Comments on: Making it Work with Lots of Whiffs

By: Joe R

Joe R — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:02:58 +0000

Chris Davis was just too much whiffs (and didn’t walk much, either).

He’s still not much of a walker, but from his re-call on, he posted a .308/.338/.496, and cut his K/PA down to 25.35% (sounds high, but is Ichiro-esque compared to the 41.16% he pulled for the first half of the year). Small sample size, but a contact focus looks like it’s helping Chris Davis, and it’s good he was able to learn and try to fix it at just 23.

By: Joe R

Joe R — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:40:58 +0000

So Reynolds did it, broke the strikeout record.

And of course, the morons on Baseball Tonight tell America that he’s killing his team with his strikeouts. Also of course, ESPN Sportsnation thinks his strikeouts are killing the team, too. Wonder if the D-backs would be down for a Reynolds/Upton for Lowell/Ellsbury swap. Help them out with team killing strikeouts.

By: Eric/OR

Eric/OR — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:46:54 +0000

Apropos of the first few comments here: Reynolds’ career major league BABIP is .359; in the minors it was .335. Surely some regression from his performance this season is to be expected, but I very much agree with the notion that he projects as the type of player who is able to sustain high BABIPs and such. Remember, you have to look at the player’s individual track record for this statistic.

By: david b

david b — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 11:32:55 +0000

It seems that these statistics indicate Reynolds either crushes the ball when he makes contact or is just getting lucky. If he really is consistently crushing the ball when he makes contact, then why is his contact rate so low? You would think if he could hit pitches that hard that consistently that he’d be able to make contact more often. This is probably due to his ability or inability to hit certain pitches. Maybe he absolutely crushes fastballs, but can’t hit a curve for his life. Looking at his statistics based on the pitch count, he is twice as likely to hit a homerun when ahead 1-0 versus 0-1. Albert Pujols on the other hand, has actually hit 18 homeruns after 0-1 counts versus only 11 after 1-0 counts – pretty strange actually. I would guess that Reynolds is the master of crushing the fastball. Really if you look at all of his pitch count stats you will notice he destroys when he is ahead in the count and terrible when behind.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:51:08 +0000

His BABIP was even higher in his rookie season, so it doesn’t seem too ridiculous that this is simply a guy that will constantly post a high BABIP a la Derek Jeter.

By: kris

kris — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:04:00 +0000

I haven’t the fondest clue, but as I’ve mentioned quite a few times — it warrants investigation.

Just incase anyone cares, Reynolds xBABIP is about 30pts lower if i’ve done my calculations corrected.

I tried throwing the data into the Hardball Times “LUCK” calculator, and once again, barring any massive screw up on my part, Reynolds has a score very close to the max of .06.

Yup, Diggin’ is required.

By: Joe R

Joe R — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:11:59 +0000

At 17.5% LD rate, though?

I don’t see him play much, are a lot of his grounders the “hot-shot” variety that find holes a lot easier than the Ichiro-style “leg it out” grounder? Educate me, I’m willing to learn here.

By: kris

kris — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:40:40 +0000

First off, i think it’s terribly presumptuous to assume that someone else doesn’t know what they’re talking about. I debated even dignifying this with a response.

What’s intriguing about Reynolds is two-fold, as I mentioned earlier. The first is how pitchers are approaching Reynolds, the second is of course Reynolds’ BIP statistics.

Both Reynolds ability to scatter the ball, and his fairly low IFFP% percent give us a look into how a power hitter maintains a rather high BABIP. What’ll have to be broken down is Reynolds BABIP on different BIP.

Reynold’s clearly warrants further investigation, and I apologize for my adjectives earlier. I feel the need to insert them into just about every sentence.

…and to Josh: What are you trying to prove by quoting statistics? That it’s possible? Everything’s possible, I’m trying to deal with the probable – or what *should* be happening and WHY it’s happening.

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:26:44 +0000

Reynolds 2009 HR/FB rate 28%, Ryan Howard’s HR/FB 2009 23%. Howard’s in 2006 39.5% for the WHOLE season. That’s not an outlier either 2007 31.5% 2008 31.8%, now again what is so INSANE about Reynolds’

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:20:49 +0000

Reynolds BABIP .366, David Wright .419, what exactly qualifies RIDICULOUS?