In Contrast to Blazin' Billy

[klaiggeb]

There is NO excuse for Blazin' Billy's ineptness at the plate.

None.

Zero.

Zilch.

But to confirm my thoughts, I pulled up two (2) other lead off hitters without much power with more or less the same number of extra base hits/season.

Maury Wills

.281 lifetime Hitter

.330 OBP


Brett Butler

.290 lifetime Hitter

.377 OBP

boly

[rog]

I think the excuse for Billy Hamilton's ineptness at the plate is that he isn't that good a hitter. Billy is closer to Manny Burriss than he is to Brett Butler. He gets top marks for running, fielding and throwing, but he's a poor hitter with almost no power.

Speaking of Burriss, you remember how you felt he needed to put the ball on the ground more? What he needed to do was put the ball on the ground more EFFECTIVELY, not more often. Hamilton is a pronounced ground ball hitter, with 44% ground balls. Manny's career percentage is 61%.

A slap hitter like this pair needs to either hit the ball hard or hit it soft. Medium-hit balls are killers, since they usually aren't hit hard enough to get down or get through, but are hit too hard to beat out. Billy hits the ball medium 59% of the time. Manny hit the ball medium 64% of the time, which is a killer.

Billy hits .290 on ground balls, while Manny hit just .203. Neither is a good hitter, but clearly Billy is the better of the two -- because he doesn't hit the ball in between hard and soft as often. Too often, but not as often as Manny.

Manny didn't need to hit MORE ground balls so much as he needed to hit them either harder or softer.

Does that make sense?

[klaiggeb]

Yes.

What I'm suggesting is that SOMEONE bury their foot up Blazin' Billy's BE-Hind and do for him what Harry Walker did for Matty Alou. Teach him to hit DOWN on the ball to GET more ground balls.

boly

[Islandboagie]

Normally I think Boly's theories are batshit crazy (just kidding, boly), but in this case he's correct. Hitting to get on base is something that can be done if the hitter is fast enough, and in this case Hamilton is definitely fast enough. Slap at the ball with a lean towards first base, a guy with speed like Hamilton's will reach base more than he's reaching now. A good example, Ichiro had 70, yes 70 infield hits in his record breaking hit season. That's proof it can be done, it just takes the coaches not to be close minded.

[rog]

What I'm suggesting is that SOMEONE bury their foot up Blazin' Billy's BE-Hind and do for him what Harry Walker did for Matty Alou. Teach him to hit DOWN on the ball to GET more ground balls.


Rog -- Billy is already a strong ground ball hitter. Not that your idea is bad, but Billy's ground ball to fly ball ratio last season was the 33rd-best in the majors. It's not as if he isn't hitting a lot of ground balls as it is.

If Billy were to hit down on the ball more, he might wind up hitting fewer line drives.

If someone buried his foot in Billy's behind, wouldn't Billy have a hard time running fast?




Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/4198/contrast-blazin-billy#ixzz51JmclRgP

[rxmeister]

I think the Giants are waiting for the Reds to get off their Heliot Ramos demand and then they can seriously work out a deal for Hamilton. What everyone is saying about his awful offense is true, but there will be nothing more exciting than when he does get a hold of one and drives it into triples alley. And the pitchers will love when the opposition gets a hold of one and he runs it down.

[rog]

Ramos is no sure thing, but he's a possible star or even superstar. I'm glad the Giants aren't trading him for Hamilton.

If Billy hit southpaws better, I'd be pretty interested. Maybe a platoon of him and Gorkys would work, but I hate to give up too much for a platoon player. If the Giants did acquire him, I would probably bat him eighth as something of a second lead off hitter.

Looking closer at Billy, while he hasn't hit lefties well, he has hit about as well when a lefty starts as when a righty goes. He even steals bases well in such a situation. I hate to keep jumping around on Billy, but if the Giants feel they can improve his hitting, I would indeed be willing to go Blach and Duggar. Otherwise, Duggar may already be the better hitter.