There are several rule changes this season. A key change is to limit infield shifts, which is expected to increase more hits. By far this season, who actually benefits from this rule change? In particular, which batters do collect more hits by hitting balls on the ground?
Firstly, it’s very interesting to take a look at Ronald Acuna Jr.’s performance this season. Acuna Jr. currently slashes .331/.403/.576 with 15 home runs and 45 RBI. His OPS is over .900 now. However, he actually hits more balls on the ground. By far this season, Acuna’s ground-ball rate is 50%. He made it into the big leagues in 2018, from 2018 to 2022, he never finished a season with a hard-hit rate of 50%. Acuna now hits 120 balls on the ground, which is the most among all players. And, 36 of those ground balls became hits.
In the meantime, Luis Arraez has done something special this season. Now, he hits .378/.431/.461 with 1 home run and 30 RBI. He has 91 hits over 64 games, among those 91 hits, 35 are ground-ball hits. By far this season, Arraez’s ground-ball rate is 46.5%. Well, Arraez’s hard-hit rate is just 23.7% thus far, which is the second lowest by far in his career. However, it doesn’t seem to be a serious problem.
Meanwhile, Joey Meneses made it into the big leagues last year. In 2022, he slashed .324/.367/.563 with 13 home runs and 34 RBI in 56 games. He collected 72 hits last season. By far this season, he has 77 hits through 63 games. Among those 77 hits, 35 of them are ground-ball hits. Meneses’ ground-ball rate was 47.7% in 2022 and this season, the number increases slightly to 49.5%. Furthermore, Bryson Stott also made it into the big leagues last season. He played 127 games in 2022, hitting .234/.295/.358 with 10 home runs and 49 RBI. By far this season, he slashes .301/.341/.435 with 7 home runs and 27 RBI over 66 games. Stott now has 81 hits and 34 of them are ground-ball hits. His ground-ball rate is 47.1% thus far.
In addition, Esteury Ruiz made his MLB debut last July. He only played 17 games in 2022 and collected 6 hits. He was traded to the Oakland A’s last December. By far this season, Ruiz hits .255/.312/.327 with 1 home run and 28 RBI across 69 games. Ruiz now has 70 hits and among those 70 hits, 34 are ground-ball hits. Ruiz doesn’t hit the ball hard with a hard-hit rate of just 21.2%. Nonetheless, he could still collect hits.
Finally, Gio Urshela, Brandon Nimmo and Corbin Carroll each have 30+ ground-ball hits so far this season.
In 2022, Amed Rosario had 80 ground-ball hits, leading the majors. Additionally, Brandon Nimmo had 76 ground-ball hits. They each had a ground-ball rate over 50% last season. Ronald Acuna Jr.’s ground-ball rate is 50% thus far and it will surely be interesting to see whether he will collect more than 80 ground-ball hits this season. Furthermore, after playing 64 games, Luis Arraez currently has a batting average of .378. Finishing a season with a batting average of .400 is not easy, but let’s just keep watching his performance. Moreover, it will be worth watching how many ground-ball hits he will have at the end of the season. Arraez had 49 ground-ball hits in each of the last 2 seasons.
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