In his 2015 Cy Young campaign, Jake Arrieta posted a 0.86 ERA in his final 20 starts, and just last year Jack Flaherty ended his season on a run of 16 starts with a 0.93 ERA. Gibson’s 1968 campaign, the finest season at the height of the second dead-ball era of the late 1960s, featured more complete-game shutouts (13) than any pitcher is likely to have starts in 2020, but it’s not unreasonable to expect someone to go under a 1.12 ERA over 12 starts and 60 or 70 innings. Besides, Zach’s Dutch Leonard isn’t even the career bWAR leader among pitchers named Dutch Leonard, so who cares?

To which I can only say that you might as well throw out all the records from before the sinking of the Lusitania. My friend and colleague Zach Kram, who is a titanic pedant, is fond of pointing out that the modern ERA record belongs not to Gibson but to Dutch Leonard, who posted a 0.96 ERA for the Red Sox in 1914. 400, well, he’s won the past two NL batting titles. Nobody else in baseball has an offensive profile quite like Yelich’s, and if you want evidence that it could help him hit. Moreover, he’s left-handed and can run, which means he’ll beat out more ground balls than a slower, right-handed batter like Rendon. (Carew has him by one point.) Yelich hits a lot of home runs, draws a lot of walks, doesn’t strike out much, and when he puts the ball in play it comes screaming off his bat. The Brewers outfielder has by far the highest hard-hit rate in baseball in the past two seasons, as well as the second-highest career BABIP since integration. Mike Trout fits the bill here, as do other middle-of-the-order hitters like Anthony Rendon and Alex Bregman who avoid outs through walks and opposing fielders through home runs, but don’t strike out much given their power.īut one name transcends all others in the quest for. The other kind of high-average hitter resembles Jones, Walker, or, well, Williams: disciplined batters who hit the absolute piss out of the baseball. Madrigal has struck out 58 times in competitive games since he graduated high school in 2016, and he’s played a total of 314 games with more than 1,400 plate appearances.

Last year, AL home run leader Jorge Soler struck out 59 times in his first 45 games. White Sox rookie Nick Madrigal, once he’s called up, should have the best contact skills in the majors-and maybe the best since Ichiro. 334 in half a season last year with more walks than strikeouts. Angels infielder David Fletcher led qualified hitters last year with a contact rate of 91.1 percent, while Twins second baseman Luis Arraez hit. In this day of grip it and rip it, there are fewer such players, but they’re still out there. Check out all of The Ringer’s MLB coverage leading up to Opening Day

Mlb swing and miss rate 2020