Jose Bautista: Selective Endpoints
Jonathan Scippa |
Thursday, June 9, 2011 at 11:36AM Jose Bautista's power numbers have come down a bunch over the last couple weeks. Through May 22nd, he had an .816 slugging percentage; since then, .491. It was unreasonable to expect him to maintain such a high SLG, so the recent regression isn't much of a surprise. However, through his first 176 plate appearances, Bautista had a wOBA of .534, and it still sits at .509 today. In fact, over his last 73 plate appearances, he's hit only 2 doubles and 2 home runs, yet still produced a .450 wOBA. This is partially due to the fact that he's consistently maintained an OBP over .500 for the majority of the season.
While opposing pitchers haven't changed their location against Bautista, he has seen more off-speed stuff recently. Since May 23, pitchers have thrown him 7.4% fewer fastballs and 12.1% more sliders. Lastly, his line drive rate is up from 18.6% through May 22 to 23.9% since, while his fly ball rate dropped from 39.8% to 17.4%.
