Over at Beyond the Box Score, I published some research regarding the most productive hitters in terms of wOBA per swing this year. The basic idea was to tease out which hitters did the most damage when they actually swung the bat. The analysis only included qualified hitters through August 13th.
Two Mets popped up in the top 25--Jose Reyes (.216, second overall) and Daniel Murphy (.179, sixteenth overall). Carlos Beltran was also lurking in the top 30. It got me thinking about what the rankings would look like if grouped hitters by their team (or most recent team, given the movement at the trade deadline).
When we do this, the Mets come out on top.
This doesn't mean the Mets as a team are simply swinging less than in 2010. It's true, as a team they have cut down their swing percentage from 46% last year to 44.6% this year.
However, the correlation between swing percentage and production per swing is decent, but not great (-.30, with an r-squared of only .09). The correlation is even worse for walk percentage (.14).
Patience is key, but it's more about recognizing pitches that you can handle well and then executing on those pitches. The Mets, at least their qualified hitters, are seemingly doing that better than anyone else this year.
Now if only the pitching staff could magically be fixed...