With power becoming harder to find, lots of teams are shifting towards a contact-oriented offense. They seek players who can hit for average and put the ball in play to force the defense's hand, move runners over, all sorts of stuff. Few players manage to be above-average at both hitting for power and putting the ball in play, but Miguel Cabrera, Adrian Beltre, Robinson Cano, and Albert Pujols are among those who pull it off.

The league average strikeout rate in 2012 was 19.8% (of all plate appearances). Marco Scutaro had the lowest strikeout rate among qualified hitters this year (7.2%) while Jose Reyes was second (7.8%). Adam Dunn, on the other hand, had the highest strikeout rate at 34.2%. Only four other players (Pedro Alvarez, Drew Stubbs, Carlos Pena, Chris Davis) were over 30%. Strikeouts are not the only way to identify hitters who can put the ball in play though, especially in the age of PitchFX. Contact rate, which is available at FanGraphs and uses PitchFX data, is the percentage of contact made with individual swings. The league average contact rate was 79.6% this past season, with Scutaro (95.2%) and Josh Hamilton (64.6%) representing the two extremes. No other player was above 92.6% or below 66.9%.

Here are the remaining unsigned free agents who posted better than average strikeout and contact rates in 2012 (min. 200 PA). The lists, as you'll notice, are not identical.

Strikeout Rate

1. Carlos Lee – 8.0%
2. Casey Kotchman – 9.8%
3. Juan Rivera – 10.3%
4. Yuniesky Betancourt – 11.0%
5. Johnny Damon – 12.1%
6. Ryan Theriot – 12.2%
7. Adam Kennedy – 16.4%
8. Jose Lopez – 16.5%
9. Travis Hafner – 17.5%
10. Orlando Hudson – 18.0%
11. Yorvit Torrealba – 18.3%
12. Delmon Young – 18.4%
13. Scott Rolen – 18.8%
14. Rod Barajas – 19.1%

Contact Rate

1. Lee – 89.5%
2. Theriot – 89.3%
3. Damon – 89.2%
4. Kotchman – 87.7%
5. Betancourt – 85.3%
6. Rivera – 84.8%
7. Hudson – 84.6%
8. Kennedy – 84.4%
9. Rolen – 84.0%
10. Lopez – 83.7%
11. Bobby Abreu – 82.9%
12. Jeff Baker – 80.2%
13. Hafner – 79.7%

Damon and Rolen could retire before the end of the offseason, which would further remove from the crop of available contact hitters.

Generally speaking, teams prefer pitchers who get ground balls. Ground balls can sneak through the infield for base hits, but they never go over the fence for a homer and need to be well-placed (down the line, typically) to go for extra bases at all. Great pitchers like David Price, Felix Hernandez, and Clayton Kershaw get both strikeouts and grounders, but few can do both.

The MLB average ground ball rate was 45.1% in 2012, the highest it's been since reliable batted ball data started being recorded in 2002. Trevor Cahill led all qualified pitchers with a 61.2% ground ball rate this past year, and he was the only pitcher over 60%. Phil Hughes had the lowest ground ball rate at 32.4%, making him one of only two pitchers below 35% (Bruce Chen, 32.7%). Here's the short list of unsigned free agent pitchers who posted a better than league average ground ball rate last season (min. 80 IP)…

1. Derek Lowe – 59.2%
2. Aaron Cook – 58.6%
3. Carlos Zambrano – 49.1%

Kevin Millwood (44.7%) fell just short of a league average ground ball rate while both Erik Bedard (43.3%) and Joe Saunders (43.1%) were a little further behind. Kyle Lohse, the best starting pitcher left on the market, generated a ground ball 40.5% of the time this past season. Shaun Marcum is a big time fly ball pitcher, with a 35.4% grounder rate in 2012 and a sub-41% rate in four of his five full big league seasons.

It's worth noting that Carl Pavano, who didn't pitch much in 2012 due to a shoulder problem, had a 50.6% ground ball rate in 2011. Brett Myers, who is looking for a job as a starter, posted a 47.7% ground ball the last time he was a full-time rotation guy.