About one in three Justin Upton's fly balls are home runs

Joe Sheehan has a great piece in the 5/13 edition of Sports Illustrated presenting the case for Justin Upton.

Sheehan writes about Upton, "He's swinging harder and missing more pitches (a 12% swing-and-miss rate, his highest since 2009), but he's crushing the ones he's hitting: An absurd 35.3% of his fly balls leave the yard."

This got me curious as to who else has a high flyball to HR percentage.

To his credit, Sheehan in his article was quick to point out, "Upton isn't going to hit 60 bombs. His home-run-to-fly-ball rate isn't sustainable; his career mark coming into this year was 13.2%. The league leaders in the category usually end up around 25%."

As you can see from the chart above, Upton has already dropped down to 30.2%.

Not surprisingly, right behind him are Ryan Braun and Bryce Harper, both with numbers in the upper 20th percentile. But it may surprise you (because it did me) how good Mets teammates John Buck and Lucas Duda's numbers are.

Carlos Gomez and Ryan Howard are both at 15.8%

Then you have to look and wonder what s going on with David Wright, Brandon Phillips, Joey Votto, and Buster Posey, all of whom are in the 13th percentile of flyballs turning into homers.

Take a look at the guys under 10% and you will be amazed to see names including Alfonso Soriano, Jay Bruce, Andre Ethier, and Matt Kemp.

Their teams have to be wondering what happened to the power?

Looking at the AL and we see Mark Trumbo and Michael Morse's power in action

Chris Davis is pounding the baseball and the Indians have to be thrilled with the success of Mark Reynolds and Carlos Santana.

Robinson Cano is making it more and more expensive for the Yankees to keep him. And, Chris Carter and Jose Bautista have identical numbers.

But what has happened to the Red Sox' Mike Napoli and Will Middlebrooks?

In the 15th percentile are a number of batters including: Miguel Cabrera, Mitch Moreland, Alex Rios, Josh Willingham, Adrian Beltre, Alex Gordon and Mike Trout.

And their numbers are better than Adam Jones, Billy Butler, Albert Pujols (10.6%!) and Josh Hamilton (10.0%!!).

There is a lot of warning track power being exhibited these days, but just remember there is a much better opportunity for something good happening on a fly ball than on a strikeout.

Hamilton Off to Hellish Start with Angels

Josh Hamilton has endured a lousy April thus far. He got the heel treatment from former fans in Texas, his new club is an AL-worst 2-8 and he's dragging down what was supposed to be a juggernaut Angels offense. Hamilton has a .179/.261/.231 batting line and is homerless in 46 plate appearances -- hardly the sort of production becoming of a $25 million a year slugger.

Hamilton has managed to post MVP-type numbers during his career despite being one of the game's most trigger-happy hitters. However, his plate discipline has taken yet another step backward early on in 2013. The Angels might as well return to the California moniker, because Hamilton is swinging -- and flailing -- at everything from Crescent City to San Diego.

Check out Hamilton's swing rate by pitch location this season. It's not just that he's taking a hack at pitches thrown off the plate -- it's that those pitches are in another zip code:

Hamilton has chased about 47% of pitches thrown outside of the zone this year, up from 42% in 2012 and tied with Chicago's Alexei Ramirez for the highest rate in the majors. He's batting .063 (1-for-16) against off-the-plate pitches, managing just a single off a Yu Darvish curveball on the border of the strike zone.

It's nearly impossible to get good results at the plate when you chase, even if you're blessed with superhuman strength and coordination. Hamilton defied the odds by batting .276 against out-of-zone pitches in 2010 (about 100 points above the MLB average), perhaps emboldening him to take his hacking exploits to another level. Since then, however, Hamilton's batting .182 when chasing off the plate.

Hamilton seems to be turning into the baseball equivalent of Icarus, ignoring warnings about his approach and flying too close to the sun. Uber-talented or not, Hamilton's going to lose his wings if he keeps going after so many junk pitches.

Will LA be home sweet home for Josh Hamilton?

Josh Hamilton is on his way to play in LA and over the last five seasons he has been the picture of inconsistency while playing in Angels Stadium.

Over the last five seasons, Hamilton has played 38 games, granted a small sample, but in those games he hit .260 going 39-for-150. He hit five homers, 10 doubles, drove home 19, walked 13 times and whiffed 28 times. 

Here are Hamilton's results 2008-12 in LA

Clearly one of the things that Angels pitchers did against Hamilton was to induce grounders for him to pull and get him go to the opposite field, in the air. Hamilton hit .304 to the opposite field with two homers. Hamilton hit .286 when pulling the ball, with no homers.

But Hamilton's success was by doing what hitting coaches are always encouraging their batters to do - go up the middle. Hamilton has hit .375 with two doubles and three homers to centerfield over the last five years in LA.

Hamilton: 2008-12 

• Overall, Hamilton has hit .305, slugged .549, with an OPS of .912. He's slammed 142 homers.
• To right field, or when pulling the ball, Hamilton has hit .480, slugged .922, with an OPS of 1.396. He's slammed 66 homers.
• To left field, or when going to the opposite field, Hamilton has hit .373, slugged .618, with an OPS of .982. He's slammed 25 homers.
• To center field, Hamilton has hit .345, slugged .617, with an OPS of .955. He's slammed 50 homers.  

Clearly, when Hamilton makes contact, he has been very successful.

Of all the numbers Hamilton has posted, 555 may be the most significant.

Hamilton Strikeouts 2008-12 

• 2008 - 126 whiffs in 156 games
• 2009 - 79 whiffs in 89 games
• 2010 - 95 whiffs in 133 games
• 2011 - 93 whiffs in 121 games
• 2012 - 162 whiffs in 148 games
• Total - 555 whiffs in 647 games 

See the ball, hit the ball.

Contact, up the middle, can make LA home sweet home for Hamilton, no Joshing.