What went wrong with Billy Butler in 2014?

If you are reading this I assume you know who Billy Butler is. If you know who Billy Butler is I assume you know he officially agreed to a three-year, $30 million dollar deal with the Oakland Athletics today (if not, CttP’s Max Wildstein detailed it earlier). If you know Billy Butler is now a member of the A’s after spending his entire eight-year career with the Kansas City Royals I assume you know he had a down year in 2014. And if you are aware of all those facts I assume you are absolutely baffled the Athletics signed him for that amount of money.

Butler contributes nothing defensively due to the fact he is a pure designated hitter with the exception for when he occasionally ventures out to first base, as he did for 310 innings last year. His bat is what the A’s are banking on to accrue them value to match his contract over the next three seasons. That hope, though, has to be deflated with Butler’s below-average offensive production, 97 wRC+, last season. Then again, it is only one season.

More from MLB News

The prior five seasons (2009-2013) of “Country Breakfast’s” career are probably more telling for how he will perform going forward than his most recent season considering the small sample size. Spanning from 2009 to 2013, Butler was the 44th most productive hitter in baseball (126 wRC+) — from a wRC+ standpoint — ahead of the likes of Justin Upton, Hunter Pence, Victor Martinez and Pablo Sandoval. It is not at all unreasonable to think he will be closer to that level of play ’15 and beyond. But it was still curious to see Butler fall off so much in 2014. What went wrong for the 28-year-old last season? And will it plague him going forward?

Throughout his career a pivotal part of his game was to get on base. Before last season his on-base percentage had not dipped below .360 since 2008 and just a year before last he had the 19th best BB% at 11.8 among qualified hitters. Last year, his BB% plummeted to an abysmal 6.8% and consequently his OBP was just .324. The right-handed hitter also saw his power decline in 2014, as his .379 slugging percentage was actually below the MLB average last year. In large part this can be credited to his dwindling HR/FB% the past two seasons. Below are Butler’s HR/FB% from 2012 to 2014.

2012: 19.9 HR/FB%
2013: 11.7 HR/FB%
2014: 6.9 HR/FB%

That is never good; however, I am comfortable asserting that his HR/FB% will rise closer to his career 10.9 HR/FB% next season especially considering the MLB average in ’14 was a 9.5 HR/FB%. Really, this was just to give you a basic idea of his power decline. I do not want to delve too far into this because that is basically it. Butler only hit one less extra base hit in 2014 than 2013, but he amassed 65 more plate appearances in 2013. His real problem, in terms of offensive production, was his lack of singles and walks last season. We discussed the latter in the previous paragraph and it is something I would like to address in subsequent ones, too.

We already are aware the designated hitter’s BB% and OBP fell significantly in 2014. But why it fell is the question. Well, it is actually fairly explainable. Butler swung at numerous more pitches out of the strike zone last season compared to the rest of his career. To back up this claim with evidence, here are Butler’s O-Swing percentages over the past four seasons, along with the 2014 MLB average. Stats are courtesy of Baseball Info Solutions.

2011: 28.8 O-Swing%
2012: 29.9 O-Swing%
2013: 29.2 O-Swing%
2014: 34.1 O-Swing%
2014 MLB Average- 31.3 O-Swing%

The last number is not very important; it is just there for contextual purposes.

From 2011 to 2013, Butler was very consistent in his plate discipline. His above-average eye was a key part of his success in those three seasons, but it eluded him in ’14. It is not even as if he made more contact on pitches outside of the strikezone. In fact, his O-Contact% (outside of strikezone contact percentage) was actually his lowest since his 2009 season last year. None of this bodes well for success, so it is no wonder he struggled getting on base in juxtaposition to prior seasons.

O-Swing%, unlike a stat like BABIP or HR/FB%, is one that can be controlled by the player himself and is not influenced by outside factors. In all likelihood Butler will revert to the player he was before ’14; the one with an exceptional not a sub-par eye. Still, I am not a proponent of this deal for the A’s, but that is not what this article is about. This article was focused on seeing what went wrong with Butler in 2014, and as you should have seen it all has to do with him swinging at more balls and making less contact on balls. All said, in order for him to be successful going forward he needs to swing at less balls.

Home/MLB News