What Is Howie Kendrick?

Last night, Howie Kendrick hit his first pair of home runs of the season, getting himself past the 170 at-bat mark before clearing the fence with a long ball. However, he’s slugging .494 – not a common mark for a guy who hit hadn’t gone yard until July 10th. This kind of abnormality in performance is pretty much the norm for Kendrick, though, as he continues to establish himself as the biggest enigma in baseball.

His approach at the plate is to swing at absolutely everything. He’s taken a cut at 53.76% of all pitches thrown this year, including 37.54% of pitches out of the strike zone. Not surprisingly, this hyper aggressive attack makes him a player who just never walks. His BB% is just 1.7% – only Yuniesky Betancourt takes the free pass less often, but his aggressiveness is born out of confidence that he can make contact. Kendrick swings at everything while striking out 16.9% of the time, giving him a remarkable 0.10 BB/K rate on the season, just slightly worse than his 0.16 career mark.

That kind of mark puts him in the company of noted hackers such as Ivan Rodriguez and Jose Guillen. Of course, Guillen’s earned his money with his power, and Pudge is noted most for his skills behind the plate, not at it. Kendrick has power (23 of his 58 hits have gone for extra bases), but it’s completely different than Guillen’s – he racks up the doubles but has just 11 career long balls.

So, in total, we have a guy who doesn’t walk, isn’t an extraordinary contact hitter, and doesn’t hit home runs, but continues to produce offensive value through sheer quantity of singles and doubles. His skill set just isn’t something we see very often, and while it’s almost certain that he can’t sustain the .399 BABIP he’s run over the last year, Kendrick’s unique enough that trying to use historical comparisons is next to impossible.

For the sake of baseball, we should all hope he figures out how to stay healthy, because the game needs more interesting players like Kendrick.