Value of Kepler

[TranaGreg]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/a-cas...th-max-kepler/

wow, outstanding analysis.

[mjl]

btw, if you didn't read the article (which you should, it has a lot of really cool video clips and pictures of his different swings), this is the money quote:

Over on our leaderboards, we’ve got numbers derived from PITCHf/x data that help show how successful or unsuccessful each batter is against each type of pitch, per 100 pitches. To find balance, I simply did the following: set a minimum of 200 plate appearances for a pool of 278 batters, and filtered for only players who have been above-average this season against each of the four major pitch types: fastballs, sliders, changeups and curves. This left me with a list of 24 names, including guys like David Ortiz, Francisco Lindor, Edwin Encarnacion, Paul Goldschmidt. Balanced hitters.

Kepler was on the list, too, and his values in particular stand out: he’s been +3.2 runs above average per 100 fastballs, +2.8 against sliders, +3.5 against curves, and +4.0 against changes. So I filtered one more time, in this instance looking for players who’ve been at least +2.0 runs above average against all four pitch types.

Here is the entire list:

Max Kepler

[onejayhawk]

If you add that analysis to the Reggie Jackson story and you get a thinking man's hitter. Sort of a Dallas Kuechel at the plate. It's not exactly what I expected but I'll take it.

J