Justin Ruggiano is having one of the league’s most surprising seasons. He entered Sunday with 245 plate appearances, a .324 batting average, and strikeouts in 25.3 percent of his plate appearances. Intuitively, we all know striking out more than a quarter of the time makes it tough to be a productive hitter, and nearly impossible to post a high average. Yet Ruggiano is angling to join an exclusive club of players with more than 250 plate appearances in a season, a strikeout rate above 25 percent, and a batting average of .300 or better:
|
Player |
Season |
SO% |
BA |
|
|
2006 |
704 |
25.7% |
.313 |
|
|
2002 |
287 |
28.6% |
.309 |
|
|
2010 |
362 |
25.1% |
.308 |
|
|
1970 |
745 |
25.4% |
.302 |
|
|
2006 |
304 |
29.6% |
.301 |
|
|
2007 |
548 |
28.1% |
.300 |
For fantasy and trivial purposes, the table below shows how those players hit the next year:
|
Player |
Season |
BA |
|
Ryan Howard |
2007 |
.268 |
|
Josh Phelps |
2003 |
.268 |
|
Chris Johnson |
2011 |
.251 |
|
Bobby Bonds |
1971 |
.288 |
|
Wily Mo Pena |
2007 |
.253 |
|
B.J. Upton |
2008 |
.273 |
Were Ruggiano to follow the trend, he would not hit .300 again. He would, however, hit better than his .226 career mark entering this season.
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It could be added that for those of us who play Strat-O-Matic, Justin Ruggiano will be one of the best free agents available in (many) drafts for mashing lefties, with a triple slash line of .382/.461/.829 and copious (if not unlimited) at bats. He’s decent against righties, too.
Jhonatan Solano (.444/.500/.889) is better, but has had only 37 plate appearances and is .269/.296/.462 vs. righties.
Wil Nieves is as well (.429/.467/.857/1.324), also with low plate appearances (73) and woeful against righties.
Here are the next 19 among the free agents in my league I found (ranked high to low in OPS), with special mention for two on-base only guys at the end. Lots of catchers.
Wellington Castillo .500/.538/.750/1.288
Franklin Gutierrez .433/.452/.733/1.185
Dioner Navarro .308/.308/.846/1.154
Starling Marte .333/.370/.667/1.037
Yasmani Grandal .324/.333/.765/1.098
Laynce Nix .250/.333/.750/1.083
Jeff Keppinger .418/.444/.571/1.015
Michael McKenry .282/.370/.590/.980
Trevor Plouffe .265/.363/.612/.975
Tyler Flowers .310/.326/.643/.969
Scott Hairston .320/.353/.605/.958
Scott Podsednik .500/.458/.500/.958
Ronny Cedeno .343/.395/.529/.924
Manny Machado .294/.333/.588/.921
Roger Bernadina .417/.462/.458/.920
Jonny Gomes .276/.382/.537/.919
Brandon Snyder .318/.348/.568/.916
Todd Frazier .309/.347/.564/.911
Irving Falu .421/.421/.474/.893
Taylor Green .250/.625/.250/.875*
George Kottaras .167/.423/.167/.590*