Justin Upton distinguishes himself from other successful, young Major League Baseball players through his shear amount of raw power. “Isolated Power,” or ISO, is a widely-used statistic which is designed to measure a player’s raw power. By looking at Upton’s ISO, we not only have evidence of his raw power, but we can also see why he is on his way to becoming one of the best players in Major League Baseball history. For those of you who aren’t familiar with ISO, here is a quick description of the statistic according to Associated Content:

“Isolated Power, or ISO, is a statistic that was created invented by the famous general manager Branch Rickey and Al Roth in the 1950’s (this pair also invented On Base Percentage). Isolated Power attempts to separate and measure a player’s ability to hit for power as exhibited in extra base hits (doubles, triples, and home runs). Where batting average counts all hits equally, and slugging percentage gives credit for total bases, but also counts singles, ISO measures just the player’s extra-base abilities. Isolated power is basically a ratio of Extra Base Hits per at bat.”

So far this season, Upton’s ISO is .253. It is astonishing to see a 21-year-old display that type of power, considering that his body is still developing, and he is far from what Bill James considers to be a player’s prime (between the ages of 26 and 30). To put his ISO into perspective, let’s take a look at the other players that have posted an ISO of .250 or higher before the age of 22. Baseball reference reports these numbers:

That is quite a notable list of players.  To be counted in that company indicates that he may very well go on to become one of the top players in MLB history.  It’s also important to note that Upton is currently posting a .394 On Base Percentage, a number which would be remarkable for any player, but much more so when posted by a 21-year-old. According to Fangraphs, 90% of players that play at the level Upton has played at this early in his career end up as Hall of Fame players. Upton certainly appears to have a bright future. If he continues on this road, he should have no problem getting a phenomenal deal when he’s eligible for free agency as a 26-year-old in the 2013 season.

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Let’s take a look at some of the reasons that Big Papi is struggling.  Currently as of June 5th, he is batting .188 with 1 HR, an OBP of .281 and is slugging .288.  Those numbers are downright terrible, especially considering he had been batting between Dustin Pedroia and Jason Bay who are both having great seasons.

Although some have claimed that he “looks” to have lost bat speed, no one has definitive numbers to prove this point.   Some statistics do tell his story though.  According to Fangraphs.com, he is swinging at an uncharacteristic 25% of pitches outside of the strike zone compared to his career average of 18.4%.  Not to mention, when he is swinging at pitches in the zone he is making contact 82% of the time compared to his career rate of 86%.  His plate discipline is obviously one reason why he is struggling with a strike out rate of 27%, 6% higher than his career average.  So essentially, he is swinging at bad pitches and making less contact on pitches that are strikes.

One thing that is a bit odd is that he is hitting more line drives than he ever has.  His line drive rate is at 23.8% which is higher than his career average by nearly 4 points.  Not to mention he is hitting a fly ball percentage of 50% which is higher than his career average of 45%.  So it’s not like he is hitting weak ground balls, he is hitting line drives and more fly balls which should mean given Big Papi’s power, more home runs.  Yet his home run per fly ball rate is at 1.4% which is astoundingly low compared to his career 18.5%.  Which makes us believe his natural power may be a thing of the past.

It’s easy to give up on Big Papi right now given his current stat line, but we will have to wait and see.  To truly judge if he’s completely lost it and become Big Mami we have to wait and see if he returns to his career plate discipline percentages.  If he becomes more selective, and retains his line drive rate, there is no reason why he shouldn’t return to the David Ortiz of old.  Bad luck is also one reason he is struggling.  He is currently posting a batting average of balls in play at a low .254 average compared to his career average of .307.  So he is getting rather unlucky when he gets the ball in play.  Looking at all the numbers, there is a high probability that he may return to form as Papi, but the “Big” may be a thing of the past.

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