Howdy, I'm StoneRanger, residential Rangers homer and addict. Good to be aboard. So anyways, on to blogging.

Assuming you watched Texas over the past two years, you've probably noticed one thing about our great All-Star 2nd baseman: his swing has changed. It went a route similar to that of Chris Davis, uppercut-y, and it affected his average. His Batting stat (courtesy of Fangraphs) dropped from 29.3 in 2008 to 13.1 in 2009. His average dropped from .319 to .253. And his on-base percentage, a stat that almost no Ranger player excelled in during all of 2009, dropped from .375 to .327.

Let's look at some stats to prove this. His flyball rate unfortunately improved from 43.3% to 54% (a change of 10.7), a 2009 percentage only beaten out by Carlos Pena in all of the majors. At the same time, his line drive percentage dropped from 24.2% to 15.9% (a change of 8.3). Looking at Ian's career, he's a .219/.213/.597 hitter on fly balls, but a .733/.731/.961 for line drives, so let's stick to trying to hit liners.

Of course, the only reason Kinsler changed his swing was for those delicious home runs. He spent weeks trying to get his 30th home run to reach the 30/30 club in 2009. And with 81 of his 83 career home runs coming from fly balls, he's going to stick to that uppercut swing.

So how'd he do against specific pitches? His production against fastballs, a pitch he sees over 57% of the time over his career, dropped from 14.3 runs above average to 1.5! Slider, which he sees almost 19% of the time, fell from 2.4 to -2.1. Against changeups, he's raised from 1.2 to 8.8, and against cutters and curveballs, he faired a little better as well, but he only sees those three types of pitches a little over 20% of the time.

There's another thing that the swing seems to work with, other than most breaking pitches: left-handed pitchers. His wRC+, a stat based on wOBA and OPS+, went from 116 to 159. Against righties, 141 to 93, where anything under 100 is below average.

Hitting at the tiny home ballpark in Arlington helps too. 148 wRC+ at home, 82 away. Last year, 147 at home, 135 away.

So how do you beat Kinsler? Be right handed and throw fastballs and sliders, and hope you're not at the Ballpark in Arlington.

How does Kinsler beat pitchers? Well, he could always just go back to his 2008 swing. Does he even need the power swing? With power hitters like Josh Hamilton, Nelson Cruz, and Chris Davis (and Michael Young and Vlad Guerrero somewhat) surrounding him, is it really necessary? Especially with Kinsler's speed, he might be more annoying to pitchers dancing around on the basepaths waiting to get hit in.

If he wants to keep his power to an extent, he could go uppercut versus LHP, 2008 swing vs. RHP. He could go uppercut at home, 2008 swing away. He could go uppercut vs. breaking pitches, 2008 swing versus fastballs, but that's probably asking too much.

Regardless, Rangers fans would love to see a happy medium. It would mix well with his improved, range filled and double-play-happy defense, as well as his excellent speed. I know I will. But if he sticks to his uppercut, expect moaning on any site involving the Rangers, as well as any social networking site where you know a Rangers fan, like we all did last year.