I think the first batter to really flip out this season was Matt Kemp. Coming off last year's near-MVP season, Kemp swore that he'd improve, and by April 21 he'd hit nine home runs. That's nine home runs in 15 games. He owned a .474 batting average and a 1.541 OPS, and Kemp was making people believe that anything was possible. Since April 22, he's posted just an .828 OPS, but his numbers are still among the very best in baseball.
Something Else Josh Hamilton, Carlos Beltran, And Matt Kemp Have In Common
One thing Josh Hamilton, Carlos Beltran, and Matt Kemp have in common is that this year they’ve all been offensive wrecking balls. There is something else they have in common, too.
Most recently, of course, Josh Hamilton flipped out. Hamilton got off to a fine start, but then he kicked things up to another level and made himself a little baseball history. You know about the four-homer game. That was part of a six-game span during which Hamilton slugged nine dingers in all. You know how you were impressed above by Matt Kemp going deep nine times in 15 games? Now reduce that games total by 60 percent. You have arrived at Josh Hamilton. Josh Hamilton has been almost literally unbelievable.
And then there's Carlos Beltran. Beltran hasn't gotten the attention that Kemp or Hamilton have, for reasons you can try to work out on your own. But Beltran's just kind of been hitting the whole time, as he carries a 1.058 OPS. Hamilton leads baseball with 18 dingers. Beltran's behind him, with 13. Then you find Kemp, with 12. Then there are other players. Beltran's been a terror for a Cardinals team that people weren't sold on after it lost Albert Pujols. That sentence reads funny now.
So that’s one thing Hamilton, Kemp, and Beltran have in common - they’ve been terrors at the plate. Another thing they have in common is that they’re outfielders. Another thing they have in common is that they’re baseball players. Another thing they have in common is that they’re human beings. We could spend years writing down all the things Josh Hamilton, Matt Kemp, and Carlos Beltran technically have in common.
This article is about one of those things in particular, though. Hamilton has been in the majors since 2007. So far this year, he has made contact with the baseball on 68 percent of his attempted swings. That is the lowest contact rate of Hamilton’s career.
Kemp has been in the majors since 2006. So far this year, he has made contact with the baseball on 71 percent of his attempted swings. That is the second-lowest contact rate of Kemp’s career, and the lowest if you exclude his small-sample rookie campaign.
Beltran has been in the majors since 1998. So far this year, he has made contact with the baseball on 78 percent of his attempted swings. That is tied for the lowest contact rate of Beltran’s career, and it’s tied with 1999.
To put this all a different way:
Contact rate when swinging
| Hamilton | Kemp | Beltran | |
| Career | 74% | 73% | 82% |
| 2012 | 68% | 71% | 78% |
Josh Hamilton, Matt Kemp, and Carlos Beltran have been among baseball's most productive hitters so far this season. They are the top three in home runs hit, and combined, they own 43 dingers, which is more than 24 baseball teams, and 30 more than the Padres. Hamilton, Kemp, and Beltran have also made less frequent contact than they have in the past.
It's not just them, either. Bryan LaHair has been terrific, and his contact rate is very low. The breakout Edwin Encarnacion is sitting on his lowest contact rate since he was a rookie. Adam Dunn is having a bounce-back season, and he's never made so little contact. Dunn's contact rate is at 64 percent. It was at 75 percent when he was a rookie. It was at 68 percent last season when Dunn was arguably the biggest nightmare in the game.
Intuitively, you would think, all right, contact is good. It’s good when hitters make contact so you should want for hitters to make more contact. Intuitively, you would think that a drop in contact rate would be a bad thing. Something’s wrong. Is the hitter not seeing the ball as well? Is it a mechanical thing? Is he being pitched differently? You see a decreased contact rate for a hitter and your first thought is “that can’t be good.”
But it can be good, as several players are actively demonstrating. Josh Hamilton has 18 home runs. He has 18 home runs! He has five more home runs than the next-highest total of home runs! He's whiffing a lot. Josh Hamilton's productivity is not tied to his contact rate, or at least the link is not very strong.
It’s important to be able to make contact, but more meaningful than frequency of contact is quality of contact. This is what raw contact rate misses. Hamilton, Kemp, Beltran, and others have obviously generated high quality of contact and that’s what’s driving their numbers to incredible heights.
I think it’s different for pitchers. I think with pitchers, you should be encouraged by an improved contact rate and discouraged by an elevated contact rate, because pitchers are facing pretty much the entire league. Contact rate is a direct measure of how well they can trick the opposition, and we’ve established with countless BABIP studies that few pitchers induce significantly different contact quality.
But with hitters, it gets more complicated. Look at Josh Hamilton’s contact column and only at his contact column, and you might think that he’s really struggling, swinging himself into too many outs. In reality Josh Hamilton is getting people to think about the triple crown. Surprise! He’s amazing!
If you’re looking for a powerful conclusion here, I don’t have one to offer. Josh Hamilton, Matt Kemp, and Carlos Beltran have been among baseball’s brightest offensive stars in 2012, and they’ve each been missing the baseball more often than they used to. How not uninteresting a thing to observe. Right? I hope your answer is “right.”
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