All right try to follow me here and let me know if I am wrong on any step.
1. Many of us here believe that Billy Butler is not hitting for enough power.
2. He hits too many balls on the ground therefor leading to too many double plays
3. Billy is not fast.
IMO, why doesn't Billy try to hit more fly balls. I know that Seitzer is working on him having a more level swing, but wouldn't this be counter productive with Billy. Wouldn't it be better for him to put a little loft on the ball?
Now here where my love of numbers take over. In 2010, here are Billy's batted ball numbers:
GB: 47.7%
LD:18.3%
FB: 34.0%
League averages:
LD = 18.2%
GB = 44.3%
FB = 37.5%
For being a "4 hole guy', he doesn't hit like it. I decided to plot all the 2010 qualified batter's LD%, GB% and FB% against BABIP(wOBA) (basically a player's BABIP score weighted for each event - the quality of balls in play) and here is a graph of it (Billy's BABIP(wOBA) = 0.386) :
The crossing at 40% for the GB% and LD% is key. I would like to see Billy's results with mix of LD at 20% and FB and GB both at 40%. For example Jose Bautista went from a GB% = 46.3% and FB% = 38.8% in 2008 to a GB% = 31.1% and FB% =54.5 in 2010 which saw his SLG go from 0.405 to 0.617. I know this is an extreme example, but it would just nice to see a few more balls in the air. Especially, if I don't have to see Billy try to run out another double play.