The Detroit Tiger Weblog: Playing In The Spray – Curtis Granderson

Interesting little comparison of Granderson’s last three seasons using spray charts gathered from Gameday:

The biggest change in Granderson’s batted ball distribution was the exchange of ground balls for fly balls. Granderson’s line drive rate was right in line with his career mark (21.2 % in 2009 and 20.7% overall). But Granderson for his career is a 36% ground ball hitter and a 43% fly ball hitter. In 2009 those numbers were 29% and 49%. This shift helped Granderson’s home run production, but it hurt his batting average on balls in play driving down his overall batting average.

Not all fly balls are created equal. Some fly balls have a chance to become home runs or gappers. Pop-ups have a very small chance of becoming anything other than an easy out. Unfortunately Granderson hit a ton of pop-ups in 2009. Those pop-ups also accounted for a healthy percentage of the balls that Granderson hit to the opposite field.