Justin Ruggiano played six years within the Tampa Rays organization, receiving 207 plate appearances in the Majors. In 2012 he signed a minor league contract with the Houston Astros. He played for their Triple-A affiliate before being traded to the Miami Marlins for minor league catcher Jobduan Morales. The Marlins instantly put Ruggiano on the Major League club and he proceeded to rake, putting up a slash line of .313/.374/.535 with 13 home runs and 14 steals in only 320 plate appearances. Small sample size aside, some fantasy experts considered him to be a fantasy sleeper with 20/20 potential, asserting his season was bonafide  or legit; either adjective works. However, in the preseason I never bought into the fantasy hype because the underlying stats pointed to a big regression. Players with a 26.3 strikeout percentage and .401 BABIP in most cases are bound to regress and so far this season he’s done just that, hitting .215/.271/.392 in 86 plate appearances. Granted, he does have 3 home runs and 3 stolen bases and he has reduced his strikeout rate to 22.1 percent. However, this year his walk rate has decreased from 9.1 percent in 2012 to only 7 percent.

Is there hope he can rebound from his slow start? The underlying statistics indicate he’s getting unlucky. His contact rates are essentially the same, but his BABIP is only .246, so that should improve. It’s still possible he could be a .300 hitter and provide the 20/20 value some predicted. However, from watching him it’s pretty obvious he’s looking to pull the ball on every swing, leaving him vulnerable to pitches on the outer half of the plate, especially to quality breaking stuff (sliders and curveballs). The image below shows the pitch frequency and slugging percentage of pitches with horizontal movement to the outer half of the plate (sliders, curveballs and cutters) in 2012.

Now checkout how he’s faring against the same pitches this year. Pitchers have adjusted and started throwing more pitches with horizontal break out of the zone, his weak spot.

He’s currently hitting .036 on pitches on the outer half of the plate, which means he’ll have to adjust and start hitting more balls to right field. The early indicators suggest he’s attempting to do that. Last year 14.3 percent of hits were to the right field, this year its 18 percent. If he continues to get consistent at-bats he’ll walk into a 15/15 season because the sheer number of at-bats, but at what batting average? Odds are if you drafted him you highly a .280+ batting average is expected, but I’m in the other camp; if I owned him I would be ecstatic if he hit .260, but I would expect a .230-240 batting average.