mlb strikeout leaders batters 2021
Kang is very much a bat-first player who has adjusted his approach during his time in the KBO. Its the Roy Campanella/Monte Irvin argument. When you grow up and join the real world, these lessons will be helpful. This past winter, Rodon decided to forego the final year of his deal with the San Francisco Giants. In other words, he was better than average when it came to three of four possible outcomes groundballs, line drives, and balls not in play but he performed so dreadfully on fly balls that it dragged his numbers down to the basement. GAME 1: Northwestern 10, With Jos Abreu at first base and Michael Brantley as the DH, there isnt room for Gurriel in Houstons starting lineup. He was starting to put things together in 2019 with 58 strikeouts in 48.1 innings when he went down with injury, and hell look to pick that up in 2021. His performance on grounders was down relative to his career numbers but was still comfortably above average. Abreu is 39th in post-1947 1B in fWAR between ages 27-35 behind guys like Youkilis and Adrian Gonzalez. Join our linker program. In the National League it was 62 times, set in 1968, by Jerry Koosman of the New York Mets. I assume the next taek will be Why does anyone think he would have been better than Aaron Judge from 21-24, when he was way worse from 27-30???????. In 2011, only 6% managed the feat. His performance on liners was actually his best in years. The righthander might have had the best abbreviated season of anyone in 2020, as he put up a 0.32 ERA and .128 opponent batting average with 47 strikeouts and only three walks in 28 innings. Im deeply sorry that he cracked 50% as a known fucking cheater, because his statistical case is so unambiguous from both a traditional and SABR perspective. Right now, there are a grand total of six qualified hitters who also have a higher walk than strikeout rate: I wondered how rare a feat this is, even given the increase in the three true outcomes. Data Provided By Using a similar methodology to my TTO article a few weeks back, I plotted the percent of qualified hitters in each season with BB% greater than their K% (white bars above). Batting Average Allowed Justin Verlander. 169 72 66 16 46 247. Total Zone Rating and initial framework for Wins above Replacement calculations provided by Sean Smith. The first is Jung-hoo Lee, a 24-year-old outfielder for the Kiwoom Heroes. WebTriples When a batter reaches on a hit and stops at third base or only advances farther than third base on an error or a fielder's attempt to put out another baserunner. This is conjecture without the facts to back it up. PHI. Or because juicing Matsuis NPB stats to match the delta that Abreu saw moving from the CNS would still leave his 19-28 numbers drastically worse than Abreus? 1. Outside of those three, many players in key spots will be unfamiliar to many North American fans. Astros GM Dana Brown has professed a tad bit of interest in re-signing Gurriel, although that supposed interest may have been a gesture of respect rather than a genuine expression of desire. These are his career numbers compared to the AL average since he entered the league: Gurriel has never been a major home run threat, but hes always had just enough pop that his other skills were sufficient to compensate. By either standard, Abreus FG page doesnt give him credit for a five-year run where he averaged the equivalent of ~1.000 OPS, solely because he was born in the wrong placenot to mention the year he missed for the same reason. That would conceivably increase his counting stats to probably 400-450+ HR, 1500+ RBI, 2500+ hits, etc. 0.9 percent. All images are property the copyright holder and are displayed here for informational purposes only. The big takeaway is that finishing the season with a higher walk rate is incredibly rare in the current environment. He is hurt disproportionately by having his MVP season in 2020, he was playing at a 7.8 fWAR pace, but only gets credit for 2.9. Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports. Play-by-play data prior to 2002 was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted The current criteria dont value that though. That includes plenty of people who were older than 32 in 2006 and others that are still younger than 38. Coming off a .319 batting average, Fletcher doesnt seem so bold, but ATC is only projecting a .283 mark this year, and they are Major League and Minor League Baseball data provided by Major League Baseball. Kumar Rocker, RHP, Vanderbilt. Maybe stop whining and start defending your asinine positions? Your login session has expired. Accordingly, he walked more than twice as often as he did in the first five years of his career. He posted a career-high contact rate and a career-low swinging strike rate. The lowest percentage the league has ever seen was in 2010, when only Joe Mauer, Jeff Keppinger, Daric Barton, and Albert Pujols pulled it off (3% of all qualified hitters). If it could be shown that a player really was likely one of the very best, based on how they played in the US compared to players only looking at the same ages, I think that should be a factor in HOF close calls. Combining that with his good raw power (hes in the top 25 in average exit velocity and hard hit rate) allows him to maximize his power output. Now 36 years old, Park is still hitting the ball hard as he led the KBO in hard hit rate last year at 41%, while also finishing second in average exit velocity (just under 90 MPH) and sixth in average launch angle (just over 18 degrees). As most of Pirate Nation is aware, the baseball program has been greatly affected by ALS as former head coach and ECU Hall of Fame member Keith LeClair was diagnosed with the Prielipp never got his chance to prove himself against SEC competition, but if his debut is any indication, hell be able to hold his own. We got just a short glimpse of Leiter as a freshman last season, but there was plenty to like, including 12 strikeouts in five hitless innings against South Alabama in his first start of the season. Leo is a writer for FanGraphs and an editor for Just Baseball. Subscribe to Stathead Baseball: Get your first month FREEYour All-Access Ticket to the Baseball Reference Database. Im not sure either Gurriel or Abreu have the career numbers to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, but lets make sure were considering all the times they played this grand game. Past that, if youre a person who DOES want to just play the conversion game straight up and then treat his pre-age-27 accomplishments as equivalent for HOF purposes, I believe a statement that him earning 20 WAR would be a conservative estimate is belied by how few first baseman have done that. Maybe expand the pool to all sluggers in order to see if this is a career arc that happens from time to time. He was kinda the same player at age 24 that he was a 31, hes had a few bigger seasons, but they are distributed fairly evenly over the last decade. SO/9. LAFAYETTE, LA. So lets preview some of their key players from the KBO, a league that we watch intently here at Sports Info Solutions: Team Korea has two young left-handed hitters who will line up in the middle of the order for the WBC. Do you know which two big league pitchers from the twentieth century made the top ten? Its a tough ask for a freshman to come in and start dominating ACC hitters as a freshman, but those are the kind of raw materials that can allow a first-year pitcher to do so. But I do think we should appreciate that theres only one big difference between Abreus 21-25 seasons and Josh Gibsons: So did I. I find the argument about Abreus HOF chances to be interesting though. Ichiro. He is only 7 hits away from reaching 2,000 career KBO hits, and is 38 home runs behind Seung-yeop Lee in all-time KBO home runs. Was it because MLB pitchers got a better scouting report on him and were able to better exploit his weaknesses and turn him from a great hitter to merely a very good hitter, or was it because his peak was over by age 28 and the rest of his career was his decline phase? Or write about sports? He will be looking to rebound in 2023, and hopefully a strong showing in the WBC will help him get off to a good start this year. All major league baseball data including pitch type, velocity, batted ball location, Na also dealt with a gruesome injury in 2019, and his mobility has suffered since returning. From #16-26 is, McGriff, McCovey, Votto, Julio Franco, Banks, Guerriel, Al Oliver, Giambi, Felipe Alou, Helton, and Konerko. He is a natural athlete, but doesnt have the elite instincts needed to play a high-end center field and profiles better in a corner spot long-term. Home The Alabama lefthander was a big catalyst behind the Crimson Tides scalding-hot start to the season. They look great, but,there are a # of issues. maybe its because Matsui produced fewer than half as much WAR in his 10 full MLB seasons as Abreu has in his 8 seasons and 60 games? If Wright managed to continue this trend through the end of the season it would be the first time in his career he achieved such a feat. Which pitch should we highlight next. Did you think I thought they gave me an extra infield?" Torra quickly established himself as a dominant force after transferring from junior college. We present them here for purely educational purposes. Baseball vs Stony Brook February 25, 2023 3 p.m. baseball Final Feb 26 Stony Brook 7 Troy 9 If he gets 8.1 rWAR in those 3 years, hes at 40 from age 27 on (& assuming hes done at the end of this contract). Park signed a four-year deal with the Minnesota Twins before 2016, but struggled in his limited MLB opportunities. He was an important cultural figure in the annals of Cuban players coming stateside but thats a hard sell. Must have done nightmares for the aul self-esteem. He was by no means a lock as a HOF case, but he made it in. document.write(update); He led the AL with a 0.87 walk-to-strikeout ratio, and his .383 OBP was second only to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.s. In your world 31.2 is more than double 21.9. College baseball is especially strong on the mound this year, including CWS heroes like Vanderbilts Kumar Rocker and Oregon States Kevin Abel, established veterans with high-octane stuff like Ohio States Seth Lonsway and Wake Forests Ryan Cusick and precocious arms still looking to show everyone exactly what theyre capable of like Louisiana States Jaden Hill and Vanderbilts Jack Leiter. Major League and Minor League Baseball data provided by Major League Baseball. Also available on the infield is Ji-hwan Oh, who has won the KBO Fielding Bible Award at shortstop in each of the last two seasons. Just for reference, there are 27 post-1947 1B who had at least 40 fWAR through age 32 (which is the early career production Guerriel would have needed to reach 50 career WAR). Some defensive statistics Copyright Sports Info Solutions, 2010-2023. To sum it all up, Gurriels biggest weakness his lack of power became an even bigger problem last season. Web[8] Active pitchers with 1,700 strikeouts (stats updated through 2022): Gerrit Cole (1,930) - 257 in 2022 Johnny Cueto (1,812) - 102 in 2022 Yu Darvish (1,788) - 197 in 2022 Anbal What is particularly impressive about Mantiply, though, is that literally every If hes back to his 2018 form in 2021, hell be one of the best pitchers in college baseball. Olthoff has plenty of stuff, including a fastball that sits in the low 90s, but command and control are his calling card. He has put up 10 WAR in 7 seasons. After turning in an outstanding freshman season in 2019, Boone appeared to take a step forward in 2020, striking out 13.08 batters per nine innings after punching out 8.89 per nine innings as a freshman. by Retrosheet. He produced a SLG above .500 in each season since 2010 and from 2010-2021 he had an OPS of .900 or better every year, falling just below that benchmark in 2022 (.891). The first is Jung-hoo Lee, a 24-year-old outfielder for the Kiwoom Heroes. He was better at the plate after taking a full year off than Freddie Freeman has ever been in a full season. Its most certainly conjecture, but its not beyond the realm of possibility, and to say he has no case goes too far, imo. Coming off a last-place finish in 2022, Mississippi State is trying to get back to the top of the SEC. To see the league-average strikeout and walk rate for every year from 1901 to the present, check the FanGraphs leaderboards. Bowling Green Hot Rods (Rays A+) 82-36, .695 2. He is also the creator of the baseballr package for the R programming language. Who will be 2021s strikeout king? That said, a high strikeout rate is sustainable for a pitcher with Lonsways stuff, which includes a fastball that reaches the mid 90s and three secondary offerings. Hajjar is going into his third season in the Michigan program, but after a redshirt season and the 2020 cancellation, he hasnt thrown that many competitive pitches. He did benefit a bit from the sharp decline in strikeout rates that started in 1969, but even still amassing 18 such seasons is an impressive feat. Gurriel has had an excellent big league career, and one that could have been all the more impressive had he made his way to the majors sooner. Na has big power, and in 2021 he finished in the top 5 in average exit velocity and hard hit rate in the KBO. He swung less often, particularly at pitches outside the strike zone. When hes been healthy, hes been inconsistent in his career, but hes always been able to dominate hitters when hes on. Pitches from outside the strike zone that were put in play had a .292 wOBA. You know who does? Use without license or authorization is expressly prohibited. A Freeman comp is an impressively backwards response. Dan Szymborski does a nice job assessing both Gurriels and Abreus HOF cases in this article. He came back down to earth a bit subsequently, but with what we know about hitters aging curves peaking at 25-26, he mightve missed out on 2 or more comparable-or-better years. If the Marlins are still calling, hed be wise to pick up the phone. Byung-ho Park is one of the few names you might know. Beyond the MLB players and potential future stars, Team Korea has some veteran players rounding out the lineup from the KBO. Im sure if I took time to think it through, I would just come up with more questions. So, conservatively, he would be Freddie Freeman, except for the whole thing where Freeman has been much better from age 27 onward. You think its unlikely. MacLeod broke out in a big way in 2020, stepping up into the Mississippi State rotation and answering the bell to the tune of 35 strikeouts in 21 innings of work. At 25 years old, Ji-hoon Choi is 7 years younger than Park, though he is a very similar player as a left-handed hitting speedster with modest power. Its no wonder he posted such excellent offensive numbers, including the highest wRC+ of his career. If we just restrict the list to players whose first season in the majors was later than 1970, the leader board looks like this: We can see that the leader board is dominated by players whose first season was between 1980 and 1989 (14). That, when applied to what I believe is a fair evaluation for foreign players who come to the U.S. at advanced ages, puts him squarely behind even a large hall standard. Hoglund came into college baseball with a reputation as an elite strike thrower, but after an up-and-down freshman season, he really came into his own in terms of missing bats last season, when he struck out 37 in 23.1 innings. We break down the top 25 candidates. For example, his 2010-11 translated to .358/.468/.754. Baseball UT Arlington Stats Baseball vs UT Arlington March 7, 2023 6 p.m. Fri, Mar 10 6:30 p.m. WebTriples When a batter reaches on a hit and stops at third base or only advances farther than third base on an error or a fielder's attempt to put out another baserunner. Na attracted some interest from MLB teams after the 2020 season, but was unable to find a contract to his liking and returned to the KBO.