FanPost

Updated stats on Murton after yesterday's DH

Not to start a flame war or anything, but I was poking around the Cubs website looking at stats, and it seems yesterday's performance by Murton moved him a little further up the ladder of Cubs hitters.

Here are his stats and some basic splits. Rank among Cubs batters is shown when it was easy to figure out - the double situational ones (home vs. RHP, etc. are hard to figure out):

Entire season: 294/358/409
Among Cubs batters with 50 or more ABs, that's #2, #3, and #8. Take out D. Lee and he's #2, #2, and #7.


vs. RHP: 288/343/394
greater than 25 ABs = #6, #5, #10
Remove Walker and D. Lee and he's #5, #3, #8

vs. LHP: 307/392/443
greater than 25 ABs = #4, #3, #6
Remove D. Lee and he's #4, #2, #6

at home: 328/394/484
> 50 ABs, #2, #3, #5
remove D. Lee #2, #2, #4

away: 266/330/348
> 50 ABs, #6, #5, #8
remove Walker #5, #4, #7

When you dig further for the double situationals:

home vs. LHP: 295/380/477
home vs. RHP: 345/402/488
away vs. LHP: 318/404/409
away vs. RHP: 246/298/325

It appears clear that he is least comfortable hitting RHP on the road. My conjecture is that likely he has both a good eye, especially vs. LHP (I think that's pretty well agreed on - of all Cubs batters he seems to go deepest into the count) and pretty good bat control. I expect that his line away vs. RHP will equalize itself against the rest of his stats as he becomes more familiar with the various ballparks. I also expect that his power numbers will probably go up with time as well, as he's only 24.

If we end up with a 320/400/450 hitter in LF, I'll be pretty happy - that will put him in the upper half of starting LFs. (Right now using the ESPN site among LFs > 250 PAs he is #20 of 32 - clearly some OFs who usually play elsewhere are also included, as there are only 30 teams.) If his power numbers improve, which I expect will happen, I wouldn't be surprise to see him move into the top 10 of hitting LFs.

He's also clearly one of the best Cubs hitters at getting on base; he should be batting much higher in the lineup; #2 or possibly even leadoff.

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