Milb.com Top 10 Hitters, hit type ratios

by dougdirt on Dec 23, 2006 2:44 PM EST

Using Minorleaguesplits.com I went and looked through the Balls in Play data for milb.com's top 10 hitting prospects and broke it down by Ground Ball percentage, Line Drive percentage, Fly Ball percentage and Pop Up percentage. It is always something interesting to look at.

Just thought maybe you guys would enjoy taking a look at the numbers as well.

0 recs | Comment 23 comments

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Nice stuff

Nice stuff. Any idea what Dukes' numbers look like?

God rested one day out of 7, Felix rests 4 out of 5.

by CrimsonLiederhosen on Dec 23, 2006 3:07 PM EST 0 recs

Since you asked, I decided to run the numbers...

Here's how Dukes breaks down...

Total Balls in play: 236
GB: 50%
LD: 17.7%
FB: 22.4%
PF: 9.8%

by beastball on Dec 23, 2006 3:56 PM EST up 0 recs

Savior?

Can McCutchen save Pittsburgh? Those are some pretty impressive stats.

by ByANose on Dec 23, 2006 3:25 PM EST 0 recs

Definitely interesting...

I wish I had some more historical data to run on previous prospects to see if any of these ratios have predictive value.

by beastball on Dec 23, 2006 4:03 PM EST 0 recs

What it tells me....

Is that one of these guys is not like the other. Cameron Maybin isnt making solid contact enough, with a line drive percentage well below the rest of the guys. He also had a BABIP of .415 last season. A BABIP of .415 with a LD% of 9.2, doesnt make any sense what so ever.

www.redsminorleagues.com

by dougdirt on Dec 23, 2006 5:40 PM EST up 0 recs

Speed?

Isn't Maybin really fast? Maybe he's just beating out a lot of groundballs that other, slower players might not?

by DrBGiantsfan on Dec 23, 2006 5:48 PM EST up 0 recs

Sure that has something to do with it....

Maybin did have something like 27 infield hits. But those numbers will decline at every level as players get better. If he truly wants to get hits, he needs more line drives, and he isnt getting them right now, especially like the rest of the group is.

www.redsminorleagues.com

by dougdirt on Dec 23, 2006 5:50 PM EST up 0 recs

subject

Does the fielding really improve level to level? It was brought up here in another thread that the fielding is about the same level to level. Guys get promoted based on their bat not how well they are fielding. I can't recall who posted that, but uit seems to make sense to me.

I don't think we will see him losing those infield hits till he hits the majors.

by Josh on Dec 23, 2006 10:19 PM EST up 0 recs

I think you answered your own question

Players get promoted based on their bat, not their glove, in general. If the bat is way ahead of the defense, teams move poor defenders to easier positions in order to allow for the promotions. The net effect is an improvement in overall defensive quality as more and more players make the switch as their bats become ML-ready.

by delomir on Dec 24, 2006 1:45 AM EST up 0 recs

subject

I'm not sure about that. For example Upton has been butching it up at SS in triple A for how long?

You will also have guys growing out of positions like SS. As they get bigger there range will become a problem. These guys then get moved, but when they land at their new spot will they be effective right away? For example say Maybin is facing a team that just moved there SS to third. DO you think he can explote that 3rd baseman for a few bunt hits?

I would think this would happen in the outfield to as guys get moved to corner spots and struggle at first with routes, and pickign the ball up off the bat.

by Josh on Dec 25, 2006 2:40 PM EST up 0 recs

+1

by Dfarth on Dec 23, 2006 5:57 PM EST up 0 recs

Yeah, the ratios vary, and Maybin stands out...

but I can't tell what that means. I was looking at some poor hitters last year with 20% LD ratios, and under 5% PUs, and I see some great hitters with 20% LD ratios and 5% PUs. Anyway, I didn't see any pattern emerge after looking at like 15-20 hitters.

But, there may be something to it, I just couldn't find any pattern.

Like with alot of the ratios we use now to evaluate hitters, like %XBH, or BB/PA and things like that, you can easily discern a good hitter from a bad one. But these numbers, %LD, %GB, %FL, and %PU, the levels didn't seem to fluxuate based on the quality of the hitter.

Anyway, I think it warrants further investigation, and I'm certainly not ready to cast Maybin into the prospect-that-never-was bin just yet.

by beastball on Dec 23, 2006 8:46 PM EST up 0 recs

the only thing

The only thing I really want to look at with these numbers is the line drive %. Line drives go for hits more often than any other type of hit. The more line drives you hit, the better contact you are making (large sample size; under 200 at bats strange things can happen), the more hits that fall, the higher batting average and slugging percentage.

I do have to ask, which hitters did you find with 20% line drive ratios. The only ones I found were in rookie ball....and what guys do in rookie ball, specifically college hitters, means very little.

www.redsminorleagues.com

by dougdirt on Dec 23, 2006 9:29 PM EST up 0 recs

The two that illustrated the point were...

Kemp had 20% in AA, and Sean Burroughs had 24% in AAA. I was trying to get a sample of top hitters and then just tap into some whom I feel are poor. Maybe Burroughs is a bad choice, but I wasn't going to spend alot of time on this today.

Just some other guys I think aren't good, who had high LD%...

Darnell McDonald hit 15.8%
Michael Coleman hit 17.8%

Or the guy with the worst OPS in the Eastern league, Carlos Rojas, he hit 15.6%

Or the guy with the worst OPS in the International League, Jon Schuerholtz,he hit 16.2%

Then you have the best prospects in the game hitting in that smae range, sometimes a tad higher, sometimes a tad lower, and I just don't know if it's telling you anything.

by beastball on Dec 23, 2006 11:30 PM EST up 0 recs

Just looking at the players he listed...

and you know that there's a problem with consistency...

The ranges just seem too wide...
From 60 to 32% GB
From 18 to 9% LD
From 44 to 23% FB
From 13 to 4% PU

You could look at the bottom two %LD guys, Maybin and Upton, and toss them out, because their stats were relatively unimpressive anyway, but then Braun is there at a little over 13%, and he had a nice season, by all accounts.

I would do more numbers, but just don't have the time, and the initial investigation doesn't inspire me to continue digging, but it's something I'll watch and think over.

by beastball on Dec 24, 2006 12:51 AM EST up 0 recs

Unimpressive

Maybin had a park-neutral line of .313/.396/.477 with awesome CF defense in his first season of pro baseball.

I think a good question to ask is how minorleaguesplits.com gets authoritative Pop-up% etc? Why should we believe those numbers? And even if they're true, I don't see why people are drawing so much from his peripheral stats as a 19 year old. No one throws Justin Upton away because of one poor season, but Maybin has a great year with some quirky peripheral stats and he's now doomed.

by ian on Dec 24, 2006 11:58 AM EST up 0 recs

No one its tossing him aside....

I am pretty sure the splits come up from game logs posted on milb.com for each game. Are they the be all end all? No, but I would assume they are fairly accurate.
Its just another thing to be able to look at when evaluating a player...just like scouting reports, video, traditional stats, etc.

www.redsminorleagues.com

by dougdirt on Dec 24, 2006 12:46 PM EST up 0 recs

Oh yeah...

I wasn't suggesting tossing them aside in terms of top prospect status, I was merely saying set aside their cases as we disect the possible usefulness of these stats.

My only point was even if we put aside those two guys, who had relatively low LD%, which accompanied relatively unimpressive seasonal stats, we're still left with Braun, who, again, had a relatively low LD% but had at least half a season of impressive stats.

So, I was really trying to point out that the LD% didn't really show us anything. We can't look at LD% and be able to tell anything about the performance of the player.

by beastball on Dec 24, 2006 10:33 PM EST up 0 recs

Jon Jay

Had a line drive % of 24% in A ball last year. College hitter, but age 21 in A season.

Not much power, but high avg. What you would expect from 24% line drives, I guess.

by siddfynch on Dec 25, 2006 1:12 PM EST up 0 recs

Braun

So this is telling me that Ryan Braun hits a lot of bloop singles?

by AdRoK on Dec 23, 2006 5:24 PM EST 0 recs

My thoughts

Hard for me to tell much from these numbers. The MLB avg for LD% I believe is about 18%, so just about all the numbers seems surprisingly low for players who are top prospects. You'd generally like for the LD% to be above average because this indicates that the player is making solid contact. Also, about 60% of LDs become base hits as opposed to ~20% or so for GBs and FBs/PUs. It so happens that the 6 guys w the highest LD% have 6 of the 7 highest BAs. The exception is Maybin, who had the 4th highest BA w the lowest (by far) LD%. So, I'm not sure how Maybin posted these numbers; maybe he did get a lot of leg hits, but 27 leg hits still dont explain the numbers.

It also happens that the 3 guys w the most HRs have the 3 top FB%s. But McCutchen had the 4th-most HRs and he had the 3rd lowest FB%.

The GB% numbers for both Young and Maybin are not only the highest here, but also WAY above avg for MLBers, which I believe is about 40-43%. Dont really know how significant this is, but swing a little lower, guys! What looks more concerning is the very low LB% for Maybin, and also Upton.

Overall, tho, I would say this a relatively small sample size. You'll often see significant fluctations in these %s from year to year for players. A 2-3 year sample might be more meaningful. I'm not sure that any of these numbers warrant downgrading the prospect's status.

by rhd on Dec 23, 2006 9:54 PM EST 0 recs

LD%

I think there is a difference between the LD% calculated by fangraphs and the LD% calculated by minorleaguesplits, because the MLB ones are consistently higher.

by limozeen on Dec 23, 2006 10:15 PM EST 0 recs

Maybin

I think Maybin will be just fine.

You can make the case that fielding will get better but you've also got to make the case that Maybin will get better as he matures because his ability to drive the ball will increase.

He was just 19 years old and making his pro debut in 2006 and was facing a league that featured a plethora of solid pitching.

Don't look too hard at the in depth stats. Make sure you've got a grasp on the big picture.

The big picture with Maybin is that he has pretty good wheels and it makes a little more sense for him to put the ball on the ground and run while his power develops.

by UncleBuck44 on Dec 25, 2006 12:51 AM EST 0 recs