Crashburn Alley: The Fall of J-Roll

J-Roll, J-Roll
Falling off a fence
If you don’t get it
You ain’t got no sense

Everything that could go wrong for Rollins has gone wrong. His walk rate is down to seven percent, the second-lowest rate since 2007. His strikeout rate is up above 15 percent, the highest it’s been since 2003. His isolated power is down to .076, easily a career-worst (next-lowest: .124 in 2003). And his BABIP isn’t all that bad — at .280, it is only a hair below his career average .288.

...As the chart may indicate via deductive reasoning, Rollins has been nearly worthless as a right-handed hitter. Left-handed pitching has held him to a .072 wOBA in 25 PA. That is certainly not a sample size that yields any confidence at all. Still, Rollins has manged to put 21 balls in play against southpaws, but only one of them has been a line drive. He’s swinging at more pitches out of the strike zone as well: in 2011, against lefties, he swung at 74 percent of pitches in the strike zone. That rate has dropped to 67 percent in 2012.

It has been mentioned on Phillies TV broadcasts frequently that Rollins is pressing, trying to do too much to reverse his and his team’s fortunes. Perhaps that is the case, and if it is true, it is theoretically a reversible path. Otherwise, however, these are the trends thought up in nightmares. There are zero positive trends to speak of for Rollins this year. As a result, Rollins needs to be even better in other areas to justify his regular spot in the lineup.