Jayson Werth: comeback candidate?

Buoyed by a successful spring and a mammoth home run on Sunday, is Washington Nationals outfielder Jayson Werth ready to bounce back?

The home run Jayson Werth blasted -- smote! -- on Sunday is already the stuff of legend. What's known is that Werth hit a ball completely out of Sun Coast Stadium. What's rumored is that the ball struck Werth's very own truck. Werth called the story of the assaulted truck "folklore," but then he told Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post: "That's usually where I park. You can only hope."

Werth's jaw-dropping clout and his impressive spring numbers (he was slugging .656 before Sunday's performance) raise a pressing question: will Werth bounce back from his woefully disappointing 2011 campaign?

Last season, Werth, fresh off signing a widely criticized seven-year, $126-million pact with the Nats, authored a paltry batting line of .232/.330/.389. Needless to say, if Washington is going to contend this season, then Werth will need to improve upon those figures.

Part of Werth's decline was surely due to the change in environment. He left Citzens' Bank Park, one of the best hitters parks in baseball (especially for right-hander power hitters like Werth), for Nationals Park, which is much less accommodating. And part of it may be the onset of age-related decline; after all, Werth was 32 for the majority of last season, and hitters typically peak in their late 20s.

Also not to be dismissed is the laundry list of minor-yet-nagging injuries that afflicted Werth in 2011: his hip, his groin, his foot, his ankle, his knee, his elbow, his hand -- most of him, really. All of that adds up to the kind of unceasing discomfort that can sap a player's productivity.

On a more basic (and intuitive) level, Werth simply didn't hit the ball as hard as he did in years past. His line-drive rate dropped to a career-worst mark, and his rate of home runs/fly balls was its lowest since his forgotten Dodger days. As well, Werth's groundball percentage was the highest it's ever been. All those things can quite easily add up to a year-long slump.

The sort-of good news is that Werth's struggles were also accompanied by a steep drop in batting average on balls in play (BABIP). While a drop in BABIP can be indicative of declining skills on the part of a hitter, it's usually a function of luck. In Werth's case, so long as he's healthy, his BABIP should increase in 2012. That he's been thumping the ball this spring can be considered an encouraging sign, if a sign dependent upon a very limited sample size.

Werth will turn 33 in May, so the "MVP lite" performances of his Philly days are likely gone forever, but, partially because of the bad luck that underpinned some of his struggles last season, you can expect a mid-grade rebound in 2012. That's not going to make his contract any less of a long-term disaster, but Werth should be somewhat more productive than he was last season.