This article is part of our Collette Calls series.
Hope you enjoyed the All-Star break. I was rooting for Gary Sanchez to pull a Mike Piazza in his first home derby and that Cody Bellinger would win the entire thing. Sure, I was upset that Logan Morrison was not invited to hit, but I'm more bothered by the fact Sanchez did not even invite Morrison to be his pitcher. Baseball needs more WWE-like heel characters, and it would have made for great TV to have these two in a war of words.
This week, I'd like to bring back an old idea. Four years ago, I wrote a piece where I made you read through the numbers of a mystery player before clicking on a link to find out who the player was. I'm reviving that strategy, but want to mix in some visuals this time as well. Since my most recent article was all about pitching, we'll focus on six batters for this one.
BATTER 1
On June 1, I was batting .223/.301/.404 with eight homers, 24 RBI and 24 runs scored. Since that time, I'm now hitting .412/.500/.714 with eight more homers, 25 RBI and 29 more runs scored. The talks of my demise were foolish as I'm clearly not washed up and on the downside of my career. My numbers began getting better this year when I started making more contact. Funny how that works. I can't stay this hot forever, but I am on pace to have a MVP-like season even if my team is
Hope you enjoyed the All-Star break. I was rooting for Gary Sanchez to pull a Mike Piazza in his first home derby and that Cody Bellinger would win the entire thing. Sure, I was upset that Logan Morrison was not invited to hit, but I'm more bothered by the fact Sanchez did not even invite Morrison to be his pitcher. Baseball needs more WWE-like heel characters, and it would have made for great TV to have these two in a war of words.
This week, I'd like to bring back an old idea. Four years ago, I wrote a piece where I made you read through the numbers of a mystery player before clicking on a link to find out who the player was. I'm reviving that strategy, but want to mix in some visuals this time as well. Since my most recent article was all about pitching, we'll focus on six batters for this one.
BATTER 1
On June 1, I was batting .223/.301/.404 with eight homers, 24 RBI and 24 runs scored. Since that time, I'm now hitting .412/.500/.714 with eight more homers, 25 RBI and 29 more runs scored. The talks of my demise were foolish as I'm clearly not washed up and on the downside of my career. My numbers began getting better this year when I started making more contact. Funny how that works. I can't stay this hot forever, but I am on pace to have a MVP-like season even if my team is not keeping up with me. Who am I?
Batter 2:
Hey now, I'm an All-Star for the first time in my career. I'm on pace to set a career high in homers, RBI, runs and maybe even batting average where I've tied my career high. I am striking out a bit less than last year and am still not one who is up there looking to accept a walk. I am hitting .312/.356/.547 this season with 17 homers, 60 runs scored and 41 runs driven in, but check out my weighted on base average of late below. Who am I?
BATTER 3
I've already hit more home runs this season than in either of the last two seasons. I'm on pace to hit my most home runs since 2011. I'm triple-slashing .283/.372/.513 as a full-time player. I hit my 16th and 17th homers in consecutive games June 14 and 16, but have hit .217/.341/.362 since that time with two homers. Also, take a look at 10-game rolling average for contact this season. Is it any coincidence I'm no longer hitting well as my contact rate plummets? Who am I?
BATTER 4
I should exceed 20 homers for the 10th time in my career this year, but I am not going to eclipse the total I hit in 2016. My batting average is also less than league average, but that is due to my horrendous start to the season. Until most recently, I've been much better in terms of batting average but you can see just how closely my average and BABIP are aligned with one another:
Still, the last 30 days, I am batting .310/.412/.704 with seven homers and 13 extra-base hits in my last 85 at-bats. You may have missed my peak production point this season, but maybe you have not. Who am I?
BATTER 5
I'm on base to set a career high in steals this year, as I'm nearly two-thirds of the way to the 40 I swiped in 2011. A big reason why I'm doing that is I'm walking more than 13 percent of the time, which is the first time in my career I've had a double-digit walk rate. Getting on via walks and stealing bases has me halfway to 100 runs this season despite the fact I'm hitting .245. I had a stretch of play earlier this season where I hit .400/.476/.667, scored 27 runs and went 12 for 13 in stolen base attempts, and that offensive spike is present in the graph below:
See that recent freefall? That's me hitting .141/.243/.219 since that hot streak ended and I've scored just seven runs and am 4-of-6 in stealing bases in that time as I'm struggling to make contact. My career strikeout rate is 21 percent, but lately I'm striking out about 30 percent of the time. Who am I?
BATTER 6
In my fourth full big-league season, I'm on pace to set career highs across the board. I'm seven homers away from exceeding my career high and should eclipse my RBI high before September. My career OBP is .295, but I'm at a career-high .347 this season as I'm walking a bit more than I did in previous years. A good reason for that is the amount of hard contact I've made for a good portion of this season:
Last year, I mostly hit in the bottom third of the lineup, but my efforts this year have earned me a lot of time in the middle third of the lineup. I'm not going to steal you bases, but my manager does not like to run much anyhow as our home ballpark is made for the long ball. Who am I?
