During my injury induced hiatus, Washington Nationals’ super-shortstop Christian Guzman did the impossible: Christian Guzman took a walk, actually two walks!
In back-to-back games against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Guzman took a base on balls in each game. Unfortunately, his On-Base Percentage (.382) no longer matches his batting average (.373)
Walk? No!
As I lamented in the pre-season, Guzman blows my mind with his turn-around since missing the entire 2006 season with a shoulder injury. A .260 hitter prior to the injury, Guzman has posted two straight seasons of a .300 batting average, and is well on his way to his third consecutive .300+ season. The ZiPS projection system has Guzman hitting .315 for the rest of the 2009 season, which would give him a year-end batting average of .332!
Christian Guzman’s currently sporting a .422 batting average on balls in play, and is only hitting 12% of pitches for line-drives; so we’d expect his batting average to come down. Although I’d also expect his Line-Drive Rate to increase as his Hamstring heals. Historically Guzman’s always sported a high BABIP, and .350-to-.360 on balls in play isn’t out of the question.
Guzman’s plate discipline statistics do not suggest a change in approach, but rather a return to health. Since his 2006 surgery, Guzman’s seeing less pitches inside of the zone and he’s swinging at more pitches outside of the zone. This is not a recipe for success, but if he continues to make solid contact when he hits the ball, there’s probably no reason to worry.
Guzman’s simply refusing to hit fly-balls, and insisting on using his plus-speed to leg out groundballs and line-drives. Guzman may no longer steal 28 bases like he did in his Minnesota years, but he’ll use that speed to get on base. When the Nationals are healthy, Guzman will score plenty of runs. Assuming Guzman hikes his BB% rate up towards his career-norm of 5 or 6 percent rather than his current 1.5%, his OPS will continue to astound and float around the .800 mark.
If you’re in a league that counts hits, Guzman’s definitely your man. I still cannot fully get behind Guzman’s ridiculous approach, but going into the season he was available for dirt cheap and he’s probably still out there in a good chunk of standard leagues.
