Here's a Thought: What Ken Griffey Jr. and Melky Cabrera Have In Common

When I was looking at this leaderboard of zone percentage (the percentage of pitches in the strike zone to a hitter), two things jumped out. The first was that Pablo Sandoval saw way fewer strikes than anyone. I took a look at the reasons for that in this article. The second thing I noticed was that Ken Griffey Jr. and Melky Cabrera were on the first page of the leaderboard. Griffey ranks 24th and Cabrera 29th out of 167 qualified players. That makes very little sense. See, two types of players don't see many strikes. The first is great hitters who pitchers don't want to pitch to, and the second is free swingers who will chase pitches out of the zone. Pablo Sandoval is the only hitter who fits in both categories in the present day. Below Sandoval, you have some great hitters (Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard, Justin Morneau, Lance Berkman, Joe Mauer, Mark Teixeira, Chipper Jones, etc.) and some free swingers (Chris Davis, Alfonso Soriano, Hank Blalock, etc.). You also find gu...