Rhys Hoskins, Philadelphia Phillies
While Bryce Harper gets all the glory in the headlines during his honeymoon period with Phillies fans (as well as raking at the plate), Rhys Hoskins is busy crushing the ball — although he hasn’t reaped the benefits.
He actually sported a 100% hard-hit rate as recently as Monday night, but it’s just “plummeted” to 71.4% at the time of writing. What’s interesting is that his 126 wRC+ says good things are happening, but it’s accompanied with a very weird .188/.409/.438 triple slash through 22 plate appearances.
Early-season statistics are just the best, aren’t they?
A hitter always known to take his walks, Hoskins’ overall offensive value is being boosted by the fact that his walk rate (22.7%) is outpacing his strikeout rate (18.2%). He’s been a fly-ball-heavy slugger throughout his short MLB career, and that hasn’t changed thus far in 2019 — his fly-ball rate is 66.7%, which is among the highest in baseball. However, it’s been accompanied by a 50.0% infield-fly rate, helping explain why Hoskins has collected just one homer so far.
Once things even out more, he’ll reap the full benefit of having Andrew McCutchen, Jean Segura, and Harper hitting before him in what’s looking like an insanely deep Philly batting order.
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