Ty Wigginton Needs to Swing More

Posted by Zach Sanders on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 10:58 am

While doing some research for a fantasy team, I noticed something about Ty Wigginton’s numbers.

Wigginton is walking less this year, 3% less in fact. However, he is swinging at 5% less pitches, including 5% less outside the zone. How can no longer swinging at bad pitches hurt your walk rate? It can’t.

But not swinging at strikes can. Wigginton is swinging at strikes 7% less this season. It’s one thing to be picky and selective at the plate, but it’s another thing to let strikes pass you by. Yet, Wigginton is striking out 5% less this year. So he’s buckling down when it matters? Sort of

When Wiggs has two strikes against him, he gets a hit 20.8% of the time, while striking out 30.5% of the time. Wigginton actually does better when he has less balls then strikes, because he isn’t worried about drawing a walk anymore. He has struck out 10.8% of the time in 0-2 and 1-2 counts, but struck out an amazing 37.1% in 2-2 and full counts. He really needs to worry about hitting the ball, not watching it go by him.

Ty’s contact rate is actually up 6% this year (when he swings), so if he would just swing the bat more often, he could see his .253 average and .293 OBP rise closer to his .285/.350 line of last year.