Fantasy Baseball: Are You Buying Raul Ibanez's 2009 Season?

by Ray Guilfoyle on Oct 19, 2009 12:52 PM EDT in Baseball

Some friends and I are arguing over the legitimacy of the season Raul Ibanez had in 2009, with the pro-Ibanez fans being Phillies fans as well....what a coincidence. But the anti-Ibanez camp may have some very valid points.

Here are Ibanez's stats for 2009:

HR-34

RBI-93

Runs-93

AVG.-.272

OBP-.347

SLG-.552

OPS-.899

But lost in the really good season that Ibanez had in 2009 is the fact that he accomplished the following:

-despite increasing his GO/AO( ground out to air out %) % from 0.88 to 1.14, and increasing his K% from 15.6% to 21.1%, he increased his HR/FB% from 8.7% to 16.9%.

-his HR/FB% was the highest of his career

-his K% was the highest of his career

-his HRs, SLG and OPS was the highest of his career

Some will argue its because he hit in a hitters park-Citizens Bank Ballpark. Well, yes, but he only hit 13 of his 34 HRs at home in 2009, hitting 21 on the road. Can Ibanez duplicate his 2009 season?

A better question is how did Ibanez accomplish career highs in the power categories at the age of 37?

Poll

Can Raul Ibanez duplicate his 2009 season in 2010?

Yes, in that lineup and ballpark, of course.

25 votes

No, career highs in the power categories at the age of 37? No way.

63 votes

88 votes | Poll has closed

Tweet Comment 2 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Yes and no

No, because I’m not sure if he’ll regress next year or not. That I’ll look into when I start preparing my projections for 2010 over the winter/in the spring.

Yes, because, well why not? His HR/FB% made sense in rising if he maintained the same power he had throughout his career. He’d spent a good deal of time playing in Seattle and Kansas City, neither of which are well-adept to HRs, particularly the ~~Kingdome~~Safeco Field.

If he hits 30 HRs and 90 RBIs again next year I’m not the least bit surprised. In fact, if he maintains the same skill set, his average has traditionally been higher, I believe.

FakeTeams.com - SBNation's Fantasy Source
The Royalty of Roto Blog

by Bryan Everson (The Royalty of Roto) on Oct 19, 2009 6:18 PM EDT reply actions

Ibanez

Always seems to have 2 good months of the season. If you can figure out when those 2 months are, you’re golden. If not, you’ve got a barely-roster worthy player for the other 4 months.

by Jevant on Oct 20, 2009 11:27 AM EDT reply actions