The New Found Scott Podsednik Power

This year, Scotty Pods has 3 HRs is only 53 games, which is an impressive feat for him. The last time he hit 3 HRs was in 2006 over the span of 153 games. And over the course of five seasons playing in home run friendly parks such as The Cell and Coors, he hasn't shown this kind of power. This year he has a SLG of .406 and an OPS of .770. Now this obviously doesn't sound that impressive but when you take into account Pods has never has a SLG over .400 and an OPS over .740 since 2004, I think this new found power is worth noting. Besides the obvious answer of steroids and PEDs, I think he should find out where this power has come from.

The first thing I looked at was LD%, to see if he's just smoking more balls (yes I realise how funny this sounds) this year. And as it turns out, this year is the lowest LD% of his career. Yet, he's hitting about the same amount of ground balls but more fly balls. And it is probably the spike in fly ball percentage that is causing his high HR/FB. So this seems to tell me his home runs are mainly luck. Considering he's only hit 3 HR and not in the double digits, means on three individual pitches, Scotty Pods just happened to hit it far.

But yet he's never done that before. So then I looked and his plate discipline and I was surprised at what I found. Scott Podsednik is making a lot of contact with the ball. Obviously this explains his .311 BA, but the rate at which he's making contact is very surprising. The rate at which he makes contact at pitches within the strike zone in up 12.7% from his average, the rate at which he makes contact with pitches out of the strike zone is up 2.8%. This makes his contact rates this year 86.8% and 96.2% respectively. Pods is also swinging at more pitches within the strike zone which is boding well for him.

So what do I think is the final verdict? Well, personally, I think it's just luck. He's making more contact with the ball which is helping his chances of the ball going out of the infield and also leaving the yard, but the fact Pods has 3 HR this year is just luck. The more times you hit the ball means the chances that you can hit a home run goes up. His really low LD% and his higher than average contact rates scares me as a White Sox fan, but hey, I'm happy with everything he's given me this year. Now if only he wouldn't get picked off so fucking much and not get caught stealing every other fucking time.... but that's for another post