So my boy with an 81 contact rating is striking out 27% of the time after 115 at bats. Should this continue? Or, is he suffering from the first-year callup blues?

How do we reduce the chances of a guy suffering from first year callup syndrome? Does makeup have anything to do with it?

Thanks esteemed vets of the hardball.

Chris

I think batting eye has a lot to do with it

He probably is striking out too much, but it's not like those Ks are going to turn into hits. He's a pretty bad hitter in all the other categories, all of which are more important than contact. He's also slower than crap, so he isn't going to leg out any infield hits. It's also criminal to play him anywhere other than 1B, and his bat no way plays there.

Quote: Originally posted by nauds3001 on 11/03/2009I think batting eye has a lot to do with it

Thank-you for this. Would a 63 batting eye be so bad that it affects contact stats? For example, would a player with a 63 contact and an 81 batting eye be a better hit-and-run candidate than an 81 contact with 63 batting eye? I expected a contact number in the 80's to result in less K's.
Thanks again,
JRNY

Quote: Originally posted by jonas1102 on 11/03/2009He probably is striking out too much, but it's not like those Ks are going to turn into hits. He's a pretty bad hitter in all the other categories, all of which are more important than contact. He's also slower than crap, so he isn't going to leg out any infield hits. It's also criminal to play him anywhere other than 1B, and his bat no way plays there.

Thank-you for taking the time to research the player I was speaking of. I truly appreciate it. Help me understand where to sacrifice rating points. When you say "bad hitter in all the other categories, all of which are more important than contact", it leads me to believe that if I want to use the hit-and-run, and keep strikeouts to a minimum, I could accept a contact rating in the 50's, but I would need 80's and above in power, both splits, and batting eye. Is this what you are suggesting?

I cannot get all 9 position players to have 80's in every category, so I need to figure out how to maximize my lesser players by learning how to use them. It made sense to me that a poor fielder with average ratings (50's and 60's) with a contact rating of 80+ could at least put the ball in play. What I call average, you call poor, but whatever. I just want this guy to put the ball in play, taking advantage of my high hit and run setting.

Thanks again for taking the time,
JRNY

27% is high for an 81 contact player, probably due to small sample size. If his batting eye and splits are around 50 he should be striking out closer to 17% of the time. If you push the splits and eye up around 80 (with 81 contact) the strikeout rate would drop under 15%.

I think you're focused too much on contact and simply need to focus on Contact, Power, vL/vR and batting eye along with speed all in conjunction.

80/20/50/50/60 would probably give you similar results as 60/50/50/50/50 assuming same speed, just with less hits/walks and more power/strikeouts.

And really though, if the guy is fast, you'd want him to have the former so he could put the ball in play and run.

Also, a player with the stats above wouldn't maybe even belong in the ML unless he's awesome defensive at SS.