.

At BJOL, they have a little thermometer stat, "hottest hitters in baseball."  Right now Mike Trout leads, at 100 degrees ... Kendrys is 5th in baseball, at 95 degrees.  I think two days ago he was leading baseball by 14 degrees over the #2 player.

This stat, by the way, would actually be the basis for something useful during in-game tactical decisions ... pitchers use "hot zone" charts but do those hot zones reflect a batter's abilities this week?  

Also a fan, sitting in the bleachers, might be interested to know that as Kendrys Morales steps to the plate, the thermal readings are 95 degrees, and when Nick Franklin does, his thermal reading is 37 degrees that night.  Wouldn't that actually be a weightier than strike zone charts?

Lou Piniella, even 10 years ago, used to fire back at sabermetricians who scoffed at his matchup decisions, based on matchup charts that captured full seasons.  "Numbers are important," Lou would say, "but they don't tell you how a guy is swinging the bat."

Dr. D's sermonizing is never intended to imply that sabermetrics are feeb.  His point is usually the same one:  Those algebraic formulas do not capture nearly as much of the situation as non-players imagine that they do.  We need respect for the complexity of the problem.  

Spec is talking chess in the other thread ... Russian grandmasters, who are hyper-scientific, have climbed over the peak of logic and math and discovered that human intuition is the most powerful force in decisionmaking.  "What do you have that Deep Blue doesn't?," a reporter asked Anatoli Karpov.  "I have intuition," said the little scientist.

Anyway...

...........

Kendrys Morales, the last month (since July 8), is hitting .379 / .412 / .632.  That includes 6 homers and 6 doubles in 1/7 of a season.  Granted, his BABIP is sky-high, but also he is hitting the ball much harder.  Let's split that out, actually, into another thread...

Here is his 2013 season, compared to his glamor 2009 season, the one right before he jumped on home plate and shattered his leg.  2013 is pro-rated* to the same 152 games that he played in 2009:

You can get a better feel for Morales' rhythm at the plate -- that is, his timing and aggressiveness -- by comparing BB and K ratios per 152 games.  The 46 walks and 117 strikeouts that Kendrys had in 2009 is a perfect level for him:

... strikeouts considerably down from last year, while walks are up, even a shade better than 2009.  For a player like Morales or Ichiro or Joe Mauer, those ratios are fairly significant.  If Ichiro's BB's and K's had been off in 2007, it would have mattered, right?

Along with this, you have the fact that Morales is surging at the plate -- his stats are way up in the 2H, of course, but also he is giving a scout's impression of --- > momentum increase, year-long.

Is he surging back towards his 2009 level?  He was #5 in the MVP voting that year ... let's take a look at the key factor, his BATTED BALL DISTANCE.

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