Comments on: Help Wanted: Professional Hitter http://knuckleballsblog.com/2011/01/12/help-wanted-professional-hitter/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=help-wanted-professional-hitter "Like butterflies with hiccups" Tue, 21 May 2013 14:15:57 +0000 hourly 1 By: Jim Crikket http://knuckleballsblog.com/2011/01/12/help-wanted-professional-hitter/#comment-3847 Jim Crikket Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:25:02 +0000 http://knuckleballsblog.com/?p=5206#comment-3847 Steve, while Vlad does hit the ball well to LF, his pull-rate on HRs doesn’t match up to Thames’. While Thames certainly doesn’t match up in career totals, he’s hit over 59% of his HRs to LF for his career… and over 83% (10 of 12) of his HRs last year went to LF.

Vlad has pulled a little over 44% of his career HRs to LF and almost exactly that percentage of his 2010 HRs went to LF. Over 45% of his career HRs have gone out somewhere between the LCF and RCF gaps.

Just for comparison purposes, Jones has also pulled his HRs well during his career, at almost a 54% rate. But last year, only 8 of his 19 HRs were pulled to left, the other 11 went out somewhere between the gaps… not an encouraging indication for success at Target Field.

I have no doubt Guerrero would be able to hit some HRs out of Target Field. I’m just not sure they’d come frequently enough to earn the pay he expects to get.

]]> By: Steve L. http://knuckleballsblog.com/2011/01/12/help-wanted-professional-hitter/#comment-3846 Steve L. Wed, 12 Jan 2011 15:36:58 +0000 http://knuckleballsblog.com/?p=5206#comment-3846 I agree with you on a few points about Vlad, but disagree about his potential HR power in Target Field. There have been a few articles discussing his hit tendencies, especially on HR’s, and they’ve shown him to be a dead-pull type hitter (even more so than Thames I believe), which actually was a favorable trait to have in Target Field last year if you’re trying to hit HR’s. The Twins lack(ed) a Right-handed hitter of this type, so I think he’d be a good option, but you’re right, the playing time and money considerations don’t fit to bring him in, so Thames would be a better fit. This of course, assumes Thome doesn’t return to the Twins (I’d still rather have him as a bench bat than any of the other options, because fact is, he’s just better).

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