Looking at Rowdy Jordan's Stats

[msudawglb]

I'm reading a lot of comments towards Rowdy and his lack of hitting. Now I admit, that I have't been able to visually watch many of the games, so this post is from just looking at the stats.

In comparing Rowdy Jordan to Jordan Westburg...

Rowdy has 11 hits and has struck out 13 times in 73 at bats. He's walked 9 times. Of his 11 hits, 4 have been for extra bases (36%).

Westburg has 28 hits and has struck out 22 times in 80 at bats. He's walked 10 times. Of his 28 hits, 10 have been for extra bases (36%).

So Westburg has put the ball into play 30 times which were outs. Remarkably almost half the time Westburg makes contact, he gets on base. While Rowdy has put the ball into play 60 times with only getting on base 11 times. For those that are watching the games, I'm assuming that Westburg is making better contact and driving the ball where Rowdy is hitting a lot of weak grounders?

My point is.....Rowdy doesn't seem to be off by much.

[smootness]

I'm assuming that Westburg is making better contact and driving the ball where Rowdy is hitting a lot of weak grounders?

My point is.....Rowdy doesn't seem to be off by much.

Yes.

But instead of thinking Rowdey isn't off by much, I think it's more accurate to assume that if Westburg doesn't get his K's under control, his BA will come down.

Westburg's BABIP right now is .474. I don't know much about college BABIP's, but I would assume they typically tend to be a little higher than in the majors (which average right around .300). Even allowing for his BABIP to be higher than average, you would still expect it to come down a good bit. Mangum's is just .406.

So unless Westburg starts K'ing a good bit less or starts hitting bombs on the regular, his offensive numbers will come down.

Rowdey's BABIP is .180, so you would expect his to come up some, he's probably been unlucky. But he isn't hitting the ball well, so I wouldn't expect it to come up a whole lot.

[MetEdDawg]

I'm reading a lot of comments towards Rowdy and his lack of hitting. Now I admit, that I have't been able to visually watch many of the games, so this post is from just looking at the stats.

In comparing Rowdy Jordan to Jordan Westburg...

Rowdy has 11 hits and has struck out 13 times in 73 at bats. He's walked 9 times. Of his 11 hits, 4 have been for extra bases (36%).

Westburg has 28 hits and has struck out 22 times in 80 at bats. He's walked 10 times. Of his 28 hits, 10 have been for extra bases (36%).

So Westburg has put the ball into play 30 times which were outs. Remarkably almost half the time Westburg makes contact, he gets on base. While Rowdy has put the ball into play 60 times with only getting on base 11 times. For those that are watching the games, I'm assuming that Westburg is making better contact and driving the ball where Rowdy is hitting a lot of weak grounders?

My point is.....Rowdy doesn't seem to be off by much.

Yeah you need to watch how bad it is. He grounded out to the pitcher 3 times in one game and followed that up with a 2-0 belt high FB pop up to the catcher.

This was the point I made the other day. Saturday before the doubleheader, a bunch of folks said he should stay in. Then most people actually got to watch him for the first time and realized how bad it truly was.

Stats don't tell the whole fact. Rowdey actually looks much worse than his stats indicate. He's making mostly weak contact, his bat is not staying in the zone very long, and he's not swinging with any real confidence. I'm extremely concerned about him at this point. We are 1/3 of the way through the year and he's nowhere close to being an offensive weapon.

[StarkVegasSteve]

To my untrained eye, Rowdey's swing looks like it has so many moving parts that if one thing is off by an inch then his swing is gonna be screwed up. Hoping he gets it figured out. If anyone can get it under control though its Gautreau.

[MStateDawg]

My point is.....Rowdy doesn't seem to be off by much.

And you'd be wrong, very wrong. Virtually every ball Westburg puts in play is absolutely smoked. His exit velocities are consistently the tops on the team virtually every game. The biggest anomaly with Westburg is he's only hit 1 HR. But he is smoking line drives.

Rowdy is the complete opposite. He is hitting a ton of weak fly balls and week choppers. Virtually no line drives. Something is mechanically wrong with his swing. His bat spends little time in the contact zone.

[Tbonewannabe]

And you'd be wrong, very wrong. Virtually every ball Westburg puts in play is absolutely smoked. His exit velocities are consistently the tops on the team virtually every game. The biggest anomaly with Westburg is he's only hit 1 HR. But he is smoking line drives.

Rowdy is the complete opposite. He is hitting a ton of weak fly balls and week choppers. Virtually no line drives. Something is mechanically wrong with his swing. His bat spends little time in the contact zone.

Rowdy isn't even putting it deep enough to score runs as a sacrifice fly. He has some kind of loop in his swing where he is either topping the ball or popping it up. He definitely needs to level out his swing.

[msudawglb]

And you'd be wrong, very wrong. Virtually every ball Westburg puts in play is absolutely smoked. His exit velocities are consistently the tops on the team virtually every game. The biggest anomaly with Westburg is he's only hit 1 HR. But he is smoking line drives.

Rowdy is the complete opposite. He is hitting a ton of weak fly balls and week choppers. Virtually no line drives. Something is mechanically wrong with his swing. His bat spends little time in the contact zone.

I literally said everything that you just said. And for what its worth, Mangum seems to agree with me.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SportsTal...05447125876736

[MStateDawg]

Do you really think Mangum would throw his teammate under the bus? Rowdy isn't close. He has issues to workout.

[the_real_MSU_is_us]

I literally said everything that you just said. And for what its worth, Mangum seems to agree with me.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SportsTal...05447125876736

Yeah because Mangum would say 'Rowdy is sucking and I see no hope, he's just not a good hitter right now' if that's what was going on... oh course he's going to support his teammate. I'd call his leadership into question if he didn't

[Spectre]

Do you really think Mangum would throw his teammate under the bus? Rowdy isn't close. He has issues to workout.

This. Rowdey’s timing/rhythm are FUBAR right now. His babip is low because like a previous poster said when he does touch the ball it’s been weak to the pitcher, infield popups, etc.

He should work his way out of it. College is unfortunate because unlike 162 in the pros where you can have bad months and work through it, the short season is bad because slumps don’t proportion themselves to the schedule. Remember when David Ortiz started 2015 3-43 and everyone thought he was done...

[fader2103]

You know I love baseball but I am not a stat or analytic guy by any means. I think sometimes things like WAR and exit velocity get way to much publicity now. I go back to Bull Durham's coach.
You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball.

[Todd4State]

You know I love baseball but I am not a stat or analytic guy by any means. I think sometimes things like WAR and exit velocity get way to much publicity now. I go back to Bull Durham's coach.
You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball.

WAR is legit but it is also evolving. Exit velocity says more to me than something like BABIP because it tangibly measures how well a batter struck the ball. From this example- as you can see there is a difference between Jordan Westburg struggling (He's not really, just stay with me here) and Rowdey Jordan struggling because we can see that one is hitting the ball much harder than the other. It tells us more explicitly how one hitter is luckier than the other and which one is more likely to turn it around sooner. (The guy hitting the ball harder).

[Lord McBuckethead]

I agree with keeping it simple. WAR and Babip etc are great and all, but just look at the simpliest of metrics

1. Is the guy hitting the ball well? Square contact?
2. Is the majority of his hits finding the grass or are they going directly at people?
3. Does he look like he is seeing the ball well?

I fully believe Rowdy can work this out, but man when I watch him he is dancing all over the place before the pitch.
Also, he looks to purposely squeeze his elbows together on his set up. That has to put you in a bind when you start your swing.

My only advice I would give him is to do the following.
Find a way to limit your dancing prior to the pitch. Use something else to get timing, cause that is not working.
Find a new way to set your arms. Westburg and Mangum are great at this. They are relaxed, load up as the pitch is incoming, and then react.
Last bit of advice, he looks scared to swing. Don't be scared to swing. Go up there with bad intentions. If you are going to swing, you might as well go up there like you want to swing the bat. Right now, it looks like he knows it is going to be bad, so why not get the bat through the zone as quick as possible.

Other than that, dang man play ball. We are all behind you. We want you to turn this around starting tonight. Get the mojo back man.

[sleepy dawg]

I'm reading a lot of comments towards Rowdy and his lack of hitting. Now I admit, that I have't been able to visually watch many of the games, so this post is from just looking at the stats.

In comparing Rowdy Jordan to Jordan Westburg...

Rowdy has 11 hits and has struck out 13 times in 73 at bats. He's walked 9 times. Of his 11 hits, 4 have been for extra bases (36%).

Westburg has 28 hits and has struck out 22 times in 80 at bats. He's walked 10 times. Of his 28 hits, 10 have been for extra bases (36%).

So Westburg has put the ball into play 30 times which were outs. Remarkably almost half the time Westburg makes contact, he gets on base. While Rowdy has put the ball into play 60 times with only getting on base 11 times. For those that are watching the games, I'm assuming that Westburg is making better contact and driving the ball where Rowdy is hitting a lot of weak grounders?

My point is.....Rowdy doesn't seem to be off by much.

He is way way off. You can't only consider their hits to determine how far off he is. In a similar number of plate appearances, Westberg has 42 total bases and Jordan has 15. Westberg has an OPS of .978 and Jordan a .250. Westberg isn't just killing it, but Rowdey has been playing as bad as any hitter on this team in years.

[msudawglb]

He is way way off. You can't only consider their hits to determine how far off he is. In a similar number of plate appearances, Westberg has 42 total bases and Jordan has 15. Westberg has an OPS of .978 and Jordan a .250. Westberg isn't just killing it, but Rowdey has been playing as bad as any hitter on this team in years.

Wow, as bad as any hitter on this team in years? I guess he had his eyes closed tonight going 2-5. Just dumb luck.

[MStateDawg]

Wow, as bad as any hitter on this team in years? I guess he had his eyes closed tonight going 2-5. Just dumb luck.

Props to Rowdey for his 2 hits tonight. I really hope he busts out of this slump, but those were his 1st two hits in the past 7 games and yes, one of them was dumb luck. Even with those 2 hits, he's still hitting .167 on the season. I don't remember an everyday player hitting below .200 for 1/3 of the season. So yes, this is one of the worst slumps we've seen in years.

[Dawg2003]

Last night could have been a fluke for Rowdey. It could have been him getting back on track. We'll find out this weekend for better or worse.

[Ari Gold]

The kid hit above .300 in sec play as a frosh.
Again give the kid 100 ABs and lets where we are then
And btw we are 20-2 , a slumping Rowdey hasn’t cost us anything up till this point

[Randolph Dupree]

The kid hit above .300 in sec play as a frosh.
Again give the kid 100 ABs and lets where we are then
And btw we are 20-2 , a slumping Rowdey hasn’t cost us anything up till this point

^^^Listen to this guy ^^^

[ScoobaDawg]

I literally said everything that you just said. And for what its worth, Mangum seems to agree with me.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SportsTal...05447125876736


I don't know what your link was to.. but it's broke. I tried to fix it.. but it's not valid.

[Really Clark?]

I agree with keeping it simple. WAR and Babip etc are great and all, but just look at the simpliest of metrics

1. Is the guy hitting the ball well? Square contact?
2. Is the majority of his hits finding the grass or are they going directly at people?
3. Does he look like he is seeing the ball well?

I fully believe Rowdy can work this out, but man when I watch him he is dancing all over the place before the pitch.
Also, he looks to purposely squeeze his elbows together on his set up. That has to put you in a bind when you start your swing.

My only advice I would give him is to do the following.
Find a way to limit your dancing prior to the pitch. Use something else to get timing, cause that is not working.
Find a new way to set your arms. Westburg and Mangum are great at this. They are relaxed, load up as the pitch is incoming, and then react.
Last bit of advice, he looks scared to swing. Don't be scared to swing. Go up there with bad intentions. If you are going to swing, you might as well go up there like you want to swing the bat. Right now, it looks like he knows it is going to be bad, so why not get the bat through the zone as quick as possible.

Other than that, dang man play ball. We are all behind you. We want you to turn this around starting tonight. Get the mojo back man.

He is fidgety and pinches his elbows but all of that is pre pitch and pre negative load. Honestly, that stuff people get caught up in is style and personality. What matters is what occurs from negative load to launch. He will always be a hands hitter. Which is usually someone who is a contact hitter but sometimes it will be weak contact because his fast hands adjusts to the ball but his body will be out of sequence.

He has a sharp attack angle and bat path. Something I’m sure they are working on because it requires precise timing to square the ball. But we are in season, not going to make big mechanical changes during the season. So work on timing, adjust the bat path. Change the path by keeping front shoulder from blowing out so much at contact point (either by a slightly bigger turn inward at load or hold the position longer into launch) lower the extension after contact. Weak topped grounders and weak pop ups (especially middle to oppo) usually has the front shoulder blowing out too soon instead of driving it to the ball then rotation. NOT LiNEAR to the ball but keeping it tucked toward the pitcher longer.