About a month ago I picked up Ramon Hernandez in a head-to-head league. That sure worked out great.

In my head-to-head points league a few weeks ago I had John Buck at the catcher position. Ramon Hernandez was coming back and I took a chance and added Hernandez and dropped Buck. Oops.

It was a reasonable decision at the time but it sure hasn’t worked out. In the last month Hernandez has gone 9 for 63, with a 1 for 37 skein. So, essentially he had a week where he got me about 1 point, and a month with approximately 15. 15 points is one good game for Curtis Granderson.

Blog contributor Matt and I are one-two in total points in the league and both lead our respective divisions. As of Sunday I was a scant 10 points behind Matt for the points title. So, one can easily see a scenario where picking up Hernandez will cost me the overall points title (that and losing BJ Ryan for the season).

What has gone wrong? Here is Hernandez’ line for the year:

5 HR 46 RBI .234/.317/.333 27% hit rate 82% contact 11% BB rate. The hit rate is low, and normally one would chalk that up to luck. But not here. Hernandez is hitting 52% of his balls on the ground and only 13% line drives. A slow catcher coming off injuries and slamming the ball into the ground like Joey Gathright is not going to get his fair share of hits.

Hernandez’ decline is also perhaps reflected in his HR/FB rate. The Hardball Times publishes this ratio:

2007 6.4%
2006 14.2%
2005 13.2%
2004 17.9%

This is a huge marked decline. Coupled with a ground ball rate over 50% and it is clear that something is wrong. This performance doesn’t appear to be the result of random fluctuation.

Since his return from the DL Hernandez has been so bad that he aspires one day to hit like Mario Mendoza. What does this say about his career? His 2006 season was very good, but hid a large second half decline. In the second half of 2006 his contact rate dropped from 87% in the first half (near his career norm) to 81% in the second half.

In context his 2006 season is clearly an outlier; it is well beyond his career norms. Perhaps all of the good fortune from last year is balancing out this year. But aside from a big first half last year, he appears to be on a continued decline, hidden by a good first half of 2006.

His batting averages mirror his decline. In the first half of 2006 he hit .287 but only .261 in the second half. In the first half of 2007 he hit .245. In the second half he has hit .223. This is four straight halves of decline.

He has only played 1,030 games at catcher, a lot but not up to the 1,500 mark when catchers generally start to really see a decline.

Although I would proceed with caution next year, it is probable that he is just still feeling the after affects of his injuries, combined with a little bit of bad luck (he obviously isn’t a 1 for 37 hitter.) However, if his decline in contact rate persists into next year it may be time for him to hit the pines, both in real baseball and on your fantasy team. If he can get that contact rate back up he could rebound if healthy next year.

No matter what, I sure wish I could have that transaction back.

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