Jarrod Dyson is making more contact than Ichiro
The Kansas City Star
This is all (still) a small sample size situation, but there is something going on with the Royals right now worth keeping a hopeful eye on.
Jarrod Dyson is ridiculously fast and getting on base at a rate around 25 points higher than the league average. He has scored 18 runs in 23 games (22 starts), a pace of 117 over 150 games, and this is a tantalizing possibility if there is something here besides an anomaly.
Toward that end, it may be instructive to see what the completely awesome Fangraphs has to say about the self-titled Mr. Zoombiya.
Spoiler alert: it’s cautiously encouraging…
Basically, the numbers indicate that Dyson is doing EXACTLY what he should be doing with his speed. He’s making pitchers throw strikes, and when he swings, he is making contact at a terribly high rate.
The specifics:
Dyson is swinging at 33 percent of the pitches he sees, down from 41.7 last year.
And he is making contact on 94.2 percent of his swings, up from 80.7 last year.
To give you an idea, that contact percentage is better than noted contact guys like Joe Mauer, Ichiro and Placido Polanco. In fact, if Dyson had enough plate appearances to qualify, he’d be behind only Marco Scutaro across baseball.
Dyson’s history and age (he turns 28 in August) suggest this is all probably unsustainable, but even if he can stay in the neighborhood of this pace the Royals may have found something terrifically useful out of a 50th round draft pick and will have some juggling to do once Lorenzo Cain is off the disabled list.
Anyway, one positive thing to keep an eye on going forward.
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