Is Hanley Ramirez's shoulder cause for concern?
Red Sox outfielder Hanley Ramirez has refused to blame his struggles on a shoulder injury, but he hasn't been the same since hitting that wall in early May, Chris Towers says.
By
Chris Towers
•
3 min read
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On May 4, Hanley Ramirez was making the Red Sox look like geniuses for signing him, as the team's new outfielder was hitting .283/.340/.609, and looked like one of the best hitters in baseball. He was crushing the ball all over the field, and looked like he might have only had room to grow, as his BABIP was just .229 through his first 103 trips to the plate.
If you remember, May 4 is when Ramirez smashed into the outfield wall and sprained his shoulder. And, though Ramirez has taken pains to note that his struggles aren't related to that issue, it's awfully hard to separate the two.
Since that injury, Ramirez's numbers have plummeted, and it doesn't seem like bad luck. He was leading the majors in averaged batted-ball velocity on April 29, when I last took a look at him, at an average of 97.6 miles per hour, per BaseballSavant.com. He was crushing the ball all over the field, so it's no surprise he was finding a lot of green grass and seats. In the three weeks since, however, Ramirez's game has hit a wall.
Ramirez's average batted ball since that date has left the bat at just 87.7 miles per hour, a massive dropoff that would rank him just 150th among 232 batters with at least 50 at-bats tracked for the season. The why question might be a bit harder to answer -- Is it the shoulder? Is it just a slump? -- but the what is pretty clear. Ramirez's fast start was fueled by him punishing baseballs, and his fall off has been the result of weak contact.
Whether you want to buy-low on him is going to depend entirely on how much you believe Ramirez that his shoulder is not the issue. We can only take Ramirez on his word, however this is something we've seen him struggle with in the past, as Ramirez has had surgery on two separate occasions on his left shoulder, most recently in 2011.
That injury forced him to miss the final two months of the season prior to the surgery. He came back to hit just .257/.322/.437 the following season, with a career-high 132 strikeouts, and he told the Boston Globe in early May the shoulder injury forced him to change his approach at the plate.
"I always considered myself a .300 hitter. I've done that a couple of times. But after I got that surgery on my left shoulder, everything changed," Ramirez said last week. "I had to adjust to my shoulder. It didn't feel like normal after that, so I had to put a lot of work on it. I don't know what I consider myself after that, but I just keep fighting every day to find a way for that shoulder to be comfortable so I can be successful."
One other bad sign is how much Ramirez's groundball rate has climbed. He is up to 48.1 percent the neighborhood he was at during his worst seasons, when his power plummeted in 2010 and 2011. With his batted-ball velocity falling at the same time his fly ball rate is, it's not hard to see how he has lost power.
If you are inclined to believe Ramirez, he makes for a terrific buy-low option. His swing plays well at Fenway Park, and his owner is probably beyond frustrated by watching Ramirez over the last month, as he has failed to homer, with just one RBI since May 1. You might be able to steal him out from under a frustrated player, and the potential for an extended run like his April remains.
Still, the shoulder is also enough of a question to consider him a risk moving forward. However you feel about him depends on how risk-averse you are.
