Yasiel Puig's Beautiful, Reckless Plate Approach
Friday, August 9, 2013 at 5:09PM
David Golebiewski in Dodgers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Puigmania, Yasiel Puig

Roughly 2,400 miles separate Yasiel Puig's hometown of Cienfuegos, Cuba from his new home in Chavez Ravine. Incidentally, 2,400 miles is also about the size of the rookie sensation's strike zone. Puig has hacked, slashed and dashed his way to arguably the greatest offensive start in major league history, as his 191 OPS+ trails that of only Shoeless Joe Jackson (193 OPS+ in 1911) among batters getting 200-plus plate appearances during their rookie season. Whether he can sustain that success is another matter entirely. Here's a closer look at how Puigmania is setting records and making a mockery of baseball orthodoxy.

Puig is immensely talented, but he has also enjoyed the sort of luck that even Powerball jackpot winners would envy. He has the highest batting average on balls in play (.474) ever for a player during a season in which he gets over 200 plate appearances, and it's not even close. Ty Cobb (.444 in 1911) and Jackson (.434, also in 1911) rank a distant second and third, respectively. For Puigmania to persist, L.A.'s newest star will have to shore up plate approach.

Article originally appeared on MLB Baseball Analytics (https://baseballanalytics.org/).
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