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The word is that Austin is striking out less. So is he still "lucky" or is he transforming into "skillful"?



His season is becoming very fascinating.



Comments?



-Craig

Originally posted by Sebadiah23:

The word is that Austin is striking out less. So is he still "lucky" or is he transforming into "skillful"?



His season is becoming very fascinating.



Comments?



-Craig two things would make this even better:



1- Leyland give him green light to steal some more bases. Pierre is hitting 200 and has 12 SBs. Jackson is fast and can swipe a bag. Johnny freakin Damon swinging at the first pitch all the time has something to do with Jakson's only 5 SBs as well. Chill Damon.

2- Can they get rid of Adam Everett and put Santiago in the bottom of that lineup? It'd help if Jackson knocked someone home for a change.

Jackson's leading the league in hits...and K's. I think a league adjustment is in the future. In fact, he's struck out just about 30% of his AB's.



That's Ryan Howard strikout territory. Not quite as bad as Mark Reynolds but not by much.

unsustainable. I have him in two leagues and am hesitant to start him because I'm waiting for the absurd correction. If he ends up hitting .290 it will be a miracle

Holy BABIP Batman.



Jackson's BABIP is an insane .532.



League average is .310.



BABIP leaders usually end up around .380-.390.



So there is no doubt that it will regress.



But here's the goofy part.



His LD% is 40.3.



That's freaky and will actually drive a .532 BABIP.



It's just hard to call a guy "lucky" that is squaring up 2 of every 5 balls he hits.



"Luck" with respect to BABIP usually results from seeing eye grounders or a few bloop hits.



Again, there is no way he can sustain that LD% and BABIP, but the fall may not be as precipitous as some think. He has historically carried an extremely high BABIP.



That said, a guy with that profile really needs to work on his contact. Even improving 5% would be huge.



Over 600 AB, putting 30 more balls in play is going to give him 10-12 more hits, 17-20 more points in BA.



As for "only" 5 steals, that's still a pace for almost 30, and that is without having faced Boston yet



[ May 04, 2010, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: ToddZ ]

Todd,



In the last seven games, Austin has 16 hits and only 2 strikeouts. That is of course an amazing ratio but a very small sample size.



Has he figured something out?



Who is the real Austin Jackson?





(I am not an owner, just puzzled by a guy I didn't target even a lick)

You can't really judge anything with a 7-game sample.



Studies show that it takes about 150 plate appearances before a contact rate can be considered "meaningful" to quote the same term used in the article linked HERE