5 Hitters Who Have Been Successful Despite Their Free-Swinging Ways
Marcell Ozuna, OF, Miami Marlins
Entering this season, Miami Marlins outfielder Marcell Ozuna had produced a career swing rate of 47.5%. So far in 2017, though, that number has increased to 51.3%. While he's among the league leaders in this statistical category, his 8.7% walk rate is also on pace to be a single-season career high. How could that be possible? Well, he's one of those hitters that is being more aggressive in the right situation.
The below table shows us how his chase rate (O-Swing%), swings inside the strike zone (Z-Swing%), and the corresponding contact rates have changed from 2013-16 to what he's done so far this year.
| Year | O-Swing% | Z-Swing% | O-Contact% | Z-Contact% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-16 | 33.1% | 66.5% | 55.5% | 85.8% |
| 2017 | 34.3% | 75.1% | 57.7% | 83.1% |
Clearly, his aggressiveness inside the strike zone has increased dramatically, but it hasn't led to more consistent contact. That's not an ideal situation, but it'll still work out if the quality of the contact he is making gets better.
And that's exactly what happened.
Ozuna's 43.0% hard-hit rate is currently on pace to be a single-season career high, as is his 21.4% line-drive rate. It also helps that he's having more success with that increased amount of liners -- his 358 wRC+ on this batted-ball event is much better than it was last year (298), which shouldn't be shocking to see since his hard-hit rate on line drives (63.6%) is nearly 11 percentage points higher than what it was in 2016 (52.9%).
