Saturday, April 18, 2009

Collin DeLome Hitting Profile


I'll admit, it's a tad early in the season to glean ANY information about Mr. Collin DeLome from his hitting profile. He's only got 29 at-bats! That's a tiny, tiny sample size. However, I'm here at the paper, I'm a little bored and I need something to do. So, without further ado, here's a look at Mr. DeLome's hitting profile for 2009.

DeLome is a 23-year old outfielder from Buna, Texas. I have not met Mr. DeLome, nor have I ever spoken to him. However, since I grew up in the Golden Triangle, anyone from that area automatically gets some goodwill from me. Even if he doesn't love crawfish, I still give him credit. The 6-foot-2, 195 pound outfielder starred for Lamar University, starting 116 games his sophomore and junior seasons and played so well the Astros took him in the fifth round of the 2007 draft. You may remember that as the Train Wreck of All Train Wrecks, where our home town nine didn't have a first or second round pick and failed to sign their third and fourth round picks. That left DeLome as the highest player drafted in 2007 who is actually playing in the Houston organization. Luckily, he's got some talent, which is why Baseball America tabbed him as Houston's ninth-best prospect heading into the 2009 season.

DeLome mainly starts in left field for Corpus this season, but has played center field in the past and occassionaly has gotten the start there in 2009. He has shown pretty good range in the outfield since I started tracking that this season, but those numbers definitely need time to refine.

What doesn't need time is my hitting profile. Similar to what I ginned up for Matt Cusick, I looked at his batted balls to see what percentage were line drives, etc. Here is the raw data as of Friday's game.

AB Outs H AVG 1B 2B 3B HR
GB - Left 3 3 0 0.000 0 0 0 0
GB - Ctr. 1 1 0 0.000 0 0 0 0
GB - Right 8 7 1 0.125 1 0 0 0
GB Total 12 11 1 0.083 1 0 0 0

LD - Left 0 0 0 #DIV/0! 0 0 0 0
LD - Ctr. 1 0 1 1.000 1 0 0 0
LD - Right 0 0 0 #DIV/0! 0 0 0 0
LD Total 1 0 1 1.000 1 0 0 0

FB - Left 1 0 1 1.000 0 0 0 1
FB - Ctr. 3 3 0 0.000 0 0 0 0
FB - Right 4 0 4 1.000 1 0 0 3
FB Total 8 3 5 0.625 1 0 0 4

Total Left 4 3 1 0.250 0 0 0 1
Total Ctr. 5 4 1 0.200 1 0 0 0
Total Rgt. 12 7 5 0.417 2 0 0 3
Total ABs 29 14 7 0.241 3 0 0 4

% GB 41.38%
% LD 3.45%
% FB 27.59%

Like I said, there's not much data here to look at. DeLome bats from the left side, which is apparent from his tendencies. Twelve of his 21 batted balls have been to the right side of the field. He's pretty good pulling the ball, putting up a .417 average on balls hit to the right side. All four of his home runs in the first week were on fly balls, which is not surprising, but does show that he's got plenty of power. What I was most impressed with was that he hit four fly balls to right field and all of them were hits (3 HR, 1 1B). The dude can apparently pull the ball with authority.

The other thing that's readily apparent is that his batting average (.241) is suffering primarily due to a lack of line drive hits. It looks like he's still struggling to make good contact with the ball. Once he finds a groove, his batting average and line drive percentage should shoot up.

The other data I looked at so far were his home-road splits. Since the Hooks had only played two road games, it was a pretty lopsided data set. Still, he's got a higher OPS on the road due to two walks in two games. He's already hit a home run in his two road contests, but his past power history definitely suggests he's not a hitter made by a home ballpark.

So what do we know? DeLome is a legitimate power hitter who can hammer pitches to right field. It's too early to tell if he consistently go to the opposite field, but his batting average will definitely start perking up once he squares up on the ball. If Brian Bogusevic or any of the other Round Rock outfielders get called up, expect to see DeLome in Triple A right behind them.

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