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Tuesday
Jul052011

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.

 

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