Continuing on from last week's post on Anthopoulos and the top two stats he focuses on for a hitter – BB% and SO% (percentage of plate appearances that result in a walk or a strikeout), I've decided to look at the Blue Jays outfield for 2013 and how they've done in this area. Just to refresh everyone's memory, an average MLB player will produce the following: 17.7% for SO%, 8.4% for BB% and 2.10 for SO/BB. I've already covered Jose Bautista who's stats can be seen below as a refresher:

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	SO%	BB%	SO/BB
2008	27	TOT	MLB	21.5%	9.4%	2.28
2009	28	TOR	AL	21.0%	13.9%	1.52
2010	29	TOR	AL	17.0%	14.6%	1.16
2011	30	TOR	AL	17.0%	20.2%	0.84
2012	31	TOR	AL	15.8%	14.8%	1.07
9 Yrs				19.2%	13.5%	1.42

Colby Rasmus

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	PA	SO%	BB%	SO/BB
2009	22	STL	NL	520	18.3%	6.9%	2.64
2010	23	STL	NL	534	27.7%	11.8%	2.35
2011	24	TOT	MLB	526	22.1%	9.5%	2.32
2011	24	STL	NL	386	20.0%	11.7%	1.71
2011	24	TOR	AL	140	27.9%	3.6%	7.80
2012	25	TOR	AL	625	23.8%	7.5%	3.17
4 Yrs				2205	23.0%	8.9%	2.59

In 2012, I was pretty happy to see Colby match his career high in home runs (23) and set a new career high with 75 RBI in a season. Although I have to say it was done with a torrid June and a pretty awful rest of the year as Bluebird Banter nicely addressed here.

Looking at these metrics only, one can see that Colby's been incredibly bad as a Blue Jay compared to a Cardinal. Even before the 2011 trade to Toronto, he was having a better year than in 2010 where he posted a career best .859 OPS although that was with an exceptionally high .354 BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In-Play where league average is .290 to .310). If Colby's BABIP even returns to his 4-year average of .287, he should have his most successful season as a Blue Jay yet. In fact, Bill James is projecting a .237/.312/.427 (BA/OBP/SLG) with a 9.4 BB% and 23.5 SO% in 2013. The batting average is still low, but the rest of it would be an improvement upon his time as a Blue Jay thus far. I'd certainly take that!

Melky Cabrera

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	PA	SO%	BB%	SO/BB
2005	20	NYY	AL	19	10.5%	0.0%
2006	21	NYY	AL	524	11.3%	10.7%	1.05
2007	22	NYY	AL	612	11.1%	7.0%	1.58
2008	23	NYY	AL	453	12.8%	6.4%	2.00
2009	24	NYY	AL	540	10.9%	8.0%	1.37
2010	25	ATL	NL	509	12.6%	8.3%	1.52
2011	26	KCR	AL	706	13.3%	5.0%	2.69
2012	27	SFG	NL	501	12.6%	7.2%	1.75
8 Yrs				3864	12.1%	7.4%	1.64

In looking at what Melky's done, he's been a well-above average MLB hitter his entire career except for the fact that he's a bit under league average in taking a walk. What's interesting is that Melky had his highest BABIP of .379 last year, so we can't expect him to hit .346 again, but a nice .295 as Bill James projects would be great. Besides, if he shows a selective eye, makes contact and gets on-base, I'm sure Anthopoulos and the rest of the Blue Jays would be happy with his performance...especially if he scores 88 runs next year as Bill James also forecasts.