Eight MLB hitters who racked up home runs despite many ground balls

Starling Marte, Pittsburgh Pirates

Homers: 20

Ground-Ball Rate: 50.7%

Fly-Ball Rate: 32.2%

Following a year that was marred by lack of production and a suspension for performance-enhancing drugs, Starling Marte was kind of back to normal. He was worth 3.7 fWAR, registered his fifth season of 30-plus steals and joined the 20-20 club thanks to a new single-season career high in homers.

While his overall offensive performance against four-seam fastballs didn’t change much between 2017 (107 wRC+) and 2018 (116 wRC+), his power took a huge jump. That’s evidenced by the change in his ISO against four-seamers from one year to the next, which went from .115 to .234. So it shouldn’t be surprising to see more than half of his homers (11, to be exact) come against this offering.