Checking In With Aramis

In looking at the league leaders this morning I found something pretty interesting: Of all players with a WPA of at least 1.84—excluding Matt Holliday who has been injured for a while—Aramis Ramirez is the only one with a home run total under fourteen. While Aramis has hit nine long balls everyone else contributing this much has hit their fair share more. It isn’t as if he ranks towards the bottom of this 1.84 minimum, either, as his 2.29 WPA currently ranks 7th amongst all hitters; and, yes, “their fare share” is in fact a triple-rhyme.

Through 62 games, this slugger is posting a .302/.417/.507 slash line, with 9 HR, 19 2B, and 43 RBI. If his OBP looks oddly high it is likely due to the fact that he has never finished a season higher than .373 in that department and his career mark comes in at .340.

Since he has posted batting averages over .300 in the past it would make sense that he is walking more this year. Confirming this theory is his 14.4% walk rate; one much higher than the 5.3-8.2% range he posted from 2002-2007. In fact, his career high is 9.7%. One of the main reasons his rate of walks has jumped is his drastic drop in swings at pitches out of the zone. Last year, he swung at 30.76% of pitches out of the zone whereas this year, just 23.54%.

He’s striking our more this year as well, with a 16.9 K% compared to 13% a year ago. A leading contributor to his increased strikeouts is a somewhat drastic drop in contact. Last year, he made contact 84.85% of the time; this year, just 78.47% of the time.

His overall production has not suffered much from the drop in contact but he does currently have a .331 BABIP. With regards to his balls in play, he is hitting 3% less grounders, replacing them with line drives. Additionally, though his flyball rate has stayed stagnant, his HR/FB has dropped from 13.3% to 10.8%.

It seems that Ramirez is making less contact but more of the balls he puts in play are falling in for hits. His “lack” of power this season should be attributed more to his decrease in home runs per flyball. If he has actually lost some power than his OPS will not remain .924 all season as it is not very likely to sustain a BB% that much higher than the range he has proven himself capable of; along similar lines, if his past performance is any indication he will still hit anywhere from 26-35 home runs by seasons end. Should these two stats reverse his OPS would remain in the general range. Now, BB% and K% are pretty quick to stabilize but this is a pretty drastic jump.

This just goes to show that a guy can be an extremely effective offensive contributor without hitting dingers each and every night.