I believe AA has signed only 3 FA position players to major league contracts. John Buck coming off a .299 OBP season, Omar Visquel coming off a .287 OBP season and Alex Gonzalez coming off a .279 OBP season.

Lots of hits = good
Lots of HRs = good
Lots of walks = good

All three = more runs = great

Two out of three ain't bad, but it makes it harder to get into the winner's circle.

Personally, I prefer to the correlations of runs scored with OBP and slugging percentage.  The 2012 Jay offence has been remarkably productive considering its slash line.  They have scored only 39 runs fewer than the Yankees and 2 more runs than the Tigers despite a far inferior slash line.  One key seems to be the ability to avoid the double play (particularly in comparison to the Tigers).  Oddly, the team leader in GIDP by a wide margin is Escobar

People rag on the Yankees for their big budget, but the spread between them and the rest of the league is not as large in percentage terms as it was a few years ago.  Every year, they seem to make a good "budget" signing, whether it is Chavez or Kuroda.  They've come a long way from the days of Ed Whitson. 

Speaking of correlation:

http://spiff.rit.edu/richmond/baseball/order/correlation_example.html

...

What about the flip side to strikeouts -- walks? If a strikeout isn't really so bad, maybe a walk isn't really so good. Let's see....

(Hey, this is the first of our statistics which varies by more than a factor of two from worst-to-best over the study period. Do you know which teams drew the fewest and most walks?)

Surprise! Walks do help a team win games. Well, that shouldn't be a surprise, but perhaps the strength of the relationship might be. This correlation coefficient, R = 0.541, is much larger than that for strikeouts; in fact, it's not all that much smaller than the coefficients for runs scored or allowed. The scatter of values around the fit, syx = 0.0671, lies roughly midway between the standard deviation from the mean in the original dataset, 0.080, and the syx values for runs scored and allowed.

Walks are important!

And another slightly older piece, this one on OPS and various other sabermetric measures:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/ops-for-the-masses/

...

walks, home runs, batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage all correlate fairly strongly with run production

Wasn't there a study done,(I believe by Victor Wang) concluding that as run scoring environment deceases, walks become less important and slugging more important?

The 2012 Jay offence has been remarkably productive considering its slash line.

They've got a lot of power. You don't see it from their slugging percentage, which is just sixth best in the league. But just like OBP, slugging is more BAVG than anything else. The Jays are second (just barely, but still!) in the AL in Isolated Power.

Team	ISO
	
NYY	.192
TOR	.169
TEX	.168
CHW	.168
BOS	.166
LAA	.164
BAL	.164
OAK	.157
LgAvg	.156
DET	.155
TBR	.145
CLE	.137
KCR	.136
MIN	.135
SEA	.132

It's generally the HR hitters who draw the most walks - it's getting BBs from your other hitters that's the challenge. Toronto should be in a not bad position - while Arencibia and (so far) Lawrie will swing at pretty much everything, Escobar and Johnson have historically drawn a good number of walks for guys who aren't big HR hitters. This year's that's been half-true; Johnson's been walking but he hasn't hit at all. Escobar's been in a funk all year (albeit mostly a BABiP issue), and has indeed started hacking at everything.

And if Jose Bautista hadn't missed 37 games and counting - that alone would move them to about 6th in walks.

I feel strongly about this issue. Subjectively, I think that Jays fans are getting burned by a somewhat careless team approach that promotes swinging aggressively, often early in the count, and (apart from the outstanding work of Bautista and EE) generally treats walks as a nice, but wholly unnecessary, frill. Meanwhile, the best-hitting teams, in general, recognize the value of being more disciplined. They draw more walks and therefore collectively make life easier for themselves in the run-scoring department (with a possible side benefit of making the other team's pitchers work harder during a series).

Thus, a player like Arencibia (career OBP: .276) talks the talk, feeling entitled to describe himself as "a run producer" who belongs in the middle of the order.

Conversely, the best lineups (like the Yankees and, during their recent run of excellence, the Red Sox) walk the walk and, ultimately, get the job done.

I say this in full recognition of the value of hits and slugging percentage as major contributors to runs scored. The best teams run on all cylinders - walks, hits, slugging.

If it were only as simple as being less aggressive and taking more walks.  Unfortunately, I agree with Farrell that walks are the result of being a good hitter, or more specifically, being a disciplined hitter.

Unfortunately, I think the Jays have too many hitters that have poor pitch recognition.  These players are best served by being aggressive.  They have to guess on pitches, instead of using recognition.  They are better served guessing early and often, than waiting until a two strike count .  JPA, for example, is a good hitter when he guesses right, but he has to guess, so for the most part, he should start guessing early in the count.

Meh, it's a working theory.

The general premise is that the higher the run scoring environment, the more valuable walks are. As the run environment decreases, so to does the value of walks as the run expectancy values decrease and the need to advance multiple bases increases. Intuitively, a team in a low run scoring environment that displays elite power and base running can be a very successful offence.

As Greenfrog said, ideally you have a bit of everything in an offense. I am less invested in one approach or another and believe that there is more than one way to be successful. The manner of that success will largely be dependent upon the profile of the hitters at your disposal. As Gary Denbo showed, you can't turn water into wine just because you prefer a good Pinot Gris.

Here are the reasons why I think the Jays' offence is outperforming the slash lines:

1. they have grounded into many fewer double plays than average
2. they have reached base on errors significantly more than average (55 for Jays- 45 would be league average)
3. they have performed noticeably better with runners on base and in particular with multiple runners on base than
    otherwise and runners in scoring position, and
4. the baserunning and base-stealing has been a slight overall positive. 

If you wanted to say that cumulatively there is some evidence that the small ball game has worked for them, I wouldn't disagree.  And I say this as one who generically prefers the long ball game to the small ball game, but one who recognizes the utility of both.

My main regret offensively at this point is that Travis Snider is not still on this club.  Water under the bridge.  Get over it.  There are many fish in the sea...

ayjackson, I've been thinking the same thing. I think what matters first and foremost is the calibre of hitters you start with. For the most part, you make the best of what you have. But that just makes this more of a front office / ownership issue than a coaching issue.

On the other hand, look at EE - a couple of years ago, he was one of those middling hitters who flailed a lot. Now he's an elite hitter with much more discipline (BA, walks, slugging), so maybe there is some scope for remolding certain players. Obviously this doesn't happen all that often.

Also, I wonder whether a hitting coach (like Kevin Long), even if he can't fundamentally change most hitters, can set some general standards that can help produce modest gains in a team's offensive performance. And whether doing the opposite (e.g., "everybody, turn the bats loose") can have a modestly negative effect. But this is highly speculative.

a somewhat careless team approach that promotes swinging aggressively

I do think it's very hard to know how much of what's happening is a team approach, and how much of it is just J.P. Arencibia being J.P. Arencibia. Which I don't think is something that much can be done about. That's who he is. And we'll have to see what kind of hitter Lawrie turns into.

As for the rest of them - it's certainly true some players are walking significantly less this year, Escobar especially. I kind of think I know what's happened to Escobar this year. Cooper walked much less than I expected although I didn't really see him hacking, I saw pitchers giving him no respect. Rasmus is down as well, and I have no idea what's going on with him.

On the other hand, Encarnacion's walking much more than ever before and Johnson's close to his generally good career rate. Even Lind and Davis have walked more frequently than they have in the past.

I seem to remember noting once around here that the Blue Jays had never led the AL in walks. They've never finished second or third, either. They've had just three teams place in the top five; the 2011 team was 4th; the 2003 and 2006 teams were 5th. (They've led the league in runs once, in 1990; they've been second in runs four times: 1986, 1992, 1993, 2003.)

It's generally the HR hitters who draw the most walks - it's getting BBs from your other hitters that's the challenge. Toronto should be in a not bad position - while Arencibia and (so far) Lawrie will swing at pretty much everything, Escobar and Johnson have historically drawn a good number of walks for guys who aren't big HR hitters. This year's that's been half-true; Johnson's been walking but he hasn't hit at all. Escobar's been in a funk all year (albeit mostly a BABiP issue), and has indeed started hacking at everything.

I think you have to look beyond just walks when you talk about plate discipline. Arencibia and Lawrie haven't walked much (BB% of 4.3 and 5.2 respectively) but Arencibia's O-Swing% is a really poor 37.7% and Lawrie's is 29.5%, which is just a bit below the league average of 28.5%. Escobar in fact has an O-Swing% of just 25.2, so his lack of walks isn't because he's hacking at junk. He's making a lot of poor contact, but on pitches in the zone.

Bautista and Encarnacion, as you might imagine, rank very well, going fishing only 20.8 and 20.9% of the time. Anthony Gose also lives up to his reputation of having a good approach with a solid 24.7%, but his problem is that he's absolutely woeful at actually making contact at those out-of-zone pitches. His O-Contact rate is an amazing 33%. Ouch. League average is 64.5%.

As far the whole team goes, the Blue Jays are at 28.8%, which ranks almost dead average for both the AL and MLB.

Greenfrog, you keep mentioning Long and the Yankees. I'm sure Long does a great job, but he also has a lot more to work with than Murphy does.
In as far as Edwin is concerned, he actually started hitting and drawing walks last year after the Jays removed him from 3rd and he healed up. Pre-all star break 9 walks, .283 OBP. Post all-star break 34 walks, .362 OBP. I'm sure working with Cano's hitting coach helped, but this year is more or less a continuation of the his strong second half last year after the mental baggage was removed.

Sorry, Edwin's post A-S OBP wasn't .362, it was .382.

ay, I think you're close. Let's see if I can add anything to your working theory.

It ties to something I heard Murphy say. He said that basically, your swing is your swing. By the time you get to the majors, it's very, very hard to change how you hit. So it's more a matter of how do you get the most out of that.

Paraphrasing here, obviously, but that's what I took away.

Now, people behind in counts tend to get get more "pitcher's pitches." Which really sucks if you're not a disciplined hitter.

In a perfect world, the hitter would learn to be more disciplined, and get behind less. But as we've seen with guys like Lind, it's possible to really mess yourself up and become too careful/ passive.

One way to break out of that problem is to be aggressive early in the count, on the theory that given your style, this is where you're more likely to see better hitter's pitches - when pitchers are trying to get ahead.

Phrased this way, it looks like we could test the theory with data.

RE: Richard S.S.

Yawn.

Same old, same old. Do try to provide some corresponding value for the server space your posts take up. I'm not generally a fan of banning people, but you're coming close to that line.

How about hitting in bunches, does this matter? Just before Bautista, JPA, Lawrie & Rasmus got injured the Jays had a lot of high scoring games. They lost some of them but also won some 11-9 or something. It seemed a big 7 run inning was being slowly eaten into until we could get to Fraser, Oliver & Janssen. The starter Cecil for example would only last 3 innings and then the pen was no better until we got to our reliable guys & Janssen was getting more than 3 outs.

I sort of remember everyone getting on base somehow in 1 inning via BB or Hit and then the guy making the 1st out would also make another out ie 2 outs in the same inning...Lawrie?

So then the less weak outs in the lineup can lead to longer strings of not getting out.

Courtesy of a Rob Neyer tweet, I learn that Buck Showalter's teams are now 278-277 in one-run games during his managerial career. That would be 24-6 (.800) this season, 254-271 (.484) over the rest of his career. His teams have now played .512 ball over the course of his career, and .501 ball in one run games.

The teams of most outstanding managers - McCarthy, McGraw, Weaver - generally have worse records in one-run games than they do overall. Which is exactly what should be expected, of course.

Thanks Magpie. After the season when you do your Pythogaras study, I would like to find out that CWS & Oakland too are winning more than they should & LAA & Detroit are winning less. Good & Bad luck.

I would like to find out that CWS & Oakland too are winning more than they should & LAA & Detroit are winning less.

Nah, those four teams are pretty much exactly where they ought to be. The big AL over-achiever is Baltimore, obviously, and Cleveland. The one team that has won quite a bit less than you'd expect is Boston. Everyone else is pretty close to where you'd expect them to be.

So far, St. Louis is the only NL team seriously out of whack. They should be in a dead heat with the Reds, not 8 games back.

Incidentally, the fact that the Blue Jays have the worst record in the majors in one-run games, but are still pretty close to their Pythag expectation is not a good indicator. It means that they've won more often in the rest of their games than you would reasonably expect.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I see that Brett Wallace is hitting 298/367/500 / OPS+ 134 (139 PA) for Houston this year. Could Houston still win the Gose-Wallace trade? I still think Gose has a leg up, given his age, speed and defensive value, but it's nice to see Wallace hanging in there.

I should probably say that I didn't do my own calculation - I was just looking at the ESPN Pythag numbers, and I think that they (like bb-ref) use a factor of 1.83 in the calculation. Which I feel (rather strongly) is the wrong way to go.

I think the Cards issue with Pythagoras is an offense/ starting staff good enough to keep games close and a bullpen bad enough to blow leads.
The Orioles have had just enough of a blend of middling offense, mediocre starters and a strong pen, along with a healthy dollop of good luck.

It is good to see Wallace having some success however I am not overly optimistic for his future. He was the subject of an article at Fangraphs the other day, some of the peripherals are down right scary.

If there is a debate on what to do about Bauxite posters who may be irritating to some of us: I would cast my vote for the "ignore" option, rather than the "ban" option. It should be easy enough for anyone to simply ignore a commentator who annoys them. Banning is an excessive response, and a negative signal to others, no matter how much we might dislike someone's comments.

I think the bar should be higher than irritating -- unless I am the one who is irritating people, in which case I think the bar should be even higher.

the "slash line" is really outdated.

wOBA and wRC+ are much better numbers to use. They correct the weighting issue between OBP and SLG that makes OPS misleading, and include baserunning as well. It's really a mistake not to include these numbers in a discussion of offense.

The Jays are 8th in wOBA and wRC+ in the AL, and 6th in runs. This is not a large discrepancy - they are scoring around the expected amount for their performance.

Runs created addresses GIDP and perhaps ROE (depending on the version), as well.  We started here with a discussion of the significance of the Jays' inability to take a walk as compared with the proficiency at hitting the long ball and how it related to run scoring.  My point was that there are other factors at work (some of which are captured in RC). 

Would it not be better to speak in absolute terms in evaluating Offense.

For example pitching ERA can be both absolute & relative. If a teams best pitcher has an ERA of 4.5 and another team has 2 or 3 pitchers with ERAs of 3.3 to 3.7 then that first team's #1 is not really a #1. See Recent Phillies, SF, TB.

So how would Offense be evaluated on an absolute scale.

If there is a debate on what to do about Bauxite posters who may be irritating to some of us: I would cast my vote for the "ignore" option, rather than the "ban" option. It should be easy enough for anyone to simply ignore a commentator who annoys them. Banning is an excessive response, and a negative signal to others, no matter how much we might dislike someone's comments.


CF, does “ignoring” extend to not answering a question?  Such as where and to whom Paul Beeston made the comments you brought to our attention recently?  Annoyance expressed as incivility?  Not so good, is it?

Looking at park factors, I see that players hit a lot of homeruns at Rogers Centre, but don't walk much which more or less neutralize the number of run scored.

Run factor = 1,061 walk factor = 0,886 taken from ESPN for the current year.

So, can we blame the park rather than the hitting coach?

I blame the man in white. Traitor's working for both sides.

Sorry to be off topic but I wanted the box to know that I am now officially rooting for the Orioles to win the AL East and then the World Series.  Go David!  Booo Goliath.

I would have thought that the A's were the guys with the slingshots, e.c.

I do think it's very hard to know how much of what's happening is a team approach, and how much of it is just J.P. Arencibia being J.P. Arencibia. Which I don't think is something that much can be done about.

Magpie, in all honesty, wouldn't you have said the same about Encarnacion a couple of years ago? Or Bautista three years ago? Do you think that all 25- or 26-year-olds are finished products?

And what of Brett Lawrie? He who swings at everything this year, certainly didn't last year.

One of the reasons they kept him in triple A to start the year was because AA wanted Lawrie to take more walks, work the count better, etc. And Lawrie responded by posting a 7.9% BB rate in Las Vegas last year. He carried this good approach into his MLB call-up and posted a 9.4% BB rate in 2011 MLB. Then in 2012 it has dropped down to 5.2%. 

I feel part of this is the MLB team philosophy, and maybe being good buddies with JPA isn't helping either. But either way, I think Brett would be a much more effective hitter if he went back to the more patient approach he displayed throughout all of 2011.

Any speculation if the drop this year is the result of pitchers figuring him out, and not because he isn't trying? I may be selling him short.

Bautista/Encarnacion to Arencibia is an apples to oranges comparison. The former both showed the ability to reach base throughout their minor league career (.376 and .354 OBP respectively) where as the latter and his .319 OBP, not so much. Heck, Vlad (I will swing at a pitch out) Guerrero walked roughly twice as much as Arencibia did in the minors. A player may not be done growing in his mid-twenties but there has to be some foundation of skill present in an area for an improvement to be made and Arencibia just hasn't demonstrated that yet at any level.

Bautista & Encarnacion were hitters who took walks and didn't strike out too often even before they came to Toronto and became elite hitters. Arencibia has had horrendous plate discipline his entire career.

wouldn't you have said the same about Encarnacion a couple of years ago?

I don't know. Here's what I actually did say about Encarnacion a couple of years ago (in the 2010 Report Card):

I don't care what Cito Gaston says. This guy is the strongest hitter on the team. He's a beast...Sooner or later, the Law of Large Numbers says he's going stay healthy for a full year. If that ever happens, he could quite easily put it all together and explode for 40 plus homers.

Magpie, in all honesty, wouldn't you have said the same about Encarnacion a couple of years ago? Or Bautista three years ago?

Not presuming to answer for Magpie here... 

Bautista and Encarnacion started from a position of being selective, if sometimes only moderately effective, hitters. Their improvements, to me, seem less explained by improved discipline than by improved batting technique. They are more effective when they swing at strikes than they used to be. They are both walking more than when they were younger, but they always drew walks and thus exhibited a good batting eye.

Arencibia has never -- minor leagues included -- shown an ability to be selective. While he is certainly young enough to improve, the pitch selection skill does not seem to be in his DNA. For him to improve, it's less a matter of more effectively hitting the strikes that he does see (like Bautista and Encarnacion) than of simply laying off the non-strikes altogether. And I don't know how teachable this latter skill is.

Man, you walk away for a snack before clicking Submit and then find that you're the 9th guy to say the same thing. Rats.

And what of Brett Lawrie? He who swings at everything this year, certainly didn't last year.

For the most part, I think that neither Lawrie nor Cooper (who's also walking not at all) is hacking and chasing bad pitches. Not all that much, anyway. I think the pitchers have been simply giving them pitches worth swinging at. Young players, haven't proven a whole lot at this level - challenge them, see what they can do. Pitchers tend to work a little more carefully when it's Bautista or Encarnacion at the plate.

And while I certainly don't think that all 26 year olds are finished products, I don't think that 26 year old catchers are a good bet to develop a whole lot as a hitter. The position takes too much out of them. There are exceptions, of course. Alan Ashby himself comes to mind.

The traditional scouting view is that it is much easier to learn plate discipline than to learn other skills in the game. It would be great if that were true. 

For the most part, I think that neither Lawrie nor Cooper (who's also walking not at all) is hacking and chasing bad pitches. Not all that much, anyway.

I agree. Perhaps the numbers would contradict what I am saying, but non-HR swingers like Lawrie and Cooper strike me as poor candidates to draw walks because they make contact so frequently and end ABs early, thereby not going deep into counts and increasing the possibility of walks (and strikeouts). Big swing-and-miss guys like Thome and Dunn seem to walk a great deal not solely because of a good batting eye, but because their counts run deep due to the sheer number of swing-and-misses early in the count.

There are exceptions, of course. Alan Ashby himself comes to mind.

And Ashby drew walks from the get go, making him foundationally more a member of the EE/Bautista family than the Arencibia family. But he was a true oddity for a catcher, not cratering in his 30s, as most do, but actually reaching his offensive peak then.

To me, there are many similarities between Ashby and Mulliniks. Both seem to be steadfastly serious men (even almost humourless) who knew very well which skills they possessed (and which they didn't possess) and who were able to maximally leverage those skills. That each is so openly frustrated by players with natural athletic ability who seemingly don't think should be a surprise to no one.

Back to JPA. It would be interesting to see what similarly profiled catchers (low AVG, low BB, high K, high ISO) were able to elevate their offensive game. I'm sure there are plenty of examples but none spring immediately to mind.

I guess I'm less interested in whether Arencibia can become the next Bautista or EE, and more interested in whether he can modestly improve his plate discipline, thereby making him a significantly more valuable player.

In his career, EE has generally walked around 7% to 11% of the time. The last couple of years, he's hovered around the 8% level. In 2012, in his age-29 season, after getting some coaching from Cano's coach, he's increased that to 12.2%.

Arencibia's walk rate, on the other hand, has declined from 7.4% to 4.3% from last year to this year.

Some people seem to think that all this is foreordained, as if Arencibia were simply the human expression of some free-swinging genetic makeup. But I think some application on his part, perhaps coupled with some judicious coaching, might make a difference. It might also make him a better hitter. I mean, JPA was up to an 8.3% walk rate in his age-24 season at AAA, but in Toronto it has obviously been a different story.

My concern is that Arencibia doesn't even seem to recognize the issue; he seems to think he's just fine as he is. Which might also be a coaching/management issue. I also don't want to see d'Arnaud turn (or be turned into) another .310 OBP guy in the majors.

Again, I'm just musing aloud - it may be that the people who think his current approach is making the most of his abilities are correct.

Back to JPA. It would be interesting to see what similarly profiled catchers (low AVG, low BB, high K, high ISO) were able to elevate their offensive game. I'm sure there are plenty of examples but none spring immediately to mind.

I ran a BBRef Play Index for seasons of a player with 400 PAs or more, with at least 50% of playing time as catcher, for ages 20 to 26, with 40 walks or less, 100 strikeouts or more and an IsoP of .180 or more.  It spit out one answer- JP Arencibia 2011.  When I loosened the criteria a bit, I got names with some similarity- Benito Santiago, John Russell, John Buck and Miguel Olivo, and some ones where the similarity is pretty faint- Santovenia and Saltalamacchia.  Arencibia is really extreme- he has the most IsoP and the worst plate discipline of the lot, it appears (although it may be partly a function of the times).  It does seem that the ones with the worst plate discipline do not improve much. 

Arencibia can't have less plate discipline than Olivo. That's impossible. If you threw a pitch at Olivo's head he'd swing at it. He's got a career walk rate of 3.9%. Think about that for a second. John Buck walks twice as much as Miguel Olivo.

I'm sure coaches have tried to teach Olivo and fellow PhD in Swinging graduate Yuni Betancourt to take some pitches, but their efforts have been pretty much futile. Now Arencibia's not quite as bad as them, maybe not nearly as bad as them, but baseball is littered with guys who've never cared much for taking a walk.

I'm sure coaches have tried to teach Olivo

And I'm sure Olivo wouldn't have minded some time to work on his hitting. But he's a catcher. In the spring, you'll see these guys taking BP wearing their shin guards. The position doesn't just make unique demands on their bodies; it makes unique demands on their time.

Anyone notice that both Aaron Hill and John MacDonald are outhitting Johnson and Escobar.  Hill's nearly hitting .300 and has an OPS of .858.

What happened to Hill here?  I'd love to know how he turned it around.

Maybe some combination of moving to the NL, change of scenery, and a new hitting coach and/or manager.

It looks as though he's showing good plate discipline, including walking at a better rate than in his former heyday (2007 and 2009). I wonder if a year ago some of us would have been arguing that (like Rasmus or Arencibia in 2012) it was virtually impossible for Hill to turn it around so drastically, i.e. because "his pitch recognition just isn't that good." And he's doing it in his age-29 and 30 seasons.

As far as plate discipline goes, Hill hasn't changed much. He has a 7.6 BB%. His career walk rate is 6.8%. He's been intentionally walked 6 times this season. If you remove those from his stats then his walk rate is already down to 6.5%. From 2006-11, he was never intentionally walked more than twice in a season. He's been getting better contact. Not popping everything up solves a lot of problems. That and hitting in the band box that is Chase Field (just behind Coors as the hitter friendliest ballpark in the majors).

Chase Field is clearly a good place to hit, but so is the RC. The RC actually ranked ahead of Chase Field in 2010 and 2011 on ESPN's park factors list.

In any case, it clear that there is more going on here than park factors. Hill's OPS+ (which takes into account ballpark factors) is higher than it's ever been, and massively higher than during his last couple of years with the Jays.

Also, saying that Hill is getting "better contact" doesn't really answer the issue. Why is he making better contact? Is he swinging at fewer bad pitches? Has he revamped his swing or approach at the plate? In a recent Sportsnet article, Arizona hitting coach Don Baylor called Hill a "model student," which seems to imply that he's made some changes since leaving Toronto that have helped effect his turnaround.

Well it's all speculative. You'll (as in fans) never have enough information to evaluate coaching staff properly. Are Arizona's coaches the reason why Hill is hitting? Are Arizona's coaches the reason why Upton isn't hitting? Rios hit pretty well the season after he left Toronto, so maybe Chicago fixed him? But then Rios turned into Jose Molina? And now he's better again? Why? Who knows?

It may be speculative, but it is interesting in light of the discussion in this thread. Some people have posited that Bautista and EE were good candidates for a turnaround because of their track record of patience, but that other players (such as Rasmus, Arencibia or Lind) aren't, because of the latter group's poor pitch recognition, lesser talent, inherently free-swinging tendencies or whatever.

I'm guessing that if we had been discussing Hill a year ago, most of us would have put him squarely in the latter category. And yet he's done precisely what people are saying some players (who are several years younger than Hill) cannot or are highly unlikely to do.

I think the mystery about Hill isn't so much why he's hitting well in Arizona, but why he hit so badly in Toronto in 2010 and 2011. I thought he'd picked up Dick Schofield disease, and had become HR happy. A large part, thought, was simply the goddess of BABiP saying "Aaron, I'm angry with you."

Grouping Arencibia with the others is a mistake as their track records are not even remotely similar. Hill, Lind and Rasmus all showed at least an average ability to take a walk in the minors with 9.3%, 9% and 11.2% career rates respectively. Arencibia is a whole different kettle of fish checking in with a 5.5% rate during his MiLB sting. His best season in the minors doesn't top either of the other three's career average.

As far as Hill resurgence, BBB had a similar discussion about 3 weeks ago.

http://www.bluebirdbanter.com/2012/8/12/3237817/the-troubling-success-of-aaron-hill

In the comments section, MjwW has some interesting analysis. From my personal perspective, Hill was lucky in 2009, 3rd in the AL with 12 "just enough" HR's that could have just as easily been doubles or long outs. He also pulled 35 of his 36 HR's. Pitchers adjusted in 2010 throwing him very little to his hot zone inside and a lot outside, which he still tried to pull with almost no success. He seemed to change his approach to hit more LD's in 2011, but as Magpie pointed out, he was very unlucky with a lot of those LD's hit right at people.

My wife wants to thank Romero for freeing up the rest of my day.

"My wife wants to thank Romero for freeing up the rest of my day."
Mine too..... Now I get to go outside and do some yardwork...... Thanks Ricky!!!!!

Here are a couple of headline suggestions for the game summary thread (with apologies to Charles Dickens):

"A Tale of Two Lefties"

"It was the best of times (2011), it was the worst of times (2012)..."

I went to Hit Tracker to check on something about Aaron Hill, and learned that Edwin's blast yesterday was the second longest of the season behind one of Giancarlo Stanton's. 

Anyways, all of Hill's 20 homers this year have been pulled.  With the help of a new batting coach, he's found a way to pull the ball while maintaining a good line drive rate and a decent pop-up rate.  It has little to do with luck.   Last year, he was hitting line drives, but with the fly balls, 4.2% were leaving the yard and 13% were popped up.  That will lead to a mediocre BABIP..  It is interesting that this year he has the highest IF hit rate, bunt rate and no. of triples in his career.  White guys are supposed to lose their speed when they turn 30!

Is Hill an FA this offseason? Because Houston should be all over him.

What a deal the Jays got in signing EE to a 3/$27M contract plus $10M option for 2016.

Seriously - think about what a 40+ HR, 110+ RBI, 950 OPS, 15 SB (top ten MVP, maybe top five) 29-year-old would be worth on the open market this off-season.

Let's play a game called "if.........."

1. The Jays are able to rid themselves of Adam Lind
2. The Twins are willing to eat a portion of Mauer's rather large contract
3. The Twins covet some of the Blue Jays talent in the minors
4. Joe Mauer is willing to play on field-turf and play first base
5. There is any hope at all he will stay healthy on field-turf

Is getting Joe Mauer a pipe-dream?