evaluation

Last week we took a look at some young pitchers that took those ever-important steps forward into becoming Major League assets, and this week we are going to look at some hitting prospects that have done the same. On the offensive side, when a prospect takes a step forward, it can be due to any number of reasons. Maybe they finally learned to judge the strike zone and take a walk. Perhaps they gained enough strength and quickness to suddenly be able to handle both the inside fastball and the changeup away at the same time.…

These past few seasons (roughly around midway through 2015, actually), we have seen a pretty meteoric rise in the number of home runs hit. You probably know this from the countless articles written about the topic. That, or you know it because Scooter Gennett hit four homers in one game this past season. Either way, from 2007 to 2015, the number of home runs hit in a season averaged between 4,186 (2014) to 5,042 (2009) for a true average of 4,748. In 2016, the total number jumped to 5,610, an increase of roughly 18% from the…