Troy Tulowitzki’s 1st halves: 2007 and 2009

In Patrick Saunders' notes from yesterday's game, he points out the fact that Tulowitzki's 1^st half '07 looks similar to his 1^st half '09 based on his statlines. The funny thing is that I sort of agree with him, but not for the reasons Saunders cites.

He points out that in 2007, Tulo batted .281 with 8 HR and 36 RBI. In 2009, he's batting .248 with 13 HR and 33 RBI.

Now, as many of you know, I don't take kindly to RBI as a good indicator of a player's skill. RBIs, however, seem to be the most similar thing between both sample sets. Given that I prefer a slash line and/or wOBA, I whipped up some quick numbers that AREN'T RBI:

The similarities really come when you look at his OPS and wOBA numbers. Pretty similar, but for all sorts of different reasons.

Just looking at these numbers, we can see that Tulo's low batting average is really crushing his OPS and wOBA. He's also suffering from a low LD% (15.1%) as compared to the season line of 20.1% in 2007, as well as a cripplingly low BABIP to stack up to the unsustainably high BABIP in 2007.

What he's doing well is being patient and hitting for solid power, as evidenced by the improved IsoD, IsoP, and HR total. His .350 wOBA puts him at a good level above average, so there's no reason to fret there (in a general sense anyhow - for comparison, the Cards are trotting out some combination of a .318 and .296 wOBA hitter at SS).

Based on his peripherals, a more normal BABIP might show us something like a .275/.364/.492 line, good for a .856 OPS and somewhere in the .360-.370 range for wOBA.

So to summarize the above, yeah, his OPS and wOBA look very similar, but 2007 was more OBP driven while 2009 is more SLG driven. The funny thing to note is that despite his higher OPS, he's actually "cold" right now. You toss that .248 average in the microwave for 1 All-Star break on high, and we just might have a piping hot SS coming out of the gates.

Which then leads me to mention his 2007 2^nd half split:

Those are some numbers to hang your hat on. If Tulo can keep up his current IsoD and IsoP (patience and power), we could see a similar statline coming out of him during the 2^nd half, and maybe even a wOBA improvement.

What does that mean in not nerd-speak?

We might just have another huge bat to ride for the rest of the summer.