The Season that Was: Brett Lawrie

Coming off a 2012 season that, by anyone's measure, was a disappointment, we were hopeful that this would be the season he puts it all together.

His rookie season, 2011, saw a .293/.373/.580 slash line in 43 games we had high hopes, since then, best I can say is we still have high hopes. They haven't been realized yet.

In his prediction thread I said:

Brett has some maturing to do (don't we all), and he runs the bases like he doesn't understand that the other team can tag him out. Maybe John Gibbons will be a good influence. Maybe Chad Mottola will be good for him.

The good news is that he seems to have matured some.

The predictions in the thread were pretty much all over the place. I guessed

Let's say 145 games, .280/.340/.450, 16 home runs, 70 RBI, 20 stolen bases.

Real life:

No, I won't count that as a success.

Fangraphs has him at a 1.3 WAR, giving him a value of $6.7 million to the team. His BABIP was .280, down a bit from last year's .311.

Brett walked a bit more than in 2012 (6.8% up from 6.2) and struck out a bit less (15.4% from 16.2). Small steps are a good thing.

He hit fewer line drives than in 2012 (17.4% down from 20.0). Fewer ground balls (48.5% down from 50.2). More fly balls (34.1% up from 29.8). More of his fly balls left the park (9.6% up from 9.0).

Surprisingly Lawrie hit RHP (.266/.329/.413) much better than LHP (.219/.269/.344). He had pretty normal splits last year, so likely this is a one year blip, but pretty strange.

Brett hit a little better at home (.265/.335/.407 with 4 home runs) than on the road (.244/.294/.386 with 7 home runs).

With RISP he hit .247/.345/.340, much the same as he hit overall.

By month Brett hit:

April: .212/.263/.346 with 2 home runs and 5 RBI.

May: .207/.271/.391 with 3 home runs and 9 RBI.

June: Injured.

July: .212/.300/.423 with 3 home runs and 9 RBI.

August: .346/.397/.495 with 2 home runs and 13 RBI.

September: .243/.304/.311 with 1 home runs and 10 RBI.

We thought he had it all figured out in August and then September, it wasn't as good.

His defense, well, I thought he looked great, certainly much much better than Izturis and DeRoasa looked went he was off injured. UZR didn't like him as much, it has them at -0.1 UZR/150. He made 10 errors for a .963 fielding average, about exactly the league average of .959. UZR did hate him at second base, almost as much as I did, giving him a -54.6/150, but then small sample size. I really don't want him at second ever again.

Fangraphs has him as a better than average baserunner, saying he was 0.5 runs better than the average, on the bases. He still runs them like his hair is on fire. He stole 9 bases, was caught 5 times and of course wrecked his ankle on a steal attempt. I'd rather he didn't try to steal.

His longest hitting streak was 11 games, running from July 29 to August 10. Longest on base streak was 18 games. Longest stretch without a home run was 20 games. Longest streak without a hit was 4 games.

His favorite team to face? He hit great against the Braves and Giants, but that was only 1 game and 2 games respectively. Among teams he played more than a couple of games, he hit .360/.385/.560 in 7 games against the A's.

Least favorite? He went 0 for 10, with a walk in 3 games against the Royals.

Lawrie's season was a mess from the start. He injured his oblique training for the WBC, missed the WBC, the last couple of weeks of spring training and the first couple of weeks of the season. When he starts playing, his timing is a mess, his swing is such a mass of nervous ticks and that he needs all the work he can get to get his timing down. Then, when he is starting to hit, he wrecks his ankle and misses another month and a half.

I'm kind of willing to give him a mulligan for the season. He was hurt for so much of it. Then the piss around with him at second base. I think he's always going to be inconsistent. He'll have his ups and downs, but, I'm hoping that he doesn't miss as much time with injury in the future. Less time miss, I'm hoping, will mean less time looking for his timing.

He is only 23, I think he'll have a good career, but he hasn't become the instant All-Star career we were hoping to see.