Inside-Out Avila

Alex Avila of the Detroit Tigers does a great job producing hits on the edges of the plate in 2011.  His ability to work the edges helped put him on the All-Star team.

Alex Avila, in-play batting average on the inside and outside parts of the plate, 2011.Among left-handed batters with 150 PA ending on a pitch in these areas, he owns the highest Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP) in the American League:

Hitter	Team	Plate App.	BABIP
Alex Avila	DET	188	0.402
Victor Martinez	DET	150	0.378
Alex Gordon	KC	243	0.377
Jacoby Ellsbury	BOS	237	0.363
Erick Aybar	LAA	150	0.363
Adrian Gonzalez	BOS	285	0.356
Asdrubal Cabrera	CLE	165	0.347
Casey Kotchman	TB	175	0.336
Jack Cust	SEA	161	0.333
Matt Joyce	TB	194	0.331
Mitch Moreland	TEX	199	0.331
Adam Lind	TOR	184	0.328
Bobby Abreu	LAA	244	0.327
Josh Hamilton	TEX	150	0.327
Cliff Pennington	OAK	151	0.320
Johnny Damon	TB	249	0.318
Denard Span	MIN	152	0.318
Brennan Boesch	DET	222	0.315
Chris Getz	KC	194	0.315
Eric Hosmer	KC	170	0.312
Brett Gardner	NYY	191	0.303
Carl Crawford	BOS	184	0.301
Adam Kennedy	SEA	163	0.294
Jack Hannahan	CLE	158	0.290
Nick Markakis	BAL	245	0.288
Sam Fuld	TB	171	0.286
Corey Patterson	TOR	220	0.281
Luke Scott	BAL	159	0.280
A. J. Pierzynski	CWS	198	0.278
Michael Brantley	CLE	219	0.277
Curtis Granderson	NYY	251	0.276
Melky Cabrera	KC	198	0.274
Shin-Soo Choo	CLE	214	0.273
Ben Zobrist	TB	175	0.270
David DeJesus	OAK	179	0.267
Adam Dunn	CWS	209	0.264
Robinson Cano	NYY	238	0.263
Ichiro Suzuki	SEA	272	0.260
Juan Pierre	CWS	244	0.258
David Ortiz	BOS	215	0.257
J. D. Drew	BOS	177	0.255
David Murphy	TEX	172	0.252
Hideki Matsui	OAK	184	0.250
Justin Smoak	SEA	165	0.241
Justin Morneau	MIN	162	0.212
Carlos Santana	CLE	153	0.211
Daric Barton	OAK	190	0.207
Nick Swisher	NYY	153	0.195
Mark Teixeira	NYY	178	0.194

Note that the BABIP for all American League left-handed hitters is .290 on the edges.  Note that when the ball is in the middle of the plate Avila's BABIP drops to .283, with a league average for lefties of .311.

Very high BABIPs and very low BABIPs tend to be unsustainable, since in the long run, batted balls in play tend to get fielded at about the same rate.  Given that Avila is collecting a lot of hits in zones that are not conducive  to that results, I would not be surprised if his production fell off in the second half.