal with his shoulder and he never got his old stance/swing back.

same thing happened to chris burke

Some Ensberg figures:
2003 Home: 351/448/665 in 62 games
Road: 234/304/401 65 games

2004: Home: 286/345/490 in 67 games
Road: 264/315/328 64 games

2005: Home: 289/407/586 , 75 games
Road: 278/376/531 , 75 games

Hitter friendly Enron/Minute Maid???...And then came 2006 when his skills dissapeared.

I'm a dumbass who traded my #1 pick in our strat o matic draft for Morgan(a) (the kissing bandit). in our 2006 draft (cards based on 2005 stats).

Ugh. This was an inelegant way of presenting- what I meant was that their BABIP does tend to vary widely by season for most individual hitters. Good catch, though- am I off on the belief that BABIP does tend to vary widely for most hitters?

Hitters have a lot more input into line drive rate and baserunning speed than pitchers do, so they have a reasonable amount of control over their BABIP. But batting average by itself is very "unstable," and BABIP removes the two elements of batting average that hitters have the most control over, HR and K rates.

For hitters, noise tends to overwhelm true talent level in a single season or less; for pitchers, noise is most often mistaken for a talent that doesn't exist. It's a fine distinction.

Ugh. This was an inelegant way of presenting- what I meant was that their BABIP does tend to vary widely by season for most individual hitters.

Yes, this is true.

Good catch, though- am I off on the belief that BABIP does tend to vary widely for most hitters?

It does vary. "Widely".... Well, there are very few people with a career BABIP over .340 - the above guys are all around .340 so is Ruth, it seems to be some kind of upper limit. And it's not easy to find guys with a long career and BABIP <.275, presumably because those guys don't get given jobs. Of course extra points of BABIP are very important. A spread of 65 points it's up to you if you want to call that "widely" or not.

A spread of 65 points it's up to you if you want to call that "widely" or not.

At first blush I sure would- any reason why I shouldn't? Thanks for the clarification, by the way.

The headline should probably be:

N.Y Yankees: Ensberg: Where Have You Gone, Functioning Shoulder Ligaments?

It does vary. "Widely".... Well, there are very few people with a career BABIP over .340 - the above guys are all around .340 so is Ruth, it seems to be some kind of upper limit. And it's not easy to find guys with a long career and BABIP <.275, presumably because those guys don't get given jobs. Of course extra points of BABIP are very important. A spread of 65 points it's up to you if you want to call that "widely" or not.

Careful now, you're talking about the spread of "true talent" BABIP across hitters; Howard is talking about the variation from season-to-season for a ballplayer (as I understand his point). For these sorts of data (i.e. repeated measures on people), the between-variation tends to be greater than the within-variation and I would guess that's true here as well.

So, no, I wouldn't consider a 65-point spread in true-talent BABIP across hitters to be "wide" necessarily.