Bill Hall Fan Club update

Ryan Braun decided to own once again in the bottom of the eighth on Friday night against a FSWisconsin-doctored 100 mph Aaron Heilman fastball on a 1-0 count by serving it into the UW-Milwaukee sign in right center and give the Brew a 3-2 lead that they wouldn’t give up.

The next day, the Cubs bullpen powerhouse cranked out 6 walks in 1 2/3 IP as the Brewers took another win in a game that lasted over four hours. It was such a good game for awhile until the Cubs bullpen started going haywire and dragging the final two innings much longer than they needed to be. Yesterday’s game didn’t really matter because taking two from the Cubs right after a 3-1 road trip is happy days for me. On Saturday night, watching this made me grin as well. All in all a really good stretch by the Crew and heading into next week with a half-game lead on the Cubs means the Brewers are sitting pretty.

However, this post is about something else… something I wanted to check in on. Bill Hall’s season. I wrote about back in February making the point that he’s really going to have a bounceback season this year due to his statistics regressing upward to the norm and his LASIK eye surgery seemingly adding to his ability to see the ball, which had been a major problem in the past.

This year Bill Halls’ hit .279/.347/.465 with 3 home runs in 86 AB. For a third baseman, that’s not too bad, and with positive defensive numbers at third base so far, that places him significantly above projections this year and actually a really valuable player. How much of this solid play is a regression in BABIP numbers and how much is due to that being a better ballplayer who can see the ball with relative ease now?

An average BABIP in the majors is usually around .300, maybe a little more. Hall’s this year is .350, and in 2008 his was below average at .287. He couldn’t hit the ball well, but he certainly wasn’t very lucky and had his BABIP been slightly higher we wouldn’t be as concerned about this year’s performance. But this year, he’s hitting well, and his BABIP implies he’s been pretty lucky so far, so we should expect his stats to go down somewhere in between 2008’s numbers and his numbers so far.

But personally I think his stats will be skewed a little more towards the side of .250 he’s on now. He’s become a marginally better hitter with better other statistics to imply that he might be a for-real acceptable third base option in case Mat Gamel doesn’t pan out there. In between his year and last, he’s done a much better job of taking pitches and being disciplined at the plate, as evidence by the moderate increase in some of his pitch selection stats so far:

Bill Hall 2008: O-Swing%: 26.8. Swing%: 46.3. F-Strike%: 62.3.
Bill Hall 2009: O-Swing%: 23.1. Swing%: 44.7. F-Strike%: 69.5.

Hall’s swinging at less pitches outside of the zone and less pitches in general, despite the F-Strike% going way up. Considering that he’s able to take more pitches and is putting up the stats consistent with last year’s implies he’s going to get a few more chances to hit with the count in his favor instead of having to work with the count. That means he’ll get more pitches to see on 1-0, 2-0, and 2-1 and those counts have been proven both statistically and by most color announcers to be the ones where hitters salivate over. I think he’ll keep his progress up.

If he does, that just puts the Brewers just that much closer to that coveted wild card spot. Or even division if the Cubs keep getting hurt.