Forecasting 101 [an error occurred while processing this directive] Free Preview Baseball HQ Home The following is a free sample of a column from Baseball HQ, one of hundreds readers receive during the course of their subscription. Get a competitive advantage in your league by subscribing today! ROTISSERIE GAMING Patrick Davitt - June 3 Now That's Weird! With a couple of months in the books, we went spelunking through the Player Projections hitter files to look for stalagmites and stalactites of unusual data that seemed to rise up from the floor or hang from the ceiling of the aggregated player data. All the observations are in the player universe of hitters with more than 35 AB. We can't promise that any of it is terribly significant, but just thought you might like to know... Three hitters have five or more extra-base hits than singles ... And two of them are with Cincinnati. OF Adam Dunn has 26 XBHs and just 11 singles, while DLed OF Wily Mo Pena has, remarkably, only three singles and 12 XBHs. Between these two is Troy Glaus (3B, ARI), with 18 singles and 28 XBHs. Both the Reds on this list have below 70% Contact Rates, so it's all-or-nothing for them. Dunn at least continues to draw a huge number of walks (18%) and Glaus is no slouch at 13%. As you'd expect, all three hitters hit a lot of flyballs-at or near 50%. In that light, Pena's 35% Hit Rate doesn't figure to stay elevated. Five hitters are above 30% Line Drive rate ... The MLB aggregate is 18% LD% (with 45% GB, 37% FB), so these guys are getting some righteous wood on the ball. Four of these hitters are relatively low-AB guys like rookie Jeff Fiorentino (OF, BAL), Chris Singleton (OF, TAM), Chad Allen (OF, TEX) and Nick Punto (MI, MIN). Each of these guys has an achilles' heel that keeps him from maximizing this skill: Fiorentino will lose PT on a contending club with the return of Sammy Sosa, and especially when CF Luis Matos comes back; Singleton, Allen and Punto whiff too much (all under 80% Contact). | |
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