Previously: Tyler
Dykstra
When I first decided to check out first half/second half
splits for certain players Haverdink didn’t come to mind. My initial focus was
going to be on a few of the less experienced guys. So I fired off the
first post on Tyler Dykstra* and was going to follow up with Jordan Mast, but
one fact kept gnawing at me while looking through Mast’s numbers: despite
better offensive numbers during the second half of the year, he saw a playing
time reduction.
*The author is keenly
aware that it has been well over two months since that post. Don’t judge him.
This fact didn’t make sense for two reasons. (1) As I stated
above (and will show in a future post), Jordan’s offensive numbers took a big
jump in the second half of the year, and (2) Mitch Vallie and Mickey DeVries
each missed the entire second half of the year and David Rietema missed a few
games as well. These three players don’t fit the exact Jordan Mast archetype,
but you’d think that there would have been some position shifting involved that
would force Mast (who even started four games) into more playing time. But that
didn’t happen; Mast’s per-game average fell from 18 minutes to 14.8 minutes
between the first 13 games and the second 13 games. So, yeah. I didn’t get it
right away.
I didn’t really have a feel for this at the time, but Brian
Haverdink’s minutes soared in the second half of the year. I mean, I knew he
was re-inserted into the starting lineup just a few games into conference play,
but I don’t know that it really struck me that he was getting so many more
minutes than he received during most of the non-conference season. But he
certainly was.
