In a game dominated by power hitters, can extreme contact hitters still thrive?

Is it possible to succeed without power? Can a player be a good hitter in today’s game without hitting home runs?

There are many ways to answer these questions. I decided to look at seasons since 2000 where players have had more than 150 hits yet tallied no more than 5 home runs. These are the guys that rarely leave the yard but played consistently throughout the year.

Juan Pierre was the king of such seasons in recent decades. Between 2001 and 2011, he achieved the feat 9 times. Elvis Andrus and Luis Castillo both have 5 seasons with 150+ hits and 5 or fewer home runs, and, somewhat surprisingly, Jason Kendall has 4. I think it is important to mention here that it is rare to hit less than 6 home runs while collecting 150 hits. It has happened 77 times since 2000, meaning less than 4 times per year. Even a guy like Ichiro Suzuki hits too many home runs to be included in this group.

If we look at the other commonalities between these seasons, a few things are readily noticeable. There is a lot of bold in the singles column. Home runs are obviously low, but extra-base hits are also fairly low for a lot of these players. Second, many of these players are known for running pretty quickly. This combined with the trend of hitting a lot of singles leads to very good stolen base numbers for the group. There are only 9 seasons below 10 stolen bases and there are 8 seasons above 60 stolen bases. Additionally, many of these guys played for quite a few seasons in Major League Baseball.

So, can you be a good hitter with no power?

If we look at the group we have created, the answer does not look very promising. For example, if we look at OPS+, 20 seasons have been above average (above 100) and 57 seasons have been below average (below 100). The seasons that are above average all have batting averages above .287 with most above .300. Being the power numbers are not there, these players really need to get on-base a lot. This is why we see so many of these seasons fall below the league average OPS.

Hitting above .287 is a very difficult task. The lack of home runs this group displays suggests their approach places greater emphasis on contact. This is usually beneficial in terms of limiting strikeouts. Thus, these players only need to have a similar batting average on balls in play to maintain a high batting average. Unfortunately, as strikeouts decline, we often see BABIP and exit velocity numbers decline as well.

Dee Strange-Gordon has the highest OPS+ of any of these seasons at 116. He did so by hitting .333 in a down offensive year. He finished just outside the top 50 in OPS that year. It is incredibly difficult to be one of the best 50 hitters in baseball while hitting 5 or fewer home runs. This is why we see so many teams today trying to squeeze the power potential out of each player.

Having no power offensively makes it necessary for a player to excel in other parts of the game, usually baserunning and defense. It also often requires players to master some of the finer details in the game. Juan Pierre led the league in sacrifice bunts 4 times, he beat out double-play balls, and he hit .295 for his career.

Recent Additions to Club

A few guys had seasons meeting our standards in 2021.

The first and most successful player was Adam Frazier. Frazier had an amazing start to the year with the Pirates. In 428 plate appearances, he hit .324 which allowed him to have an .836 OPS for a 127 OPS+. He also hit 4 of his 5 home runs in this stretch with the Pirates. Frazier was very successful with the Pirates, and it made him a big trade target for other teams. He was eventually traded to the Padres where his hitting cooled down. In his last 57 games, his batting average was only .267 and his OPS+ was 86. Frazier’s season did not end how he would have wanted it to, but the season as a whole was a success. His batting average ended above .300 at .305 and his OPS+ was a solid 114. Frazier made a living off of hitting singles and doubles and it worked.

The next player to have at least 150 hits and 5 or fewer home runs is Myles Straw. Straw did not have the profile or offensive performance of Adam Frazier. Straw got his first full year of playing time in 2021. He played 98 games for the Astros with an 85 OPS+. His offensive production was below average, but his speed in the outfield and on the bases made him a consistent starter for the Astros. Straw was also traded after 98 games in a deal that did not receive as much attention as the Adam Frazier deal. Straw’s hitting rebounded a bit and his OPS+ was slightly above average with the Guardians

The final player to meet the conditions of this club in 2021 was David Fletcher. Fletcher has become known around the league for his excellent defense. His defense provides some of the value that his offense has not been able to. Last year was Fletcher’s worst offensive season. He hit .262, barely walked, and had only 2 home runs.

Even with their varying levels of offensive production, all 3 of these players are valued by their teams.

Frazier and Straw have both played in most of their team’s games in 2022 and Fletcher played 14 games but has been sidelined by a hip injury for much of the season. This question of how effective a player can be without hitting for power is key to the longevity of their MLB careers. Frazier and Straw both currently have an OPS+ in the 80s.

The Decline of Extreme Contact Hitters

Earlier I mentioned there were 77 seasons meeting our criteria between 2000 and 2022. If we look at the 20-year period prior (1979-1999), there are 180 such seasons. Not only are there more of these seasons, there are also players that managed some amazing seasons in terms of OPS. Wade Boggs did it 3 times with an OPS+ above 140, including a league-leading 0.965 OPS in 1988. Tony Gwynn also did it 5 times as part of a hall of fame career. Rod Carew and Pete Rose each did it 3 times as well. These players are considered some of the best hitters of their generation even though they did not hit home runs.

Juan Pierre has been successful in the past 2 decades, but his offensive production is nowhere near the likes of Boggs, Gwynn, Carew, and Rose. Even within our group of seasons, the best seasons between 1979 and 1999 are far better across the board than the seasons between 2000 and 2021. Players like Gwynn and Boggs put up batting averages that have only been matched a few times in recent years. Boggs also managed to walk once in every seven plate appearances.

Some players in the 80s and 90s were able to be an essential part of their team’s offense without hitting more than 5 home runs in a season, and they could do so for many years. That feat is much less common in today’s game. Dee Gordon’s 116 OPS+ would rank 25th in OPS+ if he were placed in with the 80s and 90s seasons. Even Ichiro Suzuki, who often hit just a few too many home runs to be included in this group, does not have OPS+ numbers comparable to Tony Gwynn. Gwynn has 9 seasons better than Ichiro’s best season.

If anything, this reflects a shift throughout the league that has made it difficult for these extreme contact hitters. Gwynn did not need great slugging numbers to have a great season, because the rest of the league did not have great slugging numbers. Today, hitters do not get as many hits but they average more bases on their hits. It is getting more difficult to hit enough singles to keep up with the sluggers.

Could We See a Game Where Players Never Hit 5 or Fewer Home Runs?

This certainly feels like the direction baseball is headed in. The value of home runs is too great to be overlooked according to many of today’s performance measurements (slugging, OPS, wOBA, etc.). Well-rounded players are also learning to hit home runs in batches. Defensive specialists are becoming more rare because there are guys that can hit really well and play good defense. Just look at the star shortstops in Major League Baseball today. They might allow 5 more runs on defense, but they will score 20 more runs of offense.

As grim as the situation may appear, there is still a chance for the “No Pop Club”. For one, some defensive-minded players have been able to stick around for many years. This list includes guys like David Fletcher, Andrelton Simmons, plenty of members of the Rays outfield, etc. Teams obviously still value these types of players to some degree.

The Philadelphia Phillies Experiment

Baseball seems to be moving more and more toward assigning greater value to players that provide a lot of offense without much defense. It feels like guys that can hit home runs but play very little defense are getting more opportunities. This seems like a very bad trend for guys like David Fletcher. The silver lining is the fact that teams that have gone all-in on offense have not been as successful as we might expect.

One example is the New York Yankees. That Yankees have always been able to hit over the past decade, but their pitching and defense have often let them down. During the offseason, they traded for Josh Donaldson and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa now find themselves as anchors of a defense that has posted 25 defensive runs saved so far this year. This is coming off a season where the Yankees had an awful -41 defensive runs saved. Additionally, the Yankee’s pitching numbers look a lot better this year. The Yankees were willing to give up some offense by trading Sanchez and placing Kiner-Falefa at shortstop and it seems to be working.

Meanwhile, the Giants have done the opposite. They played good defense last year and had a very successful season. This year, they have not been able to meet expectations and their defense has been quite bad as well. Obviously, the Giants play in a very good division where repeating last year’s success would have been extremely difficult, but that also means that every run they give up through below-average defense has a greater impact on their standing. They literally have little room for errors.

The Giants, however, did not go all-in on mashers like the Philadelphia Phillies did. The Phillies had the worst defense in baseball last year. Unlike the Yankees, the Phillies got addicted to the long ball. They needed more of it. So they went and got Nick Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber. Part of their struggles are related to these signings not having much success so far this year. If Castellanos and Schwarber were hitting better, they would definitely have a few more wins. The defense is not helping these struggles though. According to defensive runs saved, the Phillies have given up 30 runs more than the average team. Castellanos has not made any errors, yet he is at -11 defensive runs saved. The Phillies are over halfway to their league-worst total from last year and we are not even a third of the way through the season.

The first inning of this game against the Mets shows a lot of the defensive challenges the Phillies have had this year. The error on the first play hurts, but Castellanos’ inability to keep the Mets runners at third on the shallow fly balls is just as detrimental. Teams know the Phillies have poor defense and they are challenging it every chance they get. Most of the time, it is resulting in more runs.

Perhaps the Phillies’ extreme defensive struggles and the success of teams that have better defenses will be a warning for other teams to not go all-in on offense. This might be one of the few lifelines left for players that do not hit home runs. This might be one of the few lifelines left for defensive specialists. Ozzie Smith, perhaps the greatest fielder in MLB history, only hit more than 3 home runs in one season of his career. Like Andrelton Simmons and David Fletcher, Ozzie was never particularly amazing with the bat, but it is difficult to imagine baseball without his presence. Also, we would have missed out on one of the most memorable home runs in baseball history:

He may not have hit many in his career, but he certainly picked a good time to hit that one.

The No Pop Club is becoming smaller with each passing decade. The possibility of succeeding without hitting home runs is more narrow each year. Can you be a good hitter in today’s game without hitting home runs? You can, but you need to have a batting average above .300, sometimes it needs to be well above .300. You need to find a way to get on base at a high clip. The window of opportunity is quite small, but it still exists. It has not left. Not yet.

Read More: Home runs have become the currency of choice over the past century in baseball. However, it was triples that once held that spot in the early days of baseball. Sam Crawford mastered the art of hitting triples and set a record that will not be touched anytime soon.

The Texas Rangers are struggling this year in plate appearances that reach 3-0.

Hitters dream of 3-0 counts. Being 1 ball away from a walk and having 3 strikes to work with gives the hitter a lot of options. By the end of last season, every Major League team had walked in over half of the plate appearances that reached 3-0. The average slugging percentage in at-bats that reached a 3-0 count was 0.088 points higher than the average for all at-bats.

So far this year, the Texas Rangers are struggling in these advantageous plate appearances. With a BB% of 48.7%, they are one of 4 teams not getting walked in half of these plate appearances. The bigger issue, however, is plate appearances when they do not get walked.

In 39 plate appearances that reached 3-0, the Rangers have been forced to put the ball in play. They have failed to do so in 11 of these plate appearances. This gives them the top strikeout percentage for such plate appearances. Of the 28 balls put in play, only 5 have been hits. They have 4 singles and a home run.

The statistics look really bad for the Rangers, but they are not nearly as bad as they seem.

With only 76 plate appearances that have reached a 3-0 count so far this year, much of the Ranger’s issue has to do with the oddities of small sample sizes. They have had some bad luck in these at-bats. In fact, they have had at least a couple balls that fielders made rare plays on. That right there would raise their batting average to .179. The difference between them and a team that is doing well in this category could be 2 or 3 hits. You will not find this number in the batting average though. The batting average provides one number to summarize the team’s success but it leaves out the context of the at-bats. It will not tell you if a spectacular catch was made or if the batter got on via a swinging bunt.

The fact that luck plays such an essential role in a team’s season can be very difficult for players and fans to acknowledge. Over the course of 162 games, most things work themselves out. Teams get lucky sometimes and unlucky other times until the net gain of their luck is neutralized.

The playoffs, however, are a prime opportunity for luck to determine a team’s season. A well-hit ball that would go for a hit 90% of the time might be hit right at an infielder. An outfielder might make a diving play on a ball in the gap. These plays often determine who wins and who loses.

Embracing the Role of Luck In Baseball

Luck will always be an essential part of baseball. It will lead teams to stunning comeback wins and difficult losses. Luck will make teams champions and send others home unhappy. Every person that has watched or played baseball has wished luck could be removed from the game at one time or another. This often happens when your team is on the wrong side of a bad hop or a broken-bat single. By definition, luck is unpredictable. There is no way of knowing exactly when or how it will impact a baseball game, yet there are important ways we can prepare for it and embrace it as fans and players.

The Role of Expected Stats

Expected stats have become an important measuring stick for many teams to figure out how good players are. Instead of looking at results for hitters (i.e. singles, home runs, batting average, etc.), expected statistics use data from Statcast about the quality of contact they are making. They allow us to account for some of the luck that affects a hitter’s season.

Expected stats are not all-encompassing, but they do give us a better idea of how productive a batter’s at-bat is. For example, we can look at this 3-0 hard-hit ball by Marcus Semien:

Marcus Semien lines out sharply to center fielder Chas McCormick. | 05/22/2022 | MLB.com

The expected batting average for this ball is .770. This means balls hit with that exit velocity and launch angle fall for hits 77% of the time. Semien did his job and hit the ball hard, it just happened to be right at the centerfielder.

Expected stats can be really helpful when a player is struggling. Well-hit balls not falling for hits is often an important part of a player’s hitting struggles. Jesse Winker is a great example this year. He is currently hitting .213, but the expected statistics say he is closer to a .282 hitter. Additionally, he only has 2 home runs so far this season. A big drop-off from last year. Statcast’s expected home run measure which looks at wall heights, distances, and environmental effects, along with batted ball data, shows that Winker would have about 4 home runs if he played his home games in Cincinnati (he would have 8 if he played all his games at Great American Ball Park). Below is a spray chart of his batted balls in home games:

While Winker’s hitting this year is not on par with last year, he is still making a lot of solid contact. They simply are not falling for hits at the moment. We would expect Winker to move toward his expected stats as the season progresses.

Patience With Top Prospects

To fully acknowledge the role of luck and variance in performance, we must be patient with players. Patience is especially important when looking at top prospects. The first week will not show whether the player will have a good career or not. Even the first few months may not be enough time to accurately gauge where the player is compared to other MLB players. There is often an adjustment period when players first face MLB pitching, but there can also be a lot of variance in results. Julio Rodriguez is a prime example of someone who took a few weeks to start hitting well. It is still far too early to know what his true potential might be, but it certainly looks better than it did a few weeks ago.

Looking at “Lucky” Players

Just as there are players that are performing below their expected numbers for the season, there are also players performing above their expected numbers. We might deem them “lucky” players because they are performing better than their contact quality suggests they should be, but it is important to remember that luck balances itself out in larger sample sizes. This is part of the reason players can hit .380 in 15 games and not get another at-bat for the rest of the year. This can also lead some players to have one or two months that are way better than the rest of their season.

Combining Luck and Expected Stats

With expected stats, we could totally disregard traditional statistics. We could say that a player’s slugging does not matter and simply look at his expected slugging, but I think the right approach requires both.

Expected stats can be used to show a player is making better contact than his traditional numbers would suggest, but we should also celebrate players succeeding in spite of their expected stats. If a player is hitting .350, he deserves praise regardless of what his expected stats say. His at-bats are helping his team win games. Plus, while expected stats are very good measures, a few players have been able to consistently outperform them. An example is Tim Anderson, who seems to outperform his expected batting average each year. It could be pure luck or maybe he has found a way to create his own luck.

On the other side of the discussion, we can use expected stats as a reminder that good players have horrible weeks and/or months sometimes.

Being a Major League Baseball player is incredibly difficult. Why should we use stats to tear these players down when we have the ability to show what their peak performance looks like?

Texas Rangers data via fangraphs.com and their custom leaderboards.

Jesse Winker batted ball data via baseballsavant.mlb.com

Read More: Triples often require a bit of luck. Players have to hit the ball as far away from the outfielders as possible. Everyone in Major League Baseball can hit the occasional triple, but to be good at hitting triples, you need a lot of solid contact and speed. Read to learn about the career triples record and why it will not be broken any time soon.