Reds at the Bottom of "Contact" Statistic

[dabvu2498]

Interesting reading


Put The Ball in Play!
An important aspect of the small ball philosophy is putting the ball in play. Don't strike out, do make contact, put pressure on the defense, and make something happen. Even the base on balls, when there are runners in scoring position, is downplayed in favor of hitting the ball.

Contact is the percentage of plate appearances that result in a ball put into play, including home runs. Teams that top this category do not strike out or walk very much. Here are the top and bottom teams in this category (pitcher plate appearances removed):

Contact
Leaders Trailers
+------+---------+ +------+---------+
| Team | Contact | | Team | Contact |
+------+---------+ +------+---------+
| ANA | 0.785 | | WAS | 0.729 |
| SFN | 0.779 | | BOS | 0.728 |
| CHN | 0.778 | | PHI | 0.727 |
| OAK | 0.776 | | LAN | 0.725 |
| BAL | 0.771 | | ARI | 0.725 |
| FLO | 0.766 | | MIL | 0.721 |
| DET | 0.760 | | CIN | 0.694 |
+------+---------+ +------+---------+



This comes from a much larger article about "small ball" from HardBall Times today: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/small-ball-whos-who/

As a caveat... these stats are from last year. I just found them interesting.

Also... top 3 small ball teams from last year:
Anaheim(playoffs)
Tampa Bay(what???)
White Sox(champs)

[oneupper]

I guess small ball leaves small results. CIN, MIL and ARI are amongst the leaders in Runs scored.

[TeamBoone]

The Reds seem to walk alot because they work the count (not counted as plate appearances), so I'm surprised that doesn't work in their favor for this statistic... unless they are counting walks as PAs.

[dabvu2498]

Walks are PAs.

[KronoRed]

I guess small ball leaves small results. CIN, MIL and ARI are amongst the leaders in Runs scored.
I guess they are failing to play the game the right way