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Pregame Pepper
Did You Know?
Dick Allen has now missed Hall of Fame election by a single vote of a veterans committee on two separate occasions . . .
Alexei Ramirez wore the late Minnie Minoso’s retired No. 9 for the 2015 White Sox opener after obtaining permission from owner Jerry Reinsdorf and GM Rick Hahn . . .
The 35th time was the charm for Gil Hodges, who was on a Hall of Fame ballot more times (34) and collected more votes (3,000+) than anyone who was not elected . . .
When he retired as a player in 1963, Hodges ranked 11th on the career home run list and third among righthanded hitters . . .
Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs says 11 major-league managers had 500+ wins as a pilot and 30 Wins Above Replacement as a player but only three of those managed a World Championship team: Hodges, Alvin Dark, and Fielder Jones of he 1906 White Sox . . .
The trade of Jackie Bradley, Jr. (Brewers) for Hunter Renfroe (Red Sox) gave Boston much-needed defense in center field and Milwaukee much-needed outfield power . . .
Ailing Arizona added a quality closer in 36-year-old Mark Melancon, who will be much-missed in San Diego after leading the National League with 39 saves.
Leading Off
Soto, at 23, is in a Class by Himself
By Andrew Sharp
Juan Soto turned 23 on October 25, 2021. Although he finished second to Bryce Harper for the National League 2021 Most Valuable Player award*, he set or extended a number of statistical marks during a trying season for the Washington Nationals. He was a Silver Slugger again and, with the help of fans, was voted onto the all-MLB team, both for the second season in a row.
Soto continues to make the case, as MLB.com’s Mike Petriello argued last year, that he is steadily becoming the next Ted Williams. Why?
His runaway leadership this season in on-base percentage -- .465, 36 points better than no. 2 Harper. He’s the only player aside from Williams to lead the league twice in that category before age 23. Soto reached based more than half his times up after the all-star break (.525)
His WAR for position players (by Baseball Reference) – 7.1, well ahead of no. 2 Fernando Tatis at 6.5.
His batting average with runners in scoring position – .396, tops in the N.L.
His league-leading 145 base on balls, 45 more than runner-up Harper, and the most since juicer Barry Bonds set the all-time record in 2004.
Soto was the only regular player in both leagues who walked more than he struck out (145 vs. 93)
He was the only player in the majors to reach base more than 300 times (304). Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was a distant record at 280.
If a pitcher dared throw Soto a strike, he was ready. Despite being pitched around and being intentionally walked a league-leading 23 times (eight more than Freddie Freeman and nine more than Harper), Soto didn’t let many balls in the strike zone go by. His remarkable plate discipline resulted in a eye-opening statistic: According to MLB Advanced Media's David Adler, Soto swung at just 5.1 per cent of the 800 or so pitches he saw that were a width of a baseball or more out of the strike zone.
Adler also determined that Soto did not swing at a single high fast ball that was out of the strike zone all season. Not once.
And the contact Soto made was hard. His overall 93.0 mph average exit speed on ball he hit was ranked second best, behind Tatis at 93.7.
Of pitches actually in the strike zone, he made the correct decision and swung a league-leading 74.9 per cent of the time. Keep in mind this stat includes 3-0 counts, automatic takes in many situations.
“Whenever they want to play, I play,” Soto famously said in August. “When they don’t want to play, I just take my walk.” As a result, Soto came around to score 111 runs, second only to Freeman’s 120 in the N.L.
Of course, Soto knocked himself in 29 times with homers, which, like a spray chart of batted balls, were hit to all fields. Clearly, he would have hit more if he had seen more strikes. Yet, despite opponents having no good reason to give him pitches to hit after the Nats’ roster was dismantled at the trade deadline, Soto hit .348 with 18 of his home runs after the All-Star break.
Soto finished 2021 with 52 games in his career in which he has reached base four or more times, second only to Ted Williams (54) before age 23. Soto did it 26 times in 2021. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Bonds are the only others who have done that.
A mini-slump in the last week kept Soto from achieving his goal of an OPS (on-base plus slugging) over 1.000, finishing at .999, second to Harper. Deeper into sabermetrics, Soto led the league in adjusted batting runs, adjusted batting wins, base-out runs added and base-out wins added, topping Harper by those four measures. He finished just behind Harper in the N.L. in runs created, adjusted OPS, weighted runs created plus, offensive wins percentage. (BaseballReference.com and FanGraphs.com explain how all those sabermatric categories and others are calculated.)
Harper, who certainly had an outstanding 2021, received 17 first-place votes for the MVP award to finish with a weighted total of 348. Soto finished second with six first-place votes and 11 seconds for 274. Tatis, the third finalist, got two first-place votes. The two other first-place votes went to Trea Turner, Soto’s teammate for the first four months of 2021, and Giants’ shortstop Brandon Crawford.
So a strong argument can be made that Soto deserved the MVP nod as much as Harper -- the Nationals’ right-fielder of the past and the current right-fielder are both deserving and likely to compete again. But in terms of overall knowledge of the strike zone and the ability to barrel up pitches that are strikes, Soto, among an outstanding crop of young stars, clearly is beyond comparison.
* MASN’s Mark Zuckerman, who has covered the Nationals from Day One, was not one of the MVP voters this year representing the Baseball Writers Association of America's D.C. chapter. (The Washington Post does not let its staffers vote.) Instead, veteran commentators Tim Kurkjian and Ken Rosenthal, neither of whom regularly covers the team, cast the Washington ballots, and both picked Soto third. A writer from San Francisco picked Soto sixth (and Harper fifth)! Writers from USA Today and St. Louis thought Soto was no better than the fifth best in the N.L. Harper, on the other hand, got both first-place votes from the Philadelphia chapter writers who actually cover the Phillies. Soto earned the first-place nod from both New York and both Los Angeles voters.)
Andrew Sharp is a retired journalist and SABR member who blogs about D.C. baseball at washingtonbaseballhistory.com. Email him at senators24@yahoo.com.
Cleaning Up
Owners Are Wrong To Expand Postseason Play
By Dan Schlossberg
Anything that compromises the integrity of the World Series is wrong.
Owners, hoisted by their own petard, want the playoffs expanded to 14 teams, or maybe even 16 as in the expanded postseason of 2020, so that they can harvest more television revenue.
They couldn’t care one whit whether the best team prevails or even comes close to winning a world championship.
If players agree, nearly half the teams will qualify for the playoffs, effectively killing the excitement of the trade deadline since everyone will think they can qualify.
Owners argue that baseball needs the likely September free-for-all to compete with football but they’re likely to get a boring hodge-podge of teams playing out the schedule because they already know they’ll be playing in October.
In addition, opening up more playoff spots increases the chances of a three-way or even four-way tie before the scheduled postseason even starts.
In the long history of the major leagues, we’ve never had a three-way tie but we’ve certainly come close. In 1967, for example, the Boston Red Sox won a tight four-way race with the Chicago White Sox, Minnesota Twins, and Detroit Tigers, with one game separating the top three clubs in the final standings.
Just six years later, the National League East nearly ended in a five-way tie. The New York Mets eventually won but it was thisclose.
Just a few months ago, there was nearly a four-team tie in the American League’s wild-card race. The Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Mariners were battling for two wild-card spots entering play on the final day.
In baseball history, there have been 16 tie-breakers: pre-divisional play pennant playoffs and 12 to break ties for division titles and/or wild-card berths.
A three-way or four-way tie is inevitable, especially since it falls into the A.B.N.Q. (Almost But Not Quite) category so many times.
That’s why the Players Association, in the current stalemate over a new Basic Agreement, recommended a return to two divisions, with seven teams in one and eight in the other. Such a format would just make for cleaner decisions involving the postseason.
Adding teams, even though adding revenue, merely adds confusion — and makes it virtually impossible that any club could duplicate the record of the 1949-53 Yankees, winners of five World Series in a row. Those teams did not have to survive a maze of anything-can-happen-in-a-short-series playoffs to reach the final round.
If owners could cut only costs — mainly by refusing to indulge player demands for multi-year contracts with ridiculously inflated salaries — they wouldn’t need to inflate the postseason and destroy what little credibility remains in the game.
Just say no to expanded playoffs. It’s a bad idea that belongs in the dustbin of history with the buffalo nickel, rotary phone, and stick-shift Studebaker.
Here’s The Pitch weekend editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is a baseball traditionalist who started covering the game in 1969. He writes for forbes.com, Latino Sports, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Sports Collectors Digest, and Ball Nine and answers e.mails sent to ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
The four teams that lost 100 games in 2021 are especially anxious for the lockout to end . . .
New Hall of Famer Bud Fowler was born before the Civil War or the formulation of the first official Negro Leagues . . .
Joe Gordon managed two different teams based in Kansas City: the Athletics in 1961 and the expansion Royals in 1969 . . .
Since the Indians and Tigers made more than a half-dozen deals in 1959-60, do you think Trader Lane and Detroit GM Bill DeWitt had each other on speed dial? . . .
Just before the 1994 player strike, Minnesota swapped Dave Winfield to Cleveland for a player to be named later in a waiver deal. Because the strike started August 12, the future Hall of Famer never played for the Indians, who settled for a free dinner from Twins officials.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Brian Harl [bchrom831@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.