With everyday players garnering more than 200 ABs this season, the ability to ferret out possible buy low players for batting average upside becomes more challenging as the high ABs make it harder to determine who has shaken-off a poor start and returned to their expected levels of production. This is where the data mining of peripherals statistics becomes helpful.
Using Batting Average, Contact Rate and Line Drive Percentage, my intuition tells me those players with a high contact rate and good LD% should have a good AVG. If they do not, then there exists the possibility of a positve return as the AVG catches up with the peripherals.
Normally, I take a list like this and discard the players I don't believe make a difference. It is the players that have a solid track record who catch my eye. In this case, just 29 players had an AVG under .250, a contact rate of 85% or more and a LD% of 15% or higher. So I left the list unaltered.
Is my intuition regarding the relationship between AVG, contact rate and LD% correct?
| Last | Tm | BA | Contact Rate | LD% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brian Schneider | NYN | 0.205 | 0.9744 | 0.179 |
| Yuniesky Betancourt | SEA | 0.237 | 0.9227 | 0.173 |
| Shane M Robinson | STL | 0.24 | 0.92 | 0.167 |
| Orlando Cabrera | OAK | 0.232 | 0.912 | 0.197 |
| Augie Ojeda | ARI | 0.237 | 0.8983 | 0.19 |
| Jimmy Rollins | PHI | 0.217 | 0.8951 | 0.171 |
| Ramon Hernandez | CIN | 0.248 | 0.8861 | 0.188 |
| Jose C Lopez | SEA | 0.247 | 0.8851 | 0.193 |
| Vernon Wells | TOR | 0.238 | 0.8846 | 0.167 |
| Daniel Murphy | NYN | 0.238 | 0.8841 | 0.193 |
| Mike Sweeney | SEA | 0.237 | 0.8817 | 0.173 |
| Chad A Tracy | ARI | 0.203 | 0.8814 | 0.17 |
| Mark Loretta | LAN | 0.24 | 0.88 | 0.197 |
| Ty Wigginton | BAL | 0.235 | 0.8765 | 0.169 |
| Jason Kendall | MIL | 0.227 | 0.875 | 0.234 |
| Eric Byrnes | ARI | 0.216 | 0.8743 | 0.155 |
| Coco Crisp | KC | 0.228 | 0.8722 | 0.176 |
| Brian Giles | SD | 0.197 | 0.8716 | 0.189 |
| Carlos J Quentin | CHA | 0.229 | 0.8702 | 0.191 |
| Josh Bard | WAS | 0.239 | 0.8657 | 0.155 |
| John McDonald | TOR | 0.227 | 0.8636 | 0.211 |
| Aaron Miles | CHN | 0.2 | 0.8609 | 0.224 |
| Chad Moeller | BAL | 0.2 | 0.86 | 0.209 |
| Alex Gonzalez | CIN | 0.225 | 0.858 | 0.219 |
| Dioner F Navarro | TB | 0.205 | 0.8541 | 0.165 |
| Ryan J Sweeney | OAK | 0.246 | 0.8534 | 0.217 |
| Willy Taveras | CIN | 0.229 | 0.8507 | 0.167 |
| Luis O Rodriguez | SD | 0.23 | 0.8506 | 0.197 |