Contact hitter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ichiro Suzuki is one of baseball's best contact hitters, consistently among the AL's leaders in at bats per strikeout.^[1]

In baseball, the term contact hitter is used to describe a hitter who does not strike out often. Thus, they are usually able to use their bats to make contact with the ball (hence the name contact hitter) and put it in play. As a result of their focus on putting the ball in play, they usually have fewer home runs than power hitters.

An example of a Major League contact hitter is Juan Pierre. Pierre has led the National League in at bats per strikeout in five seasons^[2] and has a career batting average over .300, however he has only 12 career home runs.^[3]

[edit] References

1. ^ Baseball-Reference.com - Ichiro Suzuki. Retrieved October 23, 2006.
2. ^ Baseball-Reference.com - Year-by-Year League Leaders for At Bats per Strikeout. Retrieved October 23, 2006.
3. ^ Baseball-Reference.com - Juan Pierre. Retrieved October 23, 2006.

This baseball-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it..