Guys who gave up contact for power

[Moonlight J]

Working on an idea based on Marlon Byrd who threw aside contact to hit more homers & get paid. Who are some other guys who saw their contact rates drop in a year where their power spiked?

Thanks

[joncarlos]

Grandy Man, pretty much as soon as he got to the Yankees, though that was park driven and not paycheck driven.

[revo]

All the usual suspects I thought of did not increase their K%. Only one I spotted was Da Meat Hook, but he already had a new deal.

[Moonlight J]

It made sense for Byrd because he was on a MILB deal & didn't have anything after the season. Had a big year & just got 2 guaranteed years out of it. I'm thinking there are some older guys in the past that went out & did something similar. I'll let you know what I find out.

BTW, I'll be doing non-fantasy stuff at fangraphs 2x a week now so I'll have stuff out from behind a paywall again.

[Controller Jacobs]

I recall an older guy changing where he stood in the batters box, to make up for the loss of bat speed, and it being successful for him. I wanted to say McGriff, but I can't find the confirmation.

But when it relates to older players, the stats can get clouded by age. Also, any stats that cross the 1994-2003 zone can get really skewed, the top slugging %s were way out of whack.

[Kevin Seitzer]

I would be borderline shocked if this was a real thing because if it was every player would shun contact for power, I'd imagine. Remember hearing that Ichiro could hit 30 bombs if he sacrificed contact? Yeah, I'd wager that was bullshit, too.

We were interviewing a job candidate at the end of the September last year. We often will take candidates down to the field to watch batting practice. I went down with this guy. The Yankees are in town, and it's Pettitte and Rivera's last series, so it's a mob scene. We get behind the batting cage, watch a few guys take BP. Then the candidate points out to me, "Hey, that's Ichiro, he just blasted one into the right field seats." Sure enough. And he proceeds to knock four more home runs on the next four pitches and calmly walks out of the cage. Damn.

[Moonlight J]

Here's the article I ended up with - http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/marlo...act-for-power/

[DJBeasties]

Too late now but Corey Hart.

[mgwiz22]

How about Texeira

[umjewman]

You're probably looking for something more current, but there's the old story about Ty Cobb claiming that he could hit homers like Babe Ruth if he wanted to and hit three homers the following day.

Also sparked one of my favorite Sports Pickle blurbs where the article says that, in response, Babe Ruth said he could be a giant pussy like Ty Cobb if he wanted to and went out and hit three singles the following day.