Philadelphia Phillies slugger Rhys Hoskins has been known for his power throughout his MLB career so far.
However, he is also known for his patience, which borders on passivity at the plate.
He sees a lot of pitches when he goes to the plate: most of them are out of the zone when he decides not to swing, but a surprisingly high number of offerings that he decides to take are actually in the zone and are called balls.
We will call it luck for now.
“Rhys Hoskins led MLB this season by taking 87 in-zone pitches that were not called strikes,” Codify Baseball tweeted, with a video of three pitches.
Rhys Hoskins led MLB this season by taking 87 in-zone pitches that were not called strikes. pic.twitter.com/hUBCPOjpLV
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) October 21, 2022
Some of those are actually near the middle, which is baffling considering these are professional umpires.
Few people have stopped to really consider the impact that the count has on an at-bat.
The Count Is Awfully Important In An At-Bat
A blown call can change the outcome of an entire turn.
Batting on a 3-1 count is definitely not the same as doing it on a 2-2 count: the approach changes, both from the hitter and from the pitcher.
Hoskins has had some excellent luck on that front this year, and leveraged it to a strong .246/.332/.462 line with 30 home runs and a 122 wRC+.
The wRC+ is an offensive metric that evaluates hitting performance adjusted to have 100 as the league average value.
Hoskins’ 122 mark means he was 22 percent better than his peers.
That’s not bad at all.
He got some help on the way there, but he is a solid hitter in a good lineup, so we will go ahead and give him some credit.
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