Title: Edwin Encarnacion Is Not Your Typical Slugger
Date: July 29, 2013
Original Source: Fangraphs
Synopsis: This article looked at how rare it is for a player to produce major power numbers with few strikeouts,as Edwin Encarnacion had been doing.
Hank Aaron. Barry Bonds. Albert Pujols. Edwin Encarnacion.
If one of those names doesn’t seem to fit, perhaps you haven’t been paying close enough attention in 2013. (And you probably didn’t read Dave Cameron’s trade value column.) The fact that Encarnacion is third in the majors in home runs and fourth in runs batted in doesn’t put him in elite company in historic terms, though.
No, it’s something Encarnacion is not doing that makes him unique.
Encarnacion is just not striking out.
At least, not by typical slugger standards. Through 202 games and 444 plate appearances, Encarnacion has struck out just 46 times, an obscenely low rate for a power hitter. No other player in the top-10 for home runs this year even sniffs his 10.5% K-rate and Adrian Beltre is the only one who tops him in the top-68.
Continue reading at Fangraphs.
Blake Murphy Sports Writing 