"The bravery of being out of range" - Roger Waters

Many have said that Jason Kendall has gotten back the stroke that made him an All-Star catcher; Macha had preached this to whomever would listen. But after watching this month's games, I realized that, in my opinion, he really isn't setting the world on fire. Sure he has had a nice September numbers wise, but how about actual performance?

First off here are his numbers for September and in contrast to his previous stats:

By Month/Games	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	HBP	SO	SB	CS	GIDP	PIL*	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
April	89	10	23	3	0	0	11	9	1	12	0	0	-	-	0.258	0.333	0.292	0.625
May	94	10	22	6	0	0	6	8	3	5	2	0	-	-	0.234	0.314	0.298	0.612
June	90	15	27	3	0	0	3	12	2	5	3	2	-	-	0.300	0.394	0.333	0.728
July	103	12	32	5	1	0	12	8	4	4	1	0	-	-	0.311	0.373	0.379	0.752
August	114	11	23	3	0	0	7	6	5	9	1	1	-	-	0.202	0.268	0.228	0.496
Totals	490	58	127	20	1	0	39	43	15	35	7	3	19	1	0.259	0.338	0.304	0.642
DATE	OPP	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	HBP	SO	SB	CS	GIDP	PIL*
Sep. 1	@LAA	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	9
Sep. 2	NYY	2	1	1	1	0	0	2	1	1	0	1	0	0	1
Sep. 3	NYY	4	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Sep. 4	NYY	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
Sep. 5	SEA	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
Sep. 6	SEA	Did not play
Sep. 7	SEA	5	2	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
Sep. 9	@TEX	4	3	3	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	2
Sep. 10	@TEX	4	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	2
Sep. 11	@TEX	4	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	2
Sep. 12	@CLE	4	0	2	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	2
Sep. 13	@CLE	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	2
Sep. 14	@CLE	4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	2
Sep. 15	BOS	5	1	2	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	2
	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	HBP	SO	SB	CS	GIDP	PIL	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Sept. Totals	48	7	15	3	0	0	3	3	2	2	1	0	5	2	0.313	0.377	0.375	0.752
*PIL = Position in Lineup

If you notice, he has been pretty consistent, unlike Hatteberg who has had three great games in the past two months and about 30 horrible ones. The problem I had had with Hatteberg was that the press was praising him for his numbers, without really looking at how those numbers were composed.

Likewise, I had felt that Kendall was sucking just as bad as Hatteberg, but that Kendall was lucky enough for the batted balls to be just out of the range of fielders. So what I decided to do was gather up a spray chart of the month of September, excluding tonight's game. My thought here was to see where his outs were made and where the hits landed. Here is what I was able to come up with:

Note: Outs are X's Hits are solid O's

The problem with the hits chart is that they are recorded not from where the ball has landed but from where the fielder has picked up the ball. For instance, if a hit was to bleed through shortstop and third-base, that hit would be recognized at the point the left fielder picked up the ball. Only if the ball is a double does it show the point of impact. This is true for all available spray charts.

So what I propose is to look where the hits are indicated in comparison to where his outs are made, with the theory being that in order for the ball to get to the indicated spots from home plate, they must travel on a straight line through the infielders. From observations of these month's games, it is fairly reasonable to assume this is the case as most of his hits have not been of the fly variety.

Looking at the general clusters, it can be seen that a lot of his hits go through areas where infielders would normally play for the double-play; as such, you will notice that in Kendall's game log above, I have included a double-play chart.

My hypothesis is that Kendall has indeed received a vast majority of his September hits when men are not on base. Here is a hit log(Word fmt.) for all 15 hits including situations. Looking at the log, ten of his hits have come when a runner was not on first, when the defense is not playing for a double play. While sample size is small, Kendall has yet to show that he is really hitting the ball with authority.

So I feel that the A's should really consider moving him down in the order perhaps ninth AND if there is a runner on first, either hit and run or have the batter steal second, thus eliminating a high probability of Kendall grounding into a double play. It's a move that just may produce more of Kendall's infamous bloop shots.