Great Scott

Luke Scott put together a career year in 2010, raising all his averages compared to his first two seasons with the Orioles.  How did he accomplish this feat?  First, we'll look a two aspects of his batting in the 2008-2009 time period.  The following heat map shows where Luke picked up the most hits when he put the ball in play:

Luke Scott in play average, 2008-2009.Scott hit the inside pitch well, but tended to make outs on balls pretty much over the heart of the plate.  He didn't even make that much contact in that area.

Luke Scott swinging strikes, 2008-2009.There existed an area of the strike zone ripe for Scott to exploit.  In 2010, he stopped the swings and misses there:

Luke Scott swinging strikes, 2010.The balls he hit in that area more often ended up hits:

Luke Scott in play average, 2010.There is some evidence looking at his hit chart that Scott tried to go with pitches more in 2010.  Instead of trying to pull the pitch slightly away, Scott tried to make contact.  The result was a about a 25 point rise in his BA, 30 point rise in his OBP, and a 50 point rise in his slugging from the previous two seasons.  We'll see if he can keep that up in 2011.