61.101 MUNYIGA MAKES CASE FOR 2062

[RonCo]

Off Topic

A Study in Swings
Or, WHY IS TONY MUNYIGA SO BAD

September 24, 2061: HAWAII It's September, and Tony Munyiga is back with the Bikini Krill. We're not sure that's a particularly great thing, but the fact is that he' hitting hitting .304 since his return (7-23), with a double a walk and a stolen base. If those numbers were real, one assumes he might be back on the Bikini roster for 2062though one is not sure. The team has been Munyiga-bit for some time now. We're not sure Charlie Brown should approach the football again.

Will Munyiga Be
On The Atoll
Come 2062?

At question today, though, is why this is the case.

The answer is obvious, but we're going to have some fun with slightly more advanced metrics than the game gives you, specifically, pitch data that Munyiga has seen. This season, including these past 23 AB, Munyiga has seen 468 pitches. Here are the results...

Pitches	Ball	Called	Swinging	Foul	BIP
468	157	85	39	72	115

So, of those 468 pitches, he's swung and missed 39 times, fouled off 72 of them, and put the ball into play 115 times. This means he's put the ball in play 50.9% of the time he's swung. Relative to his teammates, this is pretty good. He's fourth behind Farid bin Mubarak's 55.1%, Marty Barnett's 53.4%, and Manuel Martinez's 52.9%. In addition, it's better than he did last season, and in 2060 Tony Munyiga posted a semi-respectable .257/.288/.403 slash line. It's also better than he did in 2059 when he posted a more than respectable .282/.297/.458 slash (and 1.2 WAR).

Here's are his basic pitch percentages over the years:

Tony Munyiga	Ball%	Called%	Swinging%	Foul%	BIP%	BIP/Swing
2059	34.0%	16.8%	7.9%	17.0%	24.2%	49.3%
2060	33.2%	16.5%	9.7%	16.3%	24.2%	48.1%
2061	33.5%	18.2%	8.3%	15.4%	24.6%	50.9%

So, he's getting a few more called strikes, which I'm sure doesn't help, but he's still getting more BIP/pitch than ever, and his numbers this year (.229/.261/.328, despite the past 23 AB) are about as bad as you'd want to see.

So, what gives?

Well... BABIP, of course. Tony Munyiga's BABIP over this span looks like this:

	BIP/Swing	BABIP
2059	49.3%	.305
2060	48.1%	.282
2061	50.9%	.248

And for a free-swinging player like Munyiga, who has a little bit of pop, but cannot play defense much at all and struggles mightily to take a walk, BABIP is the defining metric for his career. At .305 (which is a little above league average), he's a productive hitter. At .282, he's going to struggle to be replacement, and at .248 he's going to need to go back to school to get his GED if he wants to sell insurance someplace.

So, will he find a place on the Bikini roster next year?

Hmm.

He's due his first year of arbitration, which is likely to run upward of $1M. In a constricting market, I'd have to question that.

On the other hand, this is a "what have you done for me lately" world, and Tony Munyiga is seven for his last twenty-three.

[BaseClogger]

He's not a BBA player without 7 contact.

[Trebro]

Bo Jordan would tell you to non-tender him. He's a barely acceptable 5th OF, and you can get almost anyone to do that for 500K. And many can field much better with similar batting stats.