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#1 · January 10, 2022, 7:20 pm
With so much time on my hands because of the lack of baseball news, decided to do some research to see if I could isolate the top tier of players by looking at data from various sources. First looked at hitters, using wRC+, barrel percentage, hard hit contact rate, home run per fly ball and finally exit velocity and launch angle.
Runs per Plate Appearance (where 100 is average) and the data league and park adjusted is what wRC+ is and is probably the best indicator of offensive prowess. For this set of data, I looked at all position players who played a representative number of games with a wRC+ of over 150 in two of the last three years, i.e., 2019-2021, or projected for 2022. Here is what I found:
Name 2019 2020 2021 Projected 2022 Barrel % per batted ball (at least 18% in 2 of last 3 years)
Acuna, R. 125 158. 157. 151 Name 2019. 2020. 2021. Projected 2022
Cruz, N. 164. 164. 122. 123 Dalbec, B. xx. 22. 20. 21
Guerrero, V 105 110 166. 162 Gallo, J. 26 14 19 19
Harper, B. 124 150. 170 143 Judge, A. 20. 23. 18 17
Rendon, A. 155. 153. 95. 127 Sano, M. 21 23. 18. 19
Soto, J. 143 201. 163. 170 Stanton, G. 25 18. 16. 18
Tatis, F. 151. 150. 156. 150 Tatis, F. 13 19 21 19
Trout, M. 177. 161. 190. 155 Trout, M. 19 14 18 17
These must be viewed in conjunction with the next set of data in the following post along with my comments.
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MrPadre19
#2 · January 10, 2022, 7:42 pm
Continuing from the above:
Hard Hit Contact rate where 100 is average, and rate of at least 130 in two of last three years
Name 2019 2020. 2021. Projected 2022 Home Run per Fly Ball (at least 30% 2 of last 3 years)
Betts, M. 124 149 137 138 Name 2019 2020 2021. Projected 2022
Freeman, F. 128 146 129 131 Cruz, N. 31 41 21. 22
Guerrero, V. 98 130 140 129 Judge, A. 35. 32. 28. 30
Machado, M. 118 131. 137 131 Reyes, F. 31 18 31 28
Perez, S. xx. 131. 130 131 Sano, M. 37 34 24 28
Rendon, A. 130 146 98 120 Tatis, F. 32 29. 32 31
Seager, C. 117 174 136 138 Yelich, C. 33. 32. 13. 22
Soto, J. 108 139 130 125 One more set of data follows.
Tatis, F. 97. 162 134 131
Turner, J. 142 163 135 144
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MrPadre19
#3 · January 10, 2022, 8:02 pm
Looks like my data was cut off and re-shuffled so I'll just make my comments here instead of giving you the exit velocity/launch angle data. You will notice that Tatis, Jr. is the only one on all 4 of these data charts. You can look at this in two ways, since he still hasn't played a full season because of injury. I like to look at the potential if he hadn't been hurt - certainly he is one of the elite hitters in the game.
Another thought is that there are very few elite LH hitters - Soto is probably the best we will see in a long while.
Lastly, the Dodgers had 3 hitters who made hard contact at amazingly high rates over the past 3 years. With Seager gone, from the left side, I'd expect a decline in offensive output in 2022.
By the way, if you are curious about Tatis' exit velocity/launch angle, it has improved every year and now is in the 90-+ percentile for exit velocity with a launch angle between 14.1 - 17.6 degrees, which is the second highest category. If he maintains both and with the other data supporting it, he should be lock for 50+ HRs annually provided he can be healthy - fingers crossed.
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