Eric Hosmer has been a huge disappointment this season with a 0.174/0.243/0.316 slash line. Most of his problems stem from a 0.169 BABIP. I am going to look to see if there are any under lying problems for the drop and any possible reasons for optimism.

As I stated previously, Eric has a BABIP of 0.169. It is the lowest value of all hitters with at least 150 PA. In 2011, he was 50th out of 145 qualified hitters with a 0.314 BABIP.

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Last Saturday, I looked at the bottom dwellers in hitter BABIP. In a surprise move, one of those hitters, Adam Lind, was actualy sent down to Triple-A. Today we will look at the BABIP leaders. These are your potential trade candidates, but I’ll look more in depth into the interesting names.

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Even though we are over a month into the season, a hitter’s BABIP and resulting batting average are still rather meaningless. In fact, neither statistic stabilizes within 550 plate appearances. That means that it has little predictive value at this point and should have limited weight when evaluating a player now. Therefore, hitters with extremely high or low BABIPs should potentially be looked at as trade bait or acquisition targets, respectively. Let’s first look at the possible targets, or those with abnormally low BABIP marks.

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We are now a full month into the season, so it’s finally time to give you all an update on the LABR mixed league you have all been eagerly awaiting. For those who did not commit my team to memory, refresh it by checking out my draft results again. Once you have stopped laughing after perusing my roster, you will realize how brave I am to ever talk about this team again.

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Batted ball distribution rates stabilizes more quickly than most of the other offensive and pitching statistics. We have found that ground ball percentage becomes reliable at about 200 plate appearances. Though no pitcher has quite reached that level yet, we are fairly close. It is therefore worth checking in on those pitchers whose ground ball rates have surged since last season and see if we can figure out if any are sustainable. All else equal, a high ground ball rate should result in fewer home runs, and ultimately a lower ERA.

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Over the last week, I took an early look at those pitchers whose fastball velocity has increased most since last season, and those whose velocity has declined. In the comments, several wondered how velocity trended during the season. Intuitively, we would expect that velocity would gradually rise into the summer months as pitchers build their arm strength throughout April and battle through the cooler months. If this is the case, then we would become more optimistic and less panicky about the early season velocity dippers. Let’s see if this happens.

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Adam Wainwright – Adam has had a rough start to the 2012 season. So far he has 3 losses in 3 starts with a 9.88 ERA. After not pitching at all in 2011 because of Tommy John surgery, he seems to be struggling in 2012. By looking a little deeper into the numbers, it may be the perfect time to buy low on him.

While his ERA is approaching double digits, his ERA estimators paint a better picture. His FIP is at 6.52 and his xFIP (3.13) and SIERA (3.28) are almost at 3. The final two values are close to his career ERA of 3.08. Adam’s main problem so far in 2012 has been the HR. Currently, he has a 3.3 HR/9 value which is almost 5 times his career value of 0.70. He is allowing 1 home run for every 3 fly balls while historically he has allowed a HR for every 12.5 fly balls.

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Brennan Boesch started the season as a fantasy sleeper for many people. He was to bat second for the Tigers, which he has in 14 games, with Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder hitting after him. He looked to be great source of Runs and maybe a bump in batting average as he would see better pitches to hit. Some people even predicted him to be a top 30 fantasy player. His season so far has been a disappointment with him hitting .213 and scoring a total of five runs. Today, I am going to look to see if he can be the fantasy player some people envisioned.

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On Saturday, I took an early look at the 10 starting pitchers who have seen their average fastball velocity increase the most. Since velocity tends to gradually increase into the summer, I wanted to only capture the pitcher’s last start, and decided to use the “Last 7 Days” Split filter. In fact, there is a far greater number of starters whose velocity is down than whose velocity is up. Today, I will use that same method, but instead focus on the 10 starters whose velocity has declined the most. This is not the list you want to see your fantasy starter on!

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Justin Morneau looks to be back and somewhat healthy this season. He has played in the first 10 Twins’ games this season with Tuesday being his first day off. In nine games, he was the designated hitter and on Monday, he played in the field as the first baseman. It is nice to see him on the field more, but what can be expected offensively from him going forward?

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