Is Willingham Ready to Bust Out?

Coming into the 2008 season the National League East had been reduced to a three-team race between the Braves, Mets, and Phillies. Nobody pegged the Marlins as potential contenders even with Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis; their subsequent trade to the Tigers did nothing to help the cause.

Looking at the standings right now might require a double take because the three pre-season contenders currently rank 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the division. The first place team? Well, none other than the pesky fish from Florida, who currently sport a 15-10 record and a 1.5 game lead over the Mets and Phillies. This isn’t likely to continue but they have had a good first month and deserve some recognition. One of the major reasons for their early success is the stellar production from leftfielder Josh Willingham. He will not make headlines as a fantasy or statistical superstud, like teammate Hanley Ramirez, but Willingham has quietly become a very solid hitter.

His 2006 and 2007 seasons were pretty consistent, evidenced by the following breakdowns:

• 2006: 142 GP, .277/.356/.496, 56 XBH, 109 K, 21.7 K%, 0.50 BB/K
• 2007: 144 GP, .265/.364/.463, 57 XBH, 122 K, 23.4 K%, 0.54 BB/K

Though we are still suffering from some small sample size issues, Willingham has seemingly increased his production levels relative to the previous two seasons. In fact, his RC/27 has vastly increased:

I would love to say that Willingham will keep this up, as I draft him for my fantasy team every year, but his balls-in-play rates just do not seem to point in that direction. Now, this is not to say he will not have a productive year, but rather that his production is very likely to level off in the coming weeks or months. Here is a look at his GB/FB/LD rates:

As you can see, his percentage of grounders has increased upwards of ten percent. Due to this increase, his BABIP currently rest at .348, much higher than the .310 and .308 posted in the last two seasons. Another so called red flag is the fact that his HR/FB % has increased from 12% to 23%; while his percentage of flyballs has decreased by about ten percent he is hitting a little over ten percent more of them out of the ballpark.

He could defy the odds and put up an incredible season but it would come with the potential stigma of having high luck-based indicators, IE, a fluke. His numbers should improve from those posted last year but not along the lines of what would occur should we extrapolate his current statistics over the rest of the season.