Mike Napoli Spotlight Edition

Is this the end of Mike Napoli with the Red Sox?  On a day when the Celtics traded Gerald Wallace for David Lee and Danny Ainge appears to continue a run of putting the whammy on opposing NBA GMs.  Danny's wizardry stands in stark contrast to what's going on with the Sox.  How did the beloved home town team get here?  I attempted to answer part of that with my Rick Porcello piece in which I try to persuade you there are black cats criss crossing his path this year.  Let me now affix my eye on the lumberjack swinging, sleep apnea fixing, swashbuckling Mike Napoli.

Let's take a look at the last five years.  Thanks as usual to Baseball HQ for the stats.



On the one hand his contact (CT) is rock solid, and his fly balls (FB) are solidly back to the days of 20-30 home runs a year.  And like Mr. Porcello, 'Nap' appears to be suffering from bad fortune.  His hit (H) percentage is dramatically lower than prior years.  These signs point towards a recovery.  However, his (BB) are slightly off down to 12 percent and his power down trend is downright frightening.  His home runs per fly ball (HR/F) are in free fall falling from 26% in 2012 to 13% so far this year.  It could be argued his hit percentage is a result of a high number of fly balls with dwindling power.

Clearly Napoli is a mixed bag.  I'm inclined to believe more in the loss of power and less in his ability to rise like the phoenix.  I like the bandied about plan of playing him against Mike Scioscia's Angels in the upcoming schedule and hope he catches fire and other MLB GMs don't know about Napoli's Ruthian abilities against his former manager to prop up the old trade value.

Until next time,

The SAHD