Yastrzemski was known for his plate discipline while in the Giants organization, with a 0.55 BB/K ratio and 12.6% walk rate before being traded to Kansas City. However, his power with the Royals has been a pleasant surprise, especially considering Kauffman Stadium’s spacious dimensions.
Heading into play on Tuesday, as Kansas City’s leadoff hitter, he had three leadoff home runs, which tied the single-season record for leadoff home runs in a month by a Royals hitter, as pointed out by Royals Assistant Director of PR Ian Kraft. He wasn’t tied for long though, as Yastrzemski then hit his fourth on Tuesday evening.
What’s impressive about Yastrzemski’s line with the Royals is that he’s producing excellent offensive value in 16 games despite a subpar BABIP, which is .167. Conversely, his average exit velocity with the Royals is 92.7 mph, his barrel rate is 17.1%, and his hard-hit rate is 51.2%.
Thus, it’s not surprising that the expected wOBA rolling chart is spiking in a positive direction, as illustrated in his chart via Baseball Savant.
Therefore, Yastrzemski’s performance at leadoff not only feels sustainable for the remainder of the season due to his plate discipline, but his batted-ball and hard-hit ability as well. He could see some positive regression in his batting average if those hard-hit balls start to find some holes and gaps in the coming weeks.
Moving Down Suits India
While India hasn’t quite lived up to expectations at leadoff in Kansas City, he’s found new life batting lower in the order since August 6.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.justbaseball.com ’
