That's What Cheesehead: 37.14 - Old Man Time Catching Dempsey?

[7teen]

Last season, we mentioned in a random team news how we had hoped the injury and somewhat poor season by Steve Dempsey (.211/.232/.275, 1 HR, 13 RBI) was an anomaly and not the start of the down turn of a career. As the first month of April wraps up, fans are fearing the worst and that Dempsey's career may be on the downward trend.

After a sprained thumb last season that forced him to miss the final 6 weeks of the season, fans thought Demspey would rebound in 2037 and get back on track and back on pace to collecting his normal 200 hits and 50 doubles. But April is indicating that isn't the case. Dempsey collected 22 hits in April and only 4 doubles. His .507 OPS and -0.8 WAR through the first month have many questioning how much longer manager Millard Davis can ride with the 31 year old in RF. Especially when defense is his weak point and his offense is supposed to be what keeps him in the lineup.

"It's early still" said Davis after the Wolves' 6-1 win over Calgary that saw Dempsey go 0-4 with a strikeout. "We don't see any change in his swing or ability. At this point, we are still just using the small sample size and feel that Steve will eventually return to the norm. If and when he does return to the norm, he'll be in a hot stretch like nothing else. "

While sample size is fine and all, many stat experts point out there is at least one area of concern. Steve has struck out more to start the season than at any point in his career. His 21 strikeouts has him on pace for 122 on the season. Dempsey has never struck out more than 92 times in a season and that came in his 2nd season back in 2027. Some scouts have pointed out that the 31 year old's bat, a bat that is entering it's 12th season in the BBA, is starting to slow due to age and fatigue.

"His bat has gotten slower for sure" said one scout. "Balls that he used to line into the gaps for doubles are now swings and misses. You hate to see a player who isn't quite old yet start to decline this soon."

Dempsey declined comment on the issue. General Manager Chris Wilson did discuss the matter by saying "We are committed to Dempsey in RF. He's going to get 3,000 hits with this club come hell or high water. He has to! We traded Luis Maldonado away just so he could!"

At 31, Demspey has played the 4th most games in a Madison Wolves uniform and his 2,227 hits are 3rd most in franchise history. A guy who at one point looked like a lock for 3,000 hits now has many people wondering if he is hurting the team more than he's helping.

[RonCo]

I don't know if he's truly fading or not, but Dempsey's inability to take a walk will shorten his career.

[Ted]

Demspey since 2033 when he was 27 years old (career rate)

SO% 6.7->6.7->10.3->11.7->18.6 (9.6)
BB% 4.3->3.4->3.3->4.3->1.9 (4.0)
ISO .138->.115->.100->.072->.060 (.117)
BABIP .351->.371->.365->.343->.258 (.353)

Those are not good trends. He's clearly down from his peak, which shouldn't at all be surprising. What is pretty clear however, is that last year wasn't a fluke. This year's numbers are surprisingly bad, and largely driven by huge decreases across the board in effectiveness that do not correlate with any similarly huge ratings drops. I'd expect some rebound, but only to 2036 numbers or maybe marginally better.

As a further note, he's gone from, just "below average" to "liability" in the field, and is on pace for a -10 ZR and .910ish eff. Both could end up even worse. And if he's only an 85ish wRC+ bat going forward, with bad defense, he's rapidly moving towards non starter material. There's a good chance he'll be riddled with Randy's metaphorical forks by the beginning of next year.

[RonCo]

Look mostly at the walk rate...which (IMHO) in guys like Dempsey go a long way toward defining the length of his career. Dempsey has never been able to take walks, but he's overcome that by his very low K-rate/BABIP combo. Now that small walk rate has dropped to almost zero. It's possible the BABIP will come up to a degree, but my guess is that he's lost a little there, too. So it's a bit of a double whammy that will be hard to really recover from.

Defensively, he's probably due for at least a move to LF.

In some ways he reminds me of a Bill Buckner kind of a career arc...just fading a touch earlier, and Dempsey was more consistent and gains WAR with his legs that Buckner couldn't give. In looking at him, though, Buckner was done after his age 32 season, but teams kept running him out there until he was 40 or so because of whatever aura baseball people had toward creaky veterans.