Adrian Gonzalez never recovered his power after his shoulder injury:
Gonzalez, 30, said he altered his swing when he injured his shoulder in 2010, his final season in San Diego. He had surgery after that season, then was traded to the Boston Red Sox.
“Last year, I tried to go back to the swing I had before I got hurt,” he said. “I tried it for the whole first half, with horrible results.”
He hit .283 with six home runs in the first half of last year, .312 with 12 homers in the second half. The Dodgers last August acquired Gonzalez, taking on a contract that guaranteed him $130 million through 2018.
He said he is most effective now with a flatter swing that generates more line drives, rather than an upward swing that produces more power. He is not a singles hitter by any means — he hit a career-high 47 doubles last season — but he says he is a better hitter against left-handed pitching and with runners in scoring position.
What interests me is that 2011 was perfectly consistent with the rest of his career. Gonzalez was born in early 1982, so we should have expected him to peak in 2009. His home run totals went up every year, reaching a peak of 40 in 2009. They fell off to 31 in 2010, then 27 in 2011. He did increase his batting average to make up for the lost power, but it’s not like that HR progression is a rare thing for a healthy player. So his shoulder injury does not allow him to swing in a way to produce a high number of home runs, but he’s still good enough to make up for lost power with more hits.
I wonder how much his quest for power was his own doing, and how much the Red Sox wanted the home runs? I suspect that’s why they gave him a big contract.
Hap tip, BBTF.
