Kyle Schwarber is Mr. June - At Least For Now...
He's the most efficient home run hitter in the month in history (maybe), but others are close behind.
After the Phillies 4-1 win over the Boston Red Sox Tuesday night, MLB.com published an article claiming that DH Kyle Schwarber, who hit two dingers in the game for the Phils, had surpassed Babe Ruth as the most efficient home run hitter in the month of June in AL/NL history. Schwarber now averages one home run in every 10.5 at-bats in his career in the month, besting Babe’s prior record of one homer in every 10.6 AB’s.1 While technically true, the story seemed to neglect to mention a convenient, yet fairly significant “minimum at-bats” qualification. It appears as though this is among batters with a minimum of at least 500 at-bats (or a comparable stat).
Because this is such a weird and random stat, I naturally had to check it out. As I looked into it, I discovered a guy by the name of Shohei Ohtani (ever heard of him?) is actually the leader when stripping away the minimum 500 at-bats qualification for a more relaxed yet still reasonable minimum of 300 AB’s.
This is a much different list than the minimum of 500-or-so at-bats MLB was considering, isn’t it? Most notably, four current players (Ohtani, Alvarez, Judge, and Gallo) are added to the top ten. I bring this up as an important reminder to always consider the context and qualifications in stats like this. Nevertheless, Schwarber mashes in June, but he is no slouch outside of June either. He also sits at 8th on the list of most efficient home run hitters, regardless of month, over their careers in baseball history.
I am not trying to take anything away from Kyle Schwarber at all, nor try and downplay his dominance in the month of June, as home runs are only one datapoint here.
Mr. June
June is Schwarber’s best month by far. The table below shows Schwarber’s stats in June compared to all other months combined, with highlighting to indicate stats statistically significantly greater in June than in the other months.2
These splits are impressive, but surprisingly they aren’t even close to being the most drastic when comparing players in June versus other months. For example, the table below shows the players with the greatest difference between AB/HR rate (that stat we’ve discussed most here) between the month of June and the other months across their careers.
Apparently, June is kind to a lot of hitters.
Schwarber this June
While only 9-games in, he’s off to a fairly slow June by his standards.3
If the past is any indication though, this is likely to change. Also, Schwarber has batted-ball data on his side. His season-long xwOBA (Expected Weighted On-Base Average) of .356 is 11-points higher than his actual wOBA of .345. He also sports an Expected Batting Average of .244 versus his .241 on the season, a xSLG (Expected Slugging Percentage) of .506 against season-long .416, and a Hard-Hit Rate (55.3%) which ranks in the top 5% of MLB.4 If numbers and trends pan out, the red-hot Phillies should get excited for at least the next few weeks of Kyle Schwarber.
As of games played through 6/12