What is the deal with Jose Bautista?

[RockCoCougars]

Bautista hit his 48th homer tonight. Wow, where did that come from? This has to be one of the most unexpected seasons in baseball history. How does a 30 year old who had a career rate of one homer every 30 at bats have a season where they are hitting one every 10 at bats? The only comparison that I can make is the Brady Anderson 50 homer year in the mid 90's. Did he have an Einstein like stroke of genius after spending the off season researching to find out the secret to hitting with power? Did he sell his soul to the devil? Or is he getting a little extra 'help' (as Anderson has been accused). I don't want to accuse the guy of anything, but....

[pitchleague]

I know I read an interview with him and/or his hitting coach or saw it on MLB Tonight or something. The whole deal was that he learned, through video analysis, to pull his hands in and open his stance up so he could get around on the inside pitches. He said that it was an epiphany for him, wondering why it took him this long to realize this mechanical flaw. He also said that he always knew he had this kind of power in him, but he could never get around on the inside pitches that you can pull for homers until he fixed the flaw.

[Oldcity]

That's like when Counsell finally ditched the lightning rod stance, except times 1000.

[Funketown]

I wonder how common it is for a guy who has played 4+ full seasons and never hit over 20 HR's to hit 45+ HR's in a season. One guy who did something mildly similar to this was Beltre in 2004, and then of course Luis Gonzalez in 2001 had that absurd season.

 

I'm pretty confident that this tops both of those though.

[NYChez]

It would be interesting to see if this happened to anybody pre-1987. Anything after that is suspicious.

[RockCoCougars]

It would be interesting to see if this happened to anybody pre-1987. Anything after that is suspicious.

George Foster in '77 would probably be the closest that I can remember, but Foster had HR seasons of 23 and 29 the two seasons before (back in the mid-70's where 30 homers would usually put you right towards the top of the league), so his didn't come completely out of left field- pun intended.

[Ennder]

Bert Campaneris hit 22 HR in 1970. His second most in his carrer was 8 and he had averaged only around 4 a year at that point.

[crewcrazy]

Davey Johnson is a big one. From 1966 to 1972, his single season high was 18. During that stretch, his next highest total was 10. In 1973, at age 30, he hit 43. The next season was his last "full" season, and he hit 15.

 

It's unfortunate that these days something like this happens and the first assumption is automatically PED's, but it's something that happens every so often in baseball. In Bautista's defense, there are apparently scouts who said they saw this kind of power potential when he was coming up through Pittsburgh's farm system.

[sbrylski]

If you look into the stats, part of the reason for the surge is clearly because he's altered his mechanics or mentality to hit more flyballs - his FB% is up to 55.2% compared to a career 45.8%.

 

Any "suspect" spike would be visible in the HR/FB rate (but clouded by luck). Bautista does have a spike (21.1% verse career rate of 13.8%), but it's not completely unprecedented. Beltre's 2004 spike was higher. (Data isn't available on Anderson and Gonzalez.)

 

Rickie Weeks jumped from ~12% career to 19.1% in 2009, which is close to Bautista's spike.

 

Ben Zobrist spiked from 3.6% to 17.5% in 2008 (at age 27).

 

Another aspect to look at is his average HR distance. In 2010, his average HR has traveled 405.2 feet. That is up only slightly from his 400.5 foot career average prior to 2010.

 

So his actual ability to hit a baseball a really long way seems to have increased slightly, but I don't think it's enough to call it suspect. It's just a perfect storm of factors.

[GAME05]

pitchleague, i read the same article you referred to. i want to say i read it in USA Today.

[Ennder]

I would gladly take the under on 35 HR for him next year though. This screams of a season where he was hot all year.

[GAME05]

i might take the under just because he's a FA and just won't have the same hitting coach next year.

[TooLiveBrew]

While I appreciate that Bautista made the mechanical adjustment(s) to his swing, his HR/FB rate this season is 21.3%, compared to a career rate of 13.5%. I doubt he'll ever hit 40 again.

[trwi7]

i might take the under just because he's a FA and just won't have the same hitting coach next year.

He still has a year of arbitration.

[Crash2303]

a couple others that come to mind without looking into statistics are Cecil Fielder's 51 homers in '90- before that i think his top was like 14 or something, though not in a full season- and Brady Anderson's 50 homers in '96, who never hit more than 24 another time in his whole career.

[DuWayne Steurer]

a couple others that come to mind without looking into statistics are Cecil Fielder's 51 homers in '90- before that i think his top was like 14 or something, though not in a full season- and Brady Anderson's 50 homers in '96, who never hit more than 24 another time in his whole career.

If Anderson WASN'T on roids, I'll eat my hat.

[craigharmann]

a couple others that come to mind without looking into statistics are Cecil Fielder's 51 homers in '90- before that i think his top was like 14 or something, though not in a full season- and Brady Anderson's 50 homers in '96, who never hit more than 24 another time in his whole career.

If Anderson WASN'T on roids, I'll eat my hat.

It wasn't roids.....it was the sideburns.

[dlk9s]

And rugged good looks.

[Diskono]

Joe Posnanski wrote about other flukey HR seasons the other day. He had Davey Johnson at #1, but said Bautista could be there, depending on how the rest of his career goes.

[Fatter than Joey]

a couple others that come to mind without looking into statistics are Cecil Fielder's 51 homers in '90- before that i think his top was like 14 or something

 

When Fielder hit 14HRs he did so in ~190 PAs -- so that is a pretty good clip.

 

Toronto was loaded when Fielder came up with them -- they had McGriff at 1b, and Bell, Moseby and Barfield in the OF.

 

Before he had his 51 HRs in 1990 -- he had a big year in Japan -- so his power was always there -- it was more a function of him getting a full season of ABs.

[igor67]

Cecil's pre 50 HR numbers are actually most interesting to think about how his career might have been percieved differently had he started on a different team and not had so many partial seasons and played in Japan. He could have easily added another 50 maybe 100 HRs. He was clearly ready, but blocked.