Stud or Shelton: Adam Kennedy

Remember Chris Shelton's nine home runs in the first 13 games for the Detroit Tigers in 2006? Stud or Shelton examines whether currently hot players are displaying a similar mirage or will continue to play at a high level.

It was straight from a movie script or the backyard of millions of wiffle ballers nationwide. Okay, maybe I'm being a bit melodramatic, but Adam Kennedy's ninth inning home run Sunday off of Texas' Frank Francisco (his first earned run given up all season) was, at the least, memorable.

Adam Kennedy had blasted a home run off of Kevin Millwood in the first inning. His ninth inning tater slammed the door on the surging Rangers and gave Oakland a 5-to-4 win, not to mention was Kennedy's fourth of the season. But, why all the hubbub?

To see why we're all talking about Adam Kennedy take a look at his stat line through 82 at-bats. He's batting .390/.462/.622 with four home runs, seven doubles, 15 RBI and five stolen bases. And he's only owned in 14% of Yahoo! leagues. With numbers like that it's a no-brainer that you should run out and grab this hot hitting second baseman with outfielder eligibility off of the waiver wire.

Let's look at some more numbers before you do that.

Kennedy hasn't hit this many home runs in a season since 2006 when he four and hasn't surpassed four dingers since 2004. 33-year-old middle infielders typically don't bust out with the power sticks this late in their career. Two reasons this may be happening now is his increased home run to fly ball ratio and and new look approach at the plate.

Kennedy's HR/F ratio has skyrocketed to 19.0%. His best ever HR/F ratio was in 2003 with 8.3% and in the last three years he's only managed to get as high as 3.3% in 2006. More (many, many more) of Kennedy's fly balls are leaving the ball park. This also could be because Kennedy seems to be thinking more like a controlled, free swinger (not necessarily an oxymoron) at the plate. While his walk rate is almost doubled from last season, Kennedy is also striking out more too. This leads me to believe that he's seeing the ball well right now and he's trying harder to hit with a bit of power.

Looking at his line drive rate you'll see a huge increase from last season as well. The increase from 24.8% to 31.4% is surely helping his batting average a lot. But, what's mostly assisting his batting average is an extremely high hit rate.

Kennedy has a career hit rate of 31.5%, which is pretty close to average among all major league hitters. This season his hit rate is 42.4%. That figure is just way too high to maintain. When it falls, Kennedy's batting average will come down with it.

So, is Adam Kennedy a stud or a Shelton? That depends on what your expectations are. If you pick up Kennedy right now expecting him to maintain his current pace, you'll be sadly disappointed. He'd surely be a Shelton in that regard.

But, if you signed him thinking he'd probably finish the season batting around .280 to .290 and approaching double digit home runs and stolen bases, you should feel good enjoying his extreme torrid pace until he cools and then use him as a situational position player. Because you know if he's hitting .390 now, to finish the season at .280 to .290, he's going to have to go through some down periods. Just don't get caught without a way to bench Kennedy for those time periods.