8 MLB Hitters Who Are Racking Up Home Runs Despite a Ton of Ground Balls
Willson Contreras, Chicago Cubs
Chicago Cubs catcher Willson Contreras never enjoyed a season with more than 11 home runs as he worked his way through the organization's farm system. He did take things up a notch in Triple-A last season before getting called up, though -- it took him just 240 plate appearances to hit nine homers while finishing with the best single-season ISO of his minor-league career (.240). The power continued through his next 283 plate appearances in the bigs, as he slugged another 12 bombs and finished with a .206 ISO.
However, it was easy to be skeptical as to whether he could keep it up in 2017. After all, he failed to post a fly-ball rate above 28.0% at any time between Double-A and the majors. Contreras has gotten his fly-ball rate up to 31.4% this year, but his 52.7% ground-ball rate is still among the league leaders. That hasn't stopped the second-year backstop from hitting 21 bombs so far in 2017, though.
This has been supported by a second-half power binge that Contreras went on before hitting the disabled list -- after whacking 11 homers in 249 plate appearances prior to the All-Star break, he's already collected 10 in his last 90 trips to the plate. There hasn't necessarily been a huge change in his batted-ball profile, but rather the quality of the contact he's making.
The below table shows how his line-drive rate (LD%), ground-ball rate (GB%), fly-ball rate (FB%), soft-hit rate (Soft%), and hard-hit rate (Hard%) have changed between the first and second half.
| 2017 | LD% | GB% | FB% | Soft% | Hard% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Half | 16.5% | 52.8% | 30.7% | 18.9% | 32.8% |
| Second Half | 14.5% | 52.2% | 33.3% | 12.7% | 39.4% |
He doesn't give himself a lot of opportunities to hit home runs, but so far in the second half, the second-year catcher has done a lot of damage at the plate.
