Matt Kemp Is Off to One of the Best Power Starts Ever

11 Comments

1. 1
   Lawrence Azrin says:

   April 17, 2012 at 12:55 pm

   Major drawback – the stats listed here all seem to be just for the games in which a player hit a HR through his first ten games, instead of all ten games. I clicked on Kemp’s name, and all of his 2012 counting stats (except HR) are less than on his B-R page.

   First tip-off: 10 full games should normally lead to about 40 PA and 35 AB. All these players are short of that.

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   • 2
     Doug says:

     April 17, 2012 at 1:02 pm

     Good observation, Lawrence. That is P-I, though.

     I’ll add an advisory to that effect.

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   • 3
     Hartvig says:

     April 17, 2012 at 3:31 pm

     I have to admit I didn’t catch that so those OPS numbers were pretty eye-popping. Funny thing is I DID notice how few strikeouts some of the players had and even looked to see how many plate appearances there were for several. Even so, quite a start he is off to. I would say that barring injury it’s a pretty safe bet that he will exceed that 5.3 WAR that seems to be the mid-point by a fair margin.

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   • 6
     Richard Chester says:

     April 17, 2012 at 7:06 pm

     The second sentence of the third paragragh (just to the right of the photo) states that the stats are only for the games in which the player homered.

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2. 4
   JDV says:

   April 17, 2012 at 5:10 pm

   I remember Carlos Delgado’s tear in 1994. He had been a huge prospect and was making the jump from AA. But within a month he was at .215 and was sent back down…prematurely, I think. Granted they had Olerud (1B) and Molitor (DH), but Delgado was playing LF, and they went the rest of the way platooning Mike Huff and Darnell Coles out there. Delgado spent the rest of ’94 and most of ’95 crushing AAA pitching before sticking with the Jays in ’96. Losing those two seasons almost certainly kept him from 500 HR…probably 525.

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   • 5
     John Autin says:

     April 17, 2012 at 5:33 pm

     In his first 12 starts of ’94, Delgado had 8 HRs … and 5 singles.

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   • 7
     Hartvig says:

     April 17, 2012 at 7:47 pm

     When you wrote about Delgado being a rookie it brought Chris Shelton to mind- I missed him on my first look at the list. Whoever had him in the fantasy league I was in at the time was trying desperately to trade him to me before he cooled off- the asking price started off on something of the order of even up for Barry Bonds (or something almost equally ridiculous) and then started dropping more and more as the weeks passed. If he ever did manage to move him it must have been for pretty much market value and it wasn’t to me.

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3. 8
   kds says:

   April 17, 2012 at 10:05 pm

   A Marquis is a nobleman ranked below a Duke and above an Earl. Since we have no such in the US I don’t think Kemp qualifies. A marquee is a roofed covering over the front door, often with signage space as at a theater. A marquee name is a name up for advertising. Kemp clearly qualifies to have his name up in lights.

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   • 11
     Doug says:

     April 18, 2012 at 1:53 am

     Duly noted and corrected.

     Actually, there have been Dukes in baseball, the most famous one a former Dodger hero who had a 10 game start in 1955 similar to Kemp’s.
     4 HR, 13 RBI, 10 BB, .361/.500/.778

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4. 9
   BryanM says:

   April 17, 2012 at 11:21 pm

   Delgado was being converted from a catcher and his play in LF left a lot to be desired. BR has him at a seasonal pace of -33 runs defensively. He was sent down as much to learn a position where the Jays could use him as anything. They finally moved Olerud to make room for him at first a couple years later

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   • 10
     Ed says:

     April 18, 2012 at 1:28 am

     That plus he stopped hitting. After hitting his 8th homerun on April 19, Delgado went 15-82 with 2 doubles and 1 home run before being sent down. He got another chance in early ’95 and went 4-26 with 1 double and 1 homerun and was sent down again.

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