Justin Upton Is Riding Another Hot Streak

May 9, 2013; San Francisco, CA, USA; Atlanta Braves left fielder

(8, right) at bat in front of San Francisco Giants catcher

(28, left) during the fifth inning at AT

With the offense clicking like no other time this year, many people have (rightfully) pointed to Jason Heyward, as well as the new lineup that Fredi Gonzalez has been putting out. While I don’t want to take anything away from the great season Jason Heyward has had this year, I would like to talk a bit about how good Justin Upton has been.

Ever since his abysmal May and June months, we haven’t really talked a lot about the biggest addition to the team this year.

However, in August, Justin is putting up numbers that are looking even better than his spectacular month of April to start the year. With seven games played so far this month, Justin is putting up a massive .467/.529/1.033 slash line with five home runs already. Jason Heyward and Justin Upton in the 1-2 spots of the lineup have definitely been a big part of the 37 runs the team has scored in their seven August games.

In 26 games of his “best player in baseball” April, Justin put up a .298/.402/.734 line with 12 home runs. If he keeps up this pace throughout the entire month of August (not likely), he’s going to easily outperform that level of production.

When I look into the numbers a bit more, we can find out exactly why Justin is having this kind of success again… and it’s shockingly similar to some of the things Jason Heyward has gone through. As always with me, let’s take a look at his batted ball data month by month:

Right away, we can spot something. In Justin’s best months (March/April and August), he has also put up a groundball/flyball ratio that is below one. So, we can tentatively say that if Justin is hitting more fly balls, he is generally doing better at the plate. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t do well with a GB/FB ratio that is above 1.00, and Justin’s month of July is a perfect example.

He put up a 1.12 GB/FB ratio but also managed a good .292/.330/.427 line with a 110 wRC+.  This seems to be due mostly to his high line drive percentage during the month (27.6%, far and away the highest he has put up this season). However, since he still hit a low amount of fly balls (just 34.2%) he wasn’t able to get into the power groove that we are seeing now. He only managed to hit one home run in 103 plate appearances in July compared to the five he has already hit in just 34 August plate appearances.

I mentioned Jason Heyward above because earlier in his career, a high ground ball percentage was holding him back somewhat. It seems like this has also been a problem for Justin Upton in periods of his 2013 season this year.

Fortunately for Braves fans, his month of August is going exactly how we want it to go. He’s making great contact and putting the ball in the air more than half of the time–which makes the most of the crazy power that he brings to the table. Ground balls are generally the worst kind of ball you can hit (they are converted into outs at a higher rate than both line drives and fly balls) so as long as he is keeping that number around 30-35% we should expect more MVP-like numbers out of one of the most talented hitters on the team.

One of the most unique things about Justin Upton is his “streakyness”. Before he came to Atlanta, it was understood by most that he was a fairly streaky hitter. This season definitely backs that claim up. Just going by his wRC+ numbers month by month we can get a good idea of just how streaky:

• March/April – 206
• May – 86
• June – 78
• July – 110
• August – 329

He’s been all over the place this season but most commonly either “streaking” or “doing nothing”. For the answer to this, we can look at Justin’s home run to flyball ratio. As Harris points out, most average players sit around a 10% HR/FB rate and when the number deviates largely from there it is generally coined to luck. However, Justin Upton seems to be an exception to this rule (among other players) due to his incredible power numbers. Here are his HR/FB numbers again so you can see how varied they are month by month.

• March/April- 38.7%
• May- 9.1%
• June- 4.5%
• July- 3.8%
• August- 41.7%

Just to compare to Justin to a more steady player, I will give you Freddie Freeman‘s monthly wRC+ and HR/FB numbers for this season.

*I chose Freddie because he is considered one of the most consistent hitters on the team along with Brian McCann. Because of McCann’s injury this year the decision to go with Freddie was made pretty easy for me.

wRC+

• March/April- 140
• May- 140
• June- 138
• July- 153
• August- 120

HR/FB

• March/April- 6.7%
• May- 14.3%
• June- 15.4%
• July- 14.8%
• August- 0.0%

The difference in the two is striking. I’m not going to get into the argument about which one is better in this post, but hopefully I have made it more clear just how streaky Justin Upton can be. He may baffle people at times, but when he is going well, he has the ability to carry an entire offense like he did at the beginning of the season.

Fortunately for all of us Braves fans, Justin Upton has it going right now.