The 126 million dollar man has not made many fans in his first half-season with his new ballclub. Jayson Werth has hit just .215/.319/.362 with spotty defense, but things should turn around for the National’s right fielder in the second half.
Most of Werth’s peripherals are similar to that of his career norms. He is walking at a similar rate and striking out a bit less than he had in the past, but the biggest difference between this season and last season is his batted ball profile. Werth blasted at least 24 home runs over each of the past three seasons, with 36 in 2009. This year, due to his fly ball rate dropping to 38.7% from 45.3% last season, he has just 10 home runs and is not on pace to reach 20 long balls. His infield fly ball percentage is the largest difference, up to 13.8% from 5.3% last year, but the difference between a home run and an infield fly is less than a quarter of an inch, so that high infield fly percentage should regress back towards his career mean.
Another problem Werth has encountered is a rise in his ground ball percentage, which is at 45.3% and has not been above 40% since he played with the Dodgers. All of these caveats are why his batting average on balls in play has dropped almost .100 points from last year’s .352 to this year’s .258. His BABIP will not regress back to career norms if he continues to hit more ground balls and infield flies than line drives and fly balls, but Werth is simply better than he has played in the first half. He still has the power, as evident by his 27 extra base hits, and he still has speed, as evident by 11 steals in 14 chances.
Werth may never get back to 20/20 seasons or 30 home run power, but he can be a solid performer going forward. ZiPS projects him to hit .245/.344/.432 with nine home runs and seven steals, which is still rather productive in this run environment. I am a bit more bullish than that, putting his line at more of a .260/.360/.450 mark. Regardless, it will not be the type of production the Nats had in mind when they signed him, but the cost is already taken and respectable production to salvage a down year is all they can realistically hope for from Werth in 2011.
