8 MLB Hitters Who Are Racking Up Home Runs Despite a Ton of Ground Balls

Eric Hosmer, Kansas City Royals

Kansas City Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer had himself an interesting year at the plate in 2016. Not only did he record new single-season career highs in homers (25) and RBI (104), but he also did it with an incredibly high ground-ball rate (58.7%) and low fly-ball rate (24.7%).

According to FanGraphs' splits leaderboards -- which date back to the 2002 season -- no hitter with at least 400 plate appearances in a season has posted numbers like that.

It was surely unsustainable, right? It seemed that way through his first 96 plate appearances this year. Once the month of April was through, Hosmer had posted just a 57 wRC+ and .067 ISO to go with a 60.8% ground-ball rate and 17.6% fly-ball rate. While his batted-ball profile in these two categories are still below average since May 1st (52.8% ground-ball rate and 24.6% fly-ball rate), he's been able to turn things around.

The impending free agent has hit 19 of his 20 homers during this time while slashing .337/.400/.550 with a 151 wRC+ and .219 ISO. And after such a horrible first month at the plate, it was his ability to handle inside fastballs better that helped him flip the script.

Although Hosmer's batted-ball profile seemingly puts a cap on his power potential, he's found a way to still be a player that can hit 20-30 homers in a season.