I was listening to the post-game radio show Monday night after the second game of the doubleheader in Minnesota. All the players were exhausted after have played three games and travelled 1,200 miles in 36 hours, so Tom Hamilton & Co. talked to Cleveland Indians hitting coach Bruce Fields.
It was an interesting interview—Fields talked about the progress Tribe hitters have made and his increasing comfort in working with them. He talked about working with Carlos Santana. And then the subject turned to Michael Brantley.
Michael Brantley and Garret Anderson—am I the only one who doesn't see the resemblance?
Fields started to make a comparison between Brantley and another MLB hitter, and I instantly started to guess who it would be. Kenny Lofton was an obvious choice for a number of reasons. Carl Crawford seemed plausible. Maybe even a pre-2011 Asdrubal Cabrera?
I thought I had misheard when Fields finished his thought and announced that Brantley reminded him of Garret Anderson.
I have nothing but respect for Mr. Fields and the work he has done with the Indians’ hitters. But, in the words of SI.com’s John Donovan: “#$!&@* the heck?” Does comparing Brantley to Anderson make any sense at all?
In his major-league career, Brantley’s hit .272/.324/.361. He’s shown decent wheels (26 steals and 102 runs in 192 games) but not much power (9 homers, .089 ISO), and he’s still a work in progress defensively. (-14.5 career UZR/150).
More specific to this season, Brantley is hitting .281 with 12 steals. He’s upped his walk rate to nearly 8% and shown somewhat improved power (.113 ISO) and defense (0.1 UZR), but he’s still primarily a speedy contact guy.
Anderson, meanwhile, was known for his power. He slugged 287 homers with a .461 SLG in his career. He had no real speed to speak of (he had a career 3.6 Spd score and ranked below-average in each of his 17 MLB seasons), but in his youth he was a great fielder (+35 TZR in his first three full seasons).
In other words, they don’t really match up.
If you focus on just their approaches at the plate, the comparison becomes even more puzzling. In the last nine years of Anderson’s career (pitch data goes back only to 2002), he swung at just over half the pitches he saw (50.1%), including more than 30% of pitches out of the zone. Brantley, meanwhile, has chased just over a third (36.6%) of pitches he’s seen, and less than a quarter (22.4%) of balls out of the zone.
And when Brantley does swing, he makes more contact. He’s hit a fantastic 91.6% of pitches he’s swung at, compared to Anderson’s 81.2%. Anderson was twice as likely to miss when he chased a pitch out of the zone (40.0%) as Brantley is (19.7%), and got swinging strikes more than three times as much (9.2%, to Brantley’s 3.0%). As a result, Brantley’s career-low walk rate (6.6%, from his 28-game rookie stint in 2009) is better than Anderson’s career-high (he walked 6.5% of the time in 2006).
Here’re all the possible ways I can think of that Brantley and Anderson are similar:
- They don’t strike out much
- They’re good-not-great batting average guys
- They both play outfield
- They’re similar heights (Brantley is 6’2″, Anderson is 6’3″)
- “Michael Brantley” and “Garret Anderson” have the same number of letters and syllables
And here are the differences:
- Anderson was much more powerful
- Brantley has much better plate discipline
- Anderson was a much better fielder
- Brantley is much faster
- Anderson killed fastballs while Brantley’s done better against breaking pitches
- Brantley hits a lot more ground balls
- The power and plate discipline things count twice
Also, for what it’s worth, Brantley and Anderson have a Similarity Score of 852 (out of 1,000) through their age-24 seasons—not very good considering that includes less than two seasons’ worth of time to differentiate themselves and there are 10 other players who score 100 points better with Anderson than Brantley.
(For their careers, Brantley and Anderson have a Similarity Score of just 18. Out of 1,000. I know it’s ridiculous to compare a 17-year veteran to a third-year player, but I found it amusing.)
If I were Brantley, I’d be offended that my hitting coach was comparing me to someone with notoriously poor plate discipline in a year that I’m improving my walk rate. And if I were Anderson, I probably wouldn’t be happy about being compared to a player who’s averaging 8 homers per 162 games.
Brantley is a great young player whose contact ability, speed, and improving plate discipline make him really fun to watch. I’m just not sure what that has to do with Garret Anderson.
Photos by Keith Allison from flickr.com. Used under the Creative Commons license.
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