Mark Ellis emphatically finished an extra-innings game yesterday with a walk-off grand slam that lifted Oakland to a 7-3 win over the Angels. How powerful is he this year?

Ellis was two-for-six in the game overall, and that brought his season line to .234 with a .322 OBP and .388 slugging percentage, along with six home runs and 22 RBI. Ellis hasn’t been projected to do much better than 15 HR this season, despite his hitting 19 last year, so that should be kept in mind when looking at the following numbers, which I think suggest he may end up with a homer total closer to last year than his normal career line.

Ellis is hitting into a .240 BABIP, which is down from his career .296 number. We can’t simply assume that .240 will swing upward, as Ellis hasn’t exactly proven himself to be a consistent superstar hitter, but his other batting statistics don’t indicate a decline in skills. His walk rate is the highest it has ever been, at 11.4%, and his strikeout rate is the lowest, at 11.5%, which gives him a contact rate of 89% over his 209 at-bats. Meanwhile, Ellis’ LD% is at its lowest at 15.1%, under his career line of 19.6% (Update: I originally wrote this as 25.0%, which is actually his postseason LD% (see below)). Taken together, this would indicate that he could be expected to start striking out more, while getting more hits on the balls he does make contact with, giving him a moderate increase in batting average (closer to his career .256) while continuing his pace hitting for power.

Speaking of which, his power numbers don’t show any ill effects but from luck, as his ten doubles so far are on track with last year’s 33, and as his .153 ISO is in line with last year’s .165. Along with the line drive decrease this year, Ellis is hitting more fly balls than ever before, at a 52.7% rate (his career rate is 43.8%). This could be a matter of a different approach at the plate, but the sorry result is that 26.5% of those fly balls have stayed in the infield this year (compared to a 14.3% career rate), and only 6.1% have gone over the wall (compared to a 7.1% career HR/FB rate).

Considering his somewhat poor luck so far, and the signs that he’s taking more of a hit-for-power approach to the plate, along with no apparent loss of power, Ellis seems to be set to match his home run total from last year, provided he stays healthy. He already missed almost two weeks in May with a hamstring injury, but that he’s been able to match last year’s injury-free pace this year is a promising sign that he could be worth a pickup for a little extra power.