New York Mets: Does Angel Pagan Really Have a Poor Approach At the Plate?

During one of the rare free moments I had at work yesterday, I turned on the Mike Francesa Show on WFAN. I don’t mind Francesa as much as most people. I would say my issue with Francesa would be his failure to adapt to the modern tools that are around to help not only himself, but his audience better understand the game of baseball.

During his opening segment, Francesa talked about the New York Mets and their rather poor lineup. He singled out Angel Pagan and talked about his poor approach at the plate.

I watched about seven of the nine Met games this season and I didn’t remember ever thinking to myself, what is Pagan doing up there? To me, someone who has a poor approach at the plate is someone who goes up there and doesn’t take pitches, doesn’t work the count and swings at anything.

I didn’t feel this was the case with Pagan. Then I looked at the numbers and the numbers suggest Pagan’s approach at the plate, if anything, has vastly improved from last season.

Last season, Pagan had a BB percentage of seven percent and a K percentage of 16.8 percent. Going into Monday night’s game against the Colorado Rockies, Pagan has doubled his BB percentage to 14.3 percent and cut his K Percentage in half to 8.6 percent.

If that is not improving your approach at the plate, I am not sure what is.

Yes, Pagan is hitting .171, but a lot of that can be attributed to bad luck. Pagan’s BABIP is a pedestrian .161. For guy who has a .321 BABIP for his career, that is almost guaranteed to improve.

Pagan has just been unlucky at the start of the 2011 season. Every player in baseball will go through a 35 plate appearance stretch like he is going through right now.

So sorry Mike, his approach is fine.

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