Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The Resurgence of Lyle Overbay

For the past two season, Lyle Overbay has been a favourite target of the Jay-bashing “fans.” You’d read him referred to as Lyle Double-Play or Lyle Overpaid. After he came over from the Brewers in 2006, Overbay posted his best season ever, 0.312/0.372/0.508, with 46 doubles – his second best season in that category after his 53 in ’04 – and his only season with over 20 HR. He had 92 RBI that year and his OPS+ was 125.

So far this season, Lyle has posted 0.282/0.399/0.540, which results in an OPS of 0.939, compared to 2006’s 0.880, and his OPS+ is 146, highest on the team. He is on pace for 37 doubles, 21 HR and 94 RBI, and over half of his RBI have been with 2 out.

Even better is his performance with runners on base. He is the only Jay with more 2-out RBI than Runners Left in Scoring Position with 2 Out. He is third on the team cashing in base runners with 32 out of a possible 112. Only Lind (34 out of 163) and Hill (33 out of 186) have driven in more. His rate of cashing in 28.6% of base runners is by far the best on the team with Rod Barajas second at 22.3%. (Note: Runners on base when the batter walks are not counted in this analysis.)

In 2006, his best season as a Jay, Overbay’s Win Probability Added (WPA) was just under 2, meaning that in aggregate, he added 4 wins to the Jay’s record. This year, he’s on pace to better that by 50%.

1 comment:

  1. One more thing: After grounding into 24 double plays last year, this year, Lyle has only done this 4 times, which projects to 9 for the entire season.

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