For his entire MLB career, first baseman Adam LaRoche has been known to have slow offensive starts each season.  For fantasy owners, this means a late round pick, or perhaps not being drafted at all during the first few months of the season. However, after the All-Star game, LaRoche consitently turns it up a few notches, and ends up with strong numbers. Minus a short stint in Boston, he has bounced around the National League throughout the past six seasons. This season (2010), LaRoche has found a home with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and unlike previous seasons, he's off to a solid start - wOBA (Weighted On-Base Average) is nearly .100 points higher from May 2009 to May 2010. And I'm going to tell you why - part of it is better plate discipline, and part of it is luck. If you are unfamiliar with Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA), most believe the statistic presents a more accurate representation of offensive performance than Standard Batting Average (AVG). For more information, please refer to Tom Tango's explanation. That said, let's take a look at April and May numbers over the past four seasons.


LaRoche's April numbers have gotten progressively better since the 2009 season, and dramatically better than the 2007 and 2008 seasons.  The difference for LaRoche this season, as opposed to 2009, is that he's been able to carry his early April success into the month of May.  While we are dealing with a small sample size, the difference in wOBA is worth noting, given his early struggles and his ability to finish the season strong.  The power numbers have been there for LaRoche early in the season (7HR in '10 & '09) but the batting average hasn't quite kept up.  Let's take a look at Adam's BABIP (batting average on balls in play) during the first two months of the season.


Adam's career BABIP is .314, and it appears that LaRoche fell on "unlucky" times prior to the 2010 season.  Now, he's certainly isn't setting the world on fire with his stats, but with a solid .394 wOBA and an OPS of .913, it's worth noting that maybe there's more to LaRoche's hot start than just his batting average on balls in play.  Next, let's take a look at LaRoche's plate discipline over the past few seasons.

Year	OSZ%	ISZ%	TS%	PPA
2007	23.4%	68.4%	45.0%	3.95
2008	22.6%	65.8%	44.2%	3.88
2009	22.6%	67.5%	43.1%	3.98
2010	18.4%	65.6%	38.9%	4.04

The interesting number that jumps out from the above data is Adam's swing percentage on pitches outside of the strike zone during the 2010 season.  His 18.4% during the first two months of the season is certainly below his previous season totals and below his career percentage of 22.4.  The Outside Strike Zone percentage (OSZ%) certainly benefits LaRoche across the board.  The 18.4 OSZ% number correlates with a 12.5 BB% ratio for LaRoche this season, which is currently a career-high for him (he was at 11% in '09 and is at 9.6% over his career).  His Inside the Strike Zone percentage (ISZ%) is lower this season, which could be a factor for his 26.2% strikeout percentage this season.  The bottom line is this:  by laying off pitches out of the zone, he is not only increasing the number of pitches he sees, but benefiting from it by getting into favorable hitter's counts; it's just up to him to swing the bat when he gets a pitch in the strike zone.  As I mentioned above, LaRoche is known for his torrid second halfs, so it's scary to think what August and September might bring if he's actually putting it all together this early.

(Statistics as of Tuesday, May 25th - data collected from FanGraphs and Baseball-Reference)