OK let me stop on the negative. He’s a good player, but before 2011 he has never been worth more than 3 WAR except 2008 when he had a great defensive season due to a lot of time in left field and right field. Without that defensive bonus from those positions he has been an average centerfield. Here’s where the positives start I promise. In 2011 he has been one of the best outfielders in baseball.
His defense is still average at best with his speed able to make up for his poor instincts. The offense though has been enough to rank him behind just five different outfielders in the AL according to wOBA. His wOBA of .373 ranks behind Jose Bautista, Matt Joyce, Curtis Granderson, Carlos Quentin and Mitch Moreland. That’s pretty good company for Ellsbury, but is this level of offense maintainable?
Ellsbury is currently worth 2.1 WAR in this season with 58 games played. That’s a pace for more than 5 WAR in more than 150 games played. Looking at his triple stat line of .300/.362/.457 it is by far the best of his career and his career average is only .292/..347/.412.
First up is the power, which is something fans have been waiting on since his first season. He has never even reached 10 homers in his career, so starting with 4 in April and totaling 6 by the end of May was a new sight with Ellsbury. He has only hit 3 home runs twice in a single month and never had 4 in one month. He still has to prove this power surge is real, but looking at his hittrackeronline data he has no home runs listed as Just Enough. None of his home runs have been cheap ones making me believe his power has improved this year.
The batting average and OBP have been good, but this is something I’m not as sold on. His 2011 rates are only up slightly from his career rate and his BABIP stands at .346, which is about 20 points up from his career rate at .323. He has been hitting the ball harder and that has shown in his home runs, but also his line drive rate. He has hit 24.3 percent line drives up from a career rate of 19 percent. This small increase is enough to put his OBP close to where you would like it for leadoff, but any regression and he is again not filling the leadoff role.
The power swing seems to have taken a toll on his contact as Ellsbury is striking out in 18.7 percent of his at bats. He did most of that in April though and his rate was down to 14.8 percent in May. It seems like this has already started to return to normal rates, but will this also mean the regression of his power as well?
If he continues to hit the ball with more power this year then his BABIP could remain increased and this would also continue to display in his home run totals. That requires us to ignore his career rates though and ignore regression. If we look at his ZiPs end of season updated projection the line of 11 HR, 51 SB and .293/.351/.432 is something we would all have taken entering the season. It’s also good enough to have a WAR of 3-4 depending on his defense for the remainder of 2011.
Ellsbury has earned himself a roster spot in the All Star game for what that is worth and even stands at 6th in the current AL voting for outfielders. Of course I’m more concerned with Ellsbury when he’s playing for the Red Sox. I would also hope that Mike Cameron could give him just an ounce of his instincts in centerfield, but for now I’ll take the extra runs on offense.