RADIO
David Peralta Is A Common Contributor
7 years agoDavid Peralta had a better 2017 than 2016 and it started with his health. He was able to stay on the field for 577 plate appearances. Peralta’s last successful season was in 2015 and he did his best impersonation of those stats during 2017. He had a .293 average and had a .796 on-base plus slugging. Of note is that he had a 16.3 strikeout percentage, the best of his career. The main concern Peralta had was where he hit the ball. He hit the ball relatively hard (31.8%), but 55.1% were ground-balls, ranking him the seventh highest ground ball percentage in the league. With the installation of the humidor, the average exit velocity will decrease making it more difficult for Peralta to manufacture base hits. Also compared to league average, Peralta is two percent below in line-drives hit and nine percent below in fly-balls. If Peralta does not adjust his swing to get more loft on the ball, he cannot hope to achieve greater statistical improvements. Additionally, Peralta is not a good base-stealer as he was caught 50% of the time in 2017. Peralta is a consideration in the last few rounds of the draft.
