Jhonny
Peralta is hitting .267/.347/.405 so far this year with 4 HR, 18 RBI and a 106
OPS+ in 240 PA. This is somewhat of a disappointment
as he hit .299/.345/.478 with 21 HR, 86 RBI and a 123 OPS+ in a breakout season
in 2011. At only 30 years old, he was
supposed to build off of that year and continue to be an offensive force. However, except for his on-base percentage,
he’s fallen off quite a bit back to his career numbers. Was last year a fluke? Or is Peralta getting unlucky this year?
As mentioned,
his OBP has been up this year thanks mostly to his high BB rate, 10.4%. It hadn’t reached 10% since his 2004 and 2005
seasons. This is very encouraging. His strikeout rate has been slightly
decreasing since 2010 (16.7% in 2010; 16.5% in 2011; 16.3% so far in
2012). This has given Peralta his best
walk to strikeout ratio of his career.
So he must be seeing the ball pretty well this year. His plate discipline numbers back this up too. His swinging strike rate (swing and
misses/total pitches) is the lowest of his career, 8.0% and his contact rate is
the highest in his career at 82.9%.
So, if he’s
seeing the ball well, why hasn’t he been producing? Well, according to FanGraphs, he has a 28.3%
LD rate. Not only is this the highest of
his career, but it’s top 5 in all of baseball, behind Joey Votto (33.0%),
Freddie Freeman (30.9%), Jason Kubel (29.5%) and Alejandro De Aza (29.4%). Hitting line drives is important because they
fall in for base hits more frequently than any other type of batted ball,
typically around 72% of the time. The
fact that Peralta has hit this many line drives and has as low of a batting
average as he does seems unusual. One
quick measurement of luck is to add .120 to his line drive rate and compare it
to his BABIP; if it’s higher than he’s been unlucky, if it’s lower than he’s
been lucky. .283 + .120 = .403. Peralta’s BABIP is currently at .308; which
isn’t too far away from his career .314 mark.
However, putting it in perspective of his line drive rate shows that maybe
Peralta has been a little unlucky this year.
Peralta’s
HR/FB rate is currently at 7.0%, the lowest he’s ever put up. Last year it was at 10.8% and his career mark
it 11.0%, so this seems unusual. His FB%
of 32.9% is pretty low for him as the last 2 years it’s been 43.4% and 44.2%. Hitting more line drives instead of fly balls
is usually a good trade-off. Sure, the
homers decrease, but usually the average and sometimes the slugging percentage
increase. This hasn’t been the case for
Peralta. Although, we still have a
little more than half a season to go, so maybe Peralta has a home run tear in
him before the end of the season.
Peralta has a
career .329 wOBA and 100 wRC+ and he currently has a .328 wOBA and 104
wOBA. So it seems like he’s right where
he should be. However, the advanced numbers
suggest something different. Peralta has
been seeing and hitting the ball in a way that should result in better
results. And maybe his luck is finally
changing. Over his last 78 PA, he’s
hitting .324/.397/.529 with 2 HR.
I propose
that we make Peralta the #5 hitter, where the Tigers have had difficulty
getting consistent production. Sure, the
numbers on the surface show that this might not be a good idea, but as Peralta
has shown over his last 21 games, his luck might already be changing and the
Tigers could reap great reward from it.
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