3 lousy walks on the season for Pence. He's just hacking away and getting in front of everything. Every once in a while, he makes clean contact and pulls a ball deep. Most of the rest of the time, he's topping balls for weak groundouts.
If he learned to stay back, let the ball get deep in the zone, and then let his hands do the work, maybe he'd hit the ball hard to center and right, but he is cheating on every pitch trying to pull it. He is a terrible hitter with a lot of ability, which allows him to have decent statistics.
Is there anyone in the league with a more ridiculous combination of power and lack of plate discipline? He is on pace to have about 24 homers and 12 walks. 2:1 ratio.
I was talking about Francouer's entire career. Hopefully Pence turns out better if he stays in Houston but like arif said, he's got plenty of natural ability but lacks refinement and seems to be regressing. He appeared to be taking the next step early last season but that all looks to be coming undone. It's not just the numbers. He just looks bad in his entire plate approach. Whether Cooper screwed him up by encouraging him to be overly aggressive or his partial first season and early portion of 2009 were just flukes, something needs to change if he plans to live up to his potential. Like I mentioned before, I read an article during Pence's hot start to last season that pointed to him being lucky. He was getting into 0-2 counts at a rate way above the league average but managing to be extremely productive in his other plate appearances. I can't recall the exact details. Either way, he came crashing down to earth after those first couple of months, lending to that theory.
I agree he was probably lucky. I have a feeling he won't change. The absolute best we can hope for is that he's the white Reggie Sanders.
Yep, career OPS of .830 for Sanders and .814 for Pence. After Hunter's first year, I was hoping he was the next Bags or Berkman, but it's clear we have to revise down our forecast for him.
