I did it. I figured it out. It was so brilliant, yet so simple. Thanks to the new Splits feature at FanGraphs (addicting), I've figured out how to fix B.J. Upton. Just tell him to hit more line drives. That's it. You don't need a new hitting coach or some fancy schmancy formula to fix B.J. Just scream "HIT MORE LINERS!" at him Burgess Meredith style*
*there's probably more to it than that
The table below shows the players who had 300+ at bats last season and their wOBA on the liners they hit. Only one player comes within 90 points of Upton. It's an extremely small sample size, but Albert Pujols only posted a wOBA of .829 on liners last season. So, there's that.
Name | wOBA on Liners |
Jason Bartlett | .699 |
Carl Crawford | .707 |
Ben Zobrist | .703 |
Evan Longoria | .785 |
Willy Aybar | .601 |
B.J. Upton | .877 |
Carlos Pena | .787 |
Gabe Gross | .665 |
Pat Burrell | .705 |
Dioner Navarro | .659 |