Thursday, June 5, 2008

Line Drives and Patience

In my mind, if you're hitting line drives you're probably going to stand a good chance of getting on base. It also seems likely in my mind, that if you're hitting line drives you must be getting some extra-base hits. If you're patient and able for a good pitch to drive without striking out often, in my mind you're probably a good hitter. So if you hit line drives often and you're patient and able to make contact, it seems to me that you're getting on base a lot, driving in runs, and scoring runs.

Now I don't have any statistical evidence to back this up; this just seems like the profile of a skilled hitter that I'd like to have. So, with little analysis, here are ten batters this season who've hit line drives over 20% of the time they make contact, walked more than 10%, and struck out less than 25% of the time.

Most of these players are rostered in nearly every league. I've included their stats as of today, so it will be interesting to see how they hit over the next month, and whether or not they still fit the profile of a good hitter.

1. Marco Scutaro (26.8% LD, 11.6% BB, 15.6% K)
.269 BA/.358 OBP/.347 SLG/.705 OPS

2. Orlando Hudson (26.1% LD, 10.0% BB, 13.5% K)

.302 BA/.372 OBP/.495 SLG/.867 OPS

3. Milton Bradley (26.1% LD, 16.7% BB, 24.3% K)
.328 BA/.442 OBP/.608 SLG/1.050 OPS

4. Todd Helton (25.4 % LD, 17.6% BB, 13.9% K)
.292 BA/.418 OBP/.426 SLG/.844 OPS

5. Brian Roberts (22.7% LD, 12.0% BB, 18.2% K)
.268 BA/.353 OBP/.436 SLG/.790 OPS

6. Nick Swisher (22.1% LD, 15.1% BB, 24.4% K)
.203 BA/.325 OBP/.320 SLG/.645 OPS

7. Pat Burrell (21.6% LD, 20.4% BB, 23.6% K)
.283 BA/.426 OBP/.586 SLG/1.012 OPS

8. Mark DeRosa (21.1% LD, 12.4% BB, 22.6% K)
.295 BA/.385 OBP/.458 SLG/.843 OPS

9. Aramis Ramirez (20.5% LD, 14.2% BB, 17.1% K)
.312 BA/.423 OBP/.532 SLG/.954 OPS

10. Troy Glaus (20.1% LD, 14.5% BB, 19.4% K)
.264 BA/.370 OBP/.408 SLG/.778 OPS


I'll be interested to see if the under-performers like Nick Swisher improve on their stats over the next month or if they continue to produce at the same level.   

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