Nasty Nate McLouth

In a mock fantasy draft a few weeks prior to the season I drafted Nate McLouth of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 23rd round. Numerous competitors laughed at the selection and, honestly, it was made with little conviction from my end. I needed to fill my outfielder quota and his numbers from a year ago made him look better than, say, Dave Roberts. Judging by the reactions upon making my selection it is safe to say that next to nobody thought McLouth would be the answer to the question: Who is the only player in the major leagues to have a hit in all of his team’s games?

Some might answer Hanley Ramirez, a statistical wunderkind quickly developing into a super-duper-star. Or, perhaps, Chipper Jones, who currently boasts a .453 batting average. Maybe even Chase Utley, who has an impressive home run streak, let alone a hitting streak. But Nate McLouth? Really? A guy who admitted in an FSN interview prior to the season opener that he was told he had very little job security coming into spring training?

Coming into tonight’s game against the Marlins, McLouth is riding the waves of a 19-game hitting streak. His slash line currently rests at .375/.444/.639, resulting in an OPS of 1.082 and an OPS+ of 184. After creating 91 runs in 243 games (0.37/gm), over the last two seasons, he has already created 23 (1.21/gm). His streak is the longest to open a season since 2006, when Edgar Renteria opened with a 23-gamer. Renteria’s streak came to an end against a Marlins combination of Josh Johnson, Ricky Nolasco, and Randy Messenger.

As chance would have it, not only does McLouth face the pesky fish tonight, but he faces Ricky Nolasco! Ah, baseball.

How has McLouth, a guy with a pre-2008 slash line of .249/.319/.429, been so stellar? A quick look at a few graphs will help illustrate this answer:

McLouth has drastically cut down on his strikeouts, from 23.4% in 2007 to just 12.5% this year. His BABIP has gone from .274, .275, and .301 in prior seasons all the way up to .403 at this juncture. The final graph, detailing his groundball, flyball, and line drive rates, shows that McLouth has increased his frequency of putting the ball on the ground while decreasing his percentage of balls in the air.

It is not very likely that he, even with his speed, will maintain anything in the vicinity of a .403 BABIP all season but his performance thus far has been nothing short of remarkable.