Either that or find some power.

At this point in his career, Ben Revere has 1,064 career plate appearances and an isolated power of .045. He has hit to a .278 average with a .323 slugging percentage (.323 minus .278 gives you .045, his isolated power).

As I mentioned in the previous post, that’s really an alarming lack of power.

So. Is it possible to be an above average offensive player with an isolated power that low? Below .050?

Yes. It just doesn’t happen very often. And when it does happen, it happens to guys who walk a lot more than Revere has to this point.

The table below shows the players who have put up an isolated power of .050 or worse of the past eight seasons over at least 400 plate appearances, their wOBA as calculated by FanGraphs and average wOBA for that season.

Year Player ISO wOBA Average wOBA
2012 B Revere .049 .300 .315
2012 J Carroll .049 .299 .315
2011 J Pierre .049 .296 .311
2011 B Revere .042 .278 .311
2011 C Getz .032 .274 .311
2010 J Carroll .048 .327 .321
2010 C Figgins .047 .298 .321
2010 R Theriot .043 .286 .321
2010 J Kendall .041 .280 .321
2010 J Pierre .041 .302 .321
2010 C Izutris .038 .249 .321
2010 E Andrus .036 .298 .321
2009 W Taveras .045 .252 .329
2009 L Castillo .043 .334 .329
2008 W Taveras .046 .277 .318
2008 C Izturis .046 .286 .318
2008 J Pierre .045 .296 .318
2008 C Figgins .042 .316 .318
2007 No players - - -
2006 J Kendall .047 .321 .332
2005 J Kendall .050 .304 .326

So the table lists 20 seasons for players over the last eight years in which the player has gotten 400 plate appearances with an isolated power of .050 or worse. Of those 20 seasons, there are only two in which the player had a wOBA for that year that was better than average. Jamey Carroll had an isolated power of .048 in 2010 with a .327 wOBA in 2010. Luis Castillo had an .044 isolated power in 2009 with a wOBA of .334.

Carroll hit .291 for the Dodgers in 2010. Castillo hit .302 for the Mets in 2009. Revere hit .294 for the Twins last year, and .326 in the minors. So .291 or .302 in 2013 is certainly possible. We know from their isolated power marks that Carroll and Castillo didn’t hit for power in those seasons. The way they got their wOBA up above average was by walking more.

But how much more?

PA OBP – AVG BB % of PA BB
Carroll ’10 414 291/379/339 .088 51 12.3
Castillo ’09 580 302/387/346 .085 69 11.9
Revere ’11 481 267/310/309 .043 26 5.4
Revere ’12 553 294/333/342 .039 29 5.2

So, for example, in 2010, Jamey Carroll got 414 plate appearances in which he put up a 291/379/339 line. He had .088 points of on-base percentage if you subtract his .379 on-base percentage from his .291 average. He walked 51 times, which was 12.3% of his plate appearances.

As you can see, for each of those years, the percentage of plate appearances in which Castillo and Carroll walked was more than twice as high as it was in either of Ben Revere’s last two seasons with the Twinkies.

Also notable is that for both Carroll and Castillo, their walk rate for the given year (’10 for Carroll or ’09 for Castillo) is higher than their walk rate for their career. Carroll drew walks in 12.3% of his plate appearances, which was higher than his 9.9% for his career. Castillo’s 11.9% is higher than his career mark of 10.7%.

This article suggests that Manuel downplayed the notion of needing a late-inning defensive replacement for Young and might also avoid hitting lefties Revere, Utley and Howard all in a row in his lineup.