Ozzie Albies joins rare company with his 2nd 100-RBI season
Atlanta Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies picked up his 100th RBI of the season last night, kicking off a five-run 3rd inning against Washington Nationals rookie Jake Irvin that eventually knocked him out of the game.
And with it, Ozzie made some history.
Albies is now only the sixth switch-hitter to have multiple seasons of 30 homers and 100 RBIs at age 26 or younger, and look at his company on this list:
Mark Teixeira
Chipper Jones
Lance Berkman
Tony Clark
Eddie Murray
Chipper Jones and Eddie Murray are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, while Berkman and Teixeira are considered some of the most impactful sluggers of their generation.
And then there's Albies, all 5-8, 165 pounds of him.
It's remarkable what he does from a power perspective, given his size, and he accomplishes a lot of it through optimizing the contact he makes. He's reduced both his chase rate and his swing & miss this season, and it's allowing him to put up better numbers against right-handed pitching than he ever has. His average exit velocity is actually below average, at only 88.6 mph, but his barrel rate is right at league average (8.6%) and his sweet-spot percentage is in the 71st percentile, at 36.3%.
He's swinging at less bad pitches, and making more high-quality contact against strikes. He's gotten noticeably better against curveballs, with his .316 batting average and .456 slugging both easily being career highs.
And as long as he keeps batting behind Ronald Acuña Jr, who leads all of baseball at getting on base, those RBI opportunities will keep coming.
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