Jay Bruce has now spent about a full season in the Major Leagues as he has accumulated 649 plate appearances coming into Tuesdays game. I really have only focused on three aspects of his offensive game, of which I feel are the key to all players success in the Major Leagues.
I looked month by month at the walk rate (BB/PA), strike out rate (K/PA) and isolated power (measures XBH by subtracting AVG from SLG). Each one stat has its own importance, but lets take a look at what the charts look like.
Lets start by looking at his walk rate first. He started off with good patience over his first week or so in 2008 but saw it slide down over the next month. Since then it has slowly been going in the right direction. His K rate has steadily been going down since he got into the Major Leagues a year ago. Finally, we can see that his power has really gone up, to elite levels in a short period of time.
So, despite having lackluster slash stats this year (AVG/OBP/SLG) this year (note: his .221 BABIP this year is 3rd worst in baseball; league average is .300, he has nowhere to go but up), Jay has been making strong progress in what he does at the plate since day 1. He is walking more, striking out less and hitting for more and more power every day.
