Make your dreams come true at the top. Luis Araez isn’t going to hit .400. He’s not even there now, but today he’s going into the second half of the season at .396 and it’s still an incredible number. Few players reach the level of myth in the middle of a season, but Araez has done it. In an era where power is the focus and batting average is devalued, and it’s no surprise, players who bring the story back there are still appealing and how ridiculously difficult it is to hit as hard as he does. is.
Aside from the difficulty of hitting .400 in some ways, there’s also the fact that Araez has outpaced his batting average all season. It’s kind of his specialty, but not to this extent. Alaez’s BABIP is .410, his second in baseball. Alaez has always been a very hot run when it comes to BABIP, marking his career .349. But averaging about 60 points above his career rating this season would be miraculous.
Usually when you see players achieving high BABIPs well above league averages that hover around .300 most of the time over multiple seasons, it’s either they hit the ball so hard that no one can reach it, or it’s pretty bad. Either faster or faster. More grounds can be turned into singles simply because they can’t be thrown out. Arais is neither. He has nine stolen bases in five seasons. According to StatCast, his sprint speed is in the 27th percentile.
And his touch would struggle to cut through the wind. His average escape velocity is only 88.5 mph, which equates to his 34th percentile. His barrel rate is 2.2% for him, which equates to him six in the season total. This actually means he will be on the pitch twice a month.
What Araes does is he has a high contact rate and rarely misses the ball during his swing. 93 percent for swings on out-of-zone pitches and 95 percent for in-zone pitches. He doesn’t strike out very often, but he doesn’t walk too many. And given the sheer amount of balls he gets in play, you might think he’ll get more outs because there are very few difficult ones. But judging by his spray, chart, He became a master at just lining up the ball three feet above the head of the second baseman or shortstop. 788 in line drives while other members of the league have achieved .704. Perhaps this difference will crush hopes for the .400 campaign.
Is .400 still .400?
The interesting thing about baseball’s statistical benchmarks is that they have changed very little throughout the history of the game. Perhaps that’s part of the appeal of baseball, and certainly baseball fans have a great deal of interest in being able to compare, or claim to be able to, compare players across the ages, given the impression that 40 home runs still means the same thing. have.
But is it? We no longer consider him rushing 1,000 yards or even passing him 3,000 yards. NFL It will have about as much of an impact as we once had (although as Bears fans, the latter mark remains Valhalla). His 50 goals in the world of hockey are all in the last 40 years, from a decent run to something he never quite reached during his clutch-and-grabs era, and now back to top level, but it’s not a myth. NBA stats haven’t rocked much, but six players averaged 30 or more points per game last season, the most. NBA history. Indeed, scoring in the NBA has fluctuated greatly from his 80s to today.
Yet the baseball benchmark remains unchanged. A .300 batting average is still considered All-Star level, but only 11 players achieved it last season. Twenty years ago, there were 35 players (including names like Randall Simon and Junior Spivey… wow). Thirty years ago, there were 23 players with a batting average of .300 or better. that’s right, The game focused more on getting on base than hitting, which changed the way hitters approached technique. But it’s also no doubt much harder to hit the ball now, considering what pitchers are throwing. The average .300 is now aristocrat.
Calculating today’s equivalent to the .400 average in 1941 when someone last did it probably takes more math than I’ve ever seen or had the chance to go wrong at the time will be If you look at it this way, the league batting average in 1941 was .261. 265 when George Brett hit the .390 in 1980. He’s batting .248 this season.strikeout rate The 1941 league average was 9.8. He was 12.5 in 1980 and 22.7 this season. Part of the reason is the emphasis on walks and power, which makes strikeouts less of a concern, but it’s also partly due to the demonic act of forcing pitchers to throw balls on their way to bat, despite the shift ban. This is because the position of the defense team is getting better.Araez is doing his job in an era specifically designed to make hitting the ball much more difficult with the bat.
Given that Ted Williams and George Brett’s scoring averages are about 125-140 points better than their league record, albeit very loosely admitted, Araez managed even .372-.3 points. I wonder.The 1988 season will be about the same level of achievement. But clearly, the .372 isn’t as impressive as the .400 or 50 homers.
Adjusted how pitchers are statistically measured. 20 wins is no longer on the board. An ERA of less than 4.00 is considered passable in a situation that used to be behind rotation material at best. Still hitters… not so much. It’s just that OBP has taken over his AVG and looks at various stats.
One way or another, Araez is most likely to achieve something historic this season. You probably won’t get an even benchmark like we can evaluate.
Follow Sam on Twitter @Felsgate.
