Sunday, June 21, 2015

Bulls Hitters at Mid-Season

We last looked at the Durham Bulls hitters as of May 17th. Now we are only two games from the Bulls’ mid-season. So how are hitters doing?

[Note: We used a cutoff of 50 plate appearances to generate our list. Players below the 50 plate appearance cutoff were Bobby Wilson, Juniel Querecuto, Mayo Acosta, and Nick Franklin]

This table is sorted by Weighted on Base Average (wOBA), which is one of those newish stats that makes a lot of sense once you dig into it. It essentially weights the various ways a batter can get on base. The explanation at the link might help. The second not-usual stat is Weighted Runs Above Average (wRAA). That stat compares the player to the rest of the league in terms of runs contributed.

The players marked by an asterisk are on the Tampa Bay Rays 40-man roster. The players marked with a strike-thru are players who have been with the Bulls and might be coming back before the year is out. Butler went up to the Rays and hasn’t come back yet (and is doing so well that he might not). Curt Casali and Jake Elmore went up, Reginatto came back up from Montgomery and was just sent back down.

Richard Shaffer is new to the Bulls and has the least number of plate appearances of the group. But his numbers are superb. Alexi Casilla remains very high, but he has spent a lot of time on the DL in the last month, as shown by his relatively low plate appearances. Deserving of special mention is the exceptional year that Taylor Motter is having.

The last column in the table is the change in wOBA since the May 17th. The best performances are of  Alan Dykstra and Corey Brown, both of them going from negative wRAAs to positive.

I was surprised at J.P. Arencibia’s numbers. Subjectively, I thought he was doing better than that. I remain very worried about the season that Mikie Mahtook, Vince Belnome, and Hak-Ju Lee are having (as are they, I am sure).

NameAgePAAVGOPSwOBAwRAAChange
Richard Shaffer2482.3001.090.4849.6NA
*Joey Butler2994.317.892.4146.2NA
Alexi Casilla30134.328.865.3997.4-.018
*Jake Elmore28110.326.814.3955.8.025
Taylor Motter25285.291.759.3495.4.008
Corey Brown29222.236.759.3473.9.035
Allan Dykstra28159.214.712.3442.5.063
Eugenio Velez33222.276.711.3352.0-.006
*Curt Casali26132.205.674.3250.2.039
J.P. Arencibia29206.230.701.320-0.4-.039
*Mikie Mahtook25198.239.647.302-3.1-.040
Leonardo Reginatto25134.269.606.284-3.8-.031
Luke Maile24173.200.574.281-5.3.018
Vince Belnome27162.180.554.278-5.3-.021
*Hak-ju Lee24178.235.588.275-6.2.019
*Ryan Brett23122.205.558.262-5.4NA

What wOBA Means

wOBA
Excellent.400
Great.370
Above Average.340
Average.320
Below Average.310
Poor.300
Awful.290

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