Today, we turn our attention to the second base Killers. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — this year I have incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.

As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of a team’s roster. I don’t expect every team to go out and track down an upgrade before the August 1 deadline, and I’m less concerned with the solutions – many of which have more moving parts involved than a single trade — than the problems. Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics are through Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

In a race for a playoff spot, every edge matters. Yet all too often, for reasons that extend beyond a player’s statistics, managers and general managers fail to make the moves that could improve their teams, allowing subpar production to fester at the risk of smothering a club’s postseason hopes. In Baseball Prospectus’ 2007 book It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over, I compiled a historical All-Star squad of ignominy, identifying players at each position whose performances had dragged their teams down in tight races: the Replacement-Level Killers. I’ve revisited the concept numerous times at multiple outlets and have adapted it at FanGraphs in an expanded format since 2018.

When it comes to defining replacement level play, we needn’t hew too closely to exactitude. Any team that’s gotten less than 0.6 WAR from a position to this point — prorating to 1.0 over a full season — is considered fair game. Sometimes, acceptable or even above-average defense (which may depend upon which metric one uses) coupled with total ineptitude on offense is enough to flag a team. Sometimes a club may be well ahead of replacement level but has lost a key contributor to injury; sometimes the reverse is true, but the team hasn’t yet climbed above that first-cut threshold. As with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of hardcore pornography, I know replacement level when I see it. Read the rest of this entry »

A double-whammy of injuries and underperformance has hampered the Angels in their bid to make the playoffs before Shohei Ohtani hits free agency, but one bright spot has been the play of Mickey Moniak. The former number one pick of the 2016 draft looked like a bust when the Phillies included him as one of two outfielders in last year’s deadline acquisition of Noah Syndergaard, and his late-season cup of coffee in Anaheim didn’t exactly dispel that notion. But since his promotion in mid-May, he’s been one of the majors’ most productive hitters, producing a 170 wRC+ in 165 plate appearances.

Moniak sent the struggling Yankees reeling with a big night on Tuesday in Anaheim. In the first inning, he clubbed a two-run homer off Domingo Germán, and while he struck out in the third with the bases loaded, he followed Ohtani’s RBI triple with an RBI single in the fifth to cap the scoring at 5–1. He also added a single of Albert Abreu in the eighth, giving him three three-hit games in the first five of the second half and extending his hitting streak to 10 games. Read the rest of this entry »

2:01	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks!

2:01	Jay Jaffe: Welcome to my first chat of the second half of the 2023 season

2:02	Jay Jaffe: I’ve got Hall of Fame on the brain after writing a four-part series on the active players making progress towards Cooperstown. Part IV just went live, covering relievers https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-2023-progress-rep…

2:02	Jay Jaffe: Yesterday’s Part III addressed Ohtani and starting pitchers https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-2023-progress-rep…

2:03	Jay Jaffe: Part II was shortstops and outfielders https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-2023-progress-rep… and Part I catchers and the three bases https://blogs.fangraphs.com/cooperstown-notebook-the-2023-progress-rep…

Read the rest of this entry »

We began this series with Craig Kimbrel striking out José Ramírez to close out the All-Star Game, and I’ll admit, my original intent was to cover all of the pitchers in Part II. But as anyone who reads (or edits) my work knows, when it comes to the Hall of Fame and its candidates, I can go on, and on… and on. In part that’s because I like to use this series as an annual clearinghouse, covering the vast majority of the active players whom readers most frequently ask me about during the course of the year. It may not be a one-stop shop, but with the added volume comes some context for comparisons (Has Freddie Freeman caught up to Paul Goldschmidt? Who has a better shot, Carlos Correa or Francisco Lindor? And what about Trea Turner?) In part, it’s also because in the 20 years (!) since I introduced it, my JAWS system has become more complicated and more nuanced, requiring a bit of additional introduction. That’s particularly true when it comes to pitching, where during the 2022 election cycle, I formalized S-JAWS for starting pitchers and R-JAWS for relievers.

I had been messing with the latter since the 2019 cycle, in the context of Billy Wagner’s candidacy. The short version of the story is that while Baseball Reference’s flavor of WAR (which I use in JAWS) features an adjustment for leverage — the quantitatively greater impact on winning and losing that a reliever has at the end of the ballgame than a starter does earlier — to help account for the degree of difficulty, it’s not the only way to measure reliever value. Win Probability Added (WPA) is a context-sensitive measure that accounts for the incremental increase (or decrease) in the chances of winning produced in each plate appearance given the inning, score, and base-out situation. WPA can be additionally adjusted using a pitcher’s average leverage index (aLI) for a stat variably called situational wins or context-neutral wins (referred to as WPA/LI). Both of those are now in the sauce; R-JAWS is the average of a reliever’s WAR (including his time as a starter and a hitter, if any), his WPA, and his WPA/LI. The rankings, which I used to have to create by hand, are now on Baseball Reference, and Wagner, who ranks sixth and is the best reliever outside the Hall, is trending towards election after receiving 68.1% on the 2023 ballot, his eighth year of eligibility. Read the rest of this entry »

Shohei Ohtani is a unicorn. No player in 20th- or 21st-century AL/NL history, not even Babe Ruth in his last two seasons with the Red Sox (1918–19), has been able to sustain regular duty in both a rotation and a lineup over a full season, let alone excel at both endeavors. At this writing, the 29-year-old superstar leads the majors in homers (34), slugging percentage (.665), and wRC+ (179), and he’s got the AL’s second-best strikeout rate (32.2%) and lowest batting average against (.191). He currently ranks among the AL’s top 10 in Baseball Reference’s position player WAR (4.0, fourth) and pitching WAR (2.5, ninth), and just over a full win ahead of Ronald Acuña Jr. for the major league lead in combined WAR. Over the past two and a half seasons, he’s been worth 25.0 WAR, 5.9 more than the top position player, Aaron Judge.

Some day, Hall of Fame voters will have to reckon with Ohtani. If he reaches the kind of career numbers that Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS system forecast for him over the winter — 1,809 hits, 404 homers, 124 OPS+, 158 wins, 2,329 strikeouts, 122 ERA+, and 72.1 WAR — the decision will be a no-brainer. I’m already of the mind that if he gets to his 10th season (2027) and is still doing double duty, he’ll have my vote when he lands on the ballot regardless of what the numbers say, because what he’s doing is so utterly remarkable. WAR and JAWS weren’t really built to handle a case like his, and not only because his ability to save his team a roster spot is probably worth some uncounted fraction of a win per year, too. Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday, I took the first swing for my annual roundup of active players who may or may not be building their cases for the Hall of Fame. With one exception, all of the ones I examined were in their age-30 seasons or later, but for this installment of shortstops and outfielders, I’ll take a look at some who are still in their 20s and have further to go before they reach Cooperstown.

For this exercise, unless otherwise indicated, I will be referencing bWAR for season and career totals, my JAWS metric, and the ZiPS rest-of-season projections, since one of the goals here is to give an idea of where these players will stand at the end of the season, having banked a full complement of WAR instead of just 80-some games worth. These future candidates are already dealing with suppressed WAR totals from the 60-game 2020 season (which hardly makes them the first to experience such scheduling limitations and career interruptions due to wars and strikes). Unlike last year, I’ll cover pitching in one installment. Note that I am by no means predicting that every player here will make it to Cooperstown or even suggesting that all are worthy; in some cases I’m particularly pessimistic, but these are the names that get tossed around

If you’re just arriving, I’d encourage you to at least read the introduction in Part 1. The important take-home point was my finding that nearly three-quarters of the position players who have reached a 40.0-WAR peak score (best seven seasons, aka WAR7) have eventually been enshrined, and so inevitably a good bit of the focus throughout this exercise has been on the math required to improve those scores. There is and will be far more to those cases, and to appreciating these players’ skills and accomplishments, but for the purposes of space I’ve had to cut to the chase. Here again is the table related to those 40.0-WAR peaks:

At every position, I’ve counted the total number of players with a peak WAR of at least 40.0; the number of Hall of Famers meeting that criterion; and the number of such players who are not yet eligible, either because they’re active, too recently retired to appear on a Hall of Fame ballot, or on the permanently ineligible list, like Pete Rose (whom JAWS classifies as a left fielder) and Shoeless Joe Jackson (right field). For catchers, I used a 32.0-WAR threshold instead of 40.0, as their values are constrained by the limits of playing time and pre-framing measures. Read the rest of this entry »

It wasn’t quite up to the level of Shohei Ohtani versus Mike Trout with the 2023 World Baseball Classic championship on the line, but the final plate appearance of Tuesday night’s All-Star Game did feature a memorable matchup. On the mound trying to secure a 3–2 victory — the National League’s first since 2012 — was Craig Kimbrel, he of the 408 career saves. Working to bring home the tying run from second base (or at least keep the line moving) was José Ramírez, already playing in his fifth All-Star Game at age 30. Ramírez fell into an 0–2 hole by taking a fastball and then chasing a curveball in the dirt but battled back to even the count before Kimbrel struck him out with a high fastball.

Someday we may talk about that matchup as one between two future Hall of Famers. Kimbrel has had his ups and downs in recent years, but he’s been dominant enough to earn a spot on an All-Star squad for the second year out of three and the ninth time overall. Earlier this year, he became the eighth pitcher to collect 400 saves, and he’s overtaken Kenley Jansen (who also recently reached 400) in the Reliever JAWS rankings. As for Ramírez, he’s hitting .289/.364/.506 (132 wRC+) and ranking among the AL’s top 10 in WAR for the sixth time in seven seasons (3.4 fWAR, 3.3 bWAR). While he’s only 30 years old, if all goes well during this season’s second half, he’ll reach an important milestone that strongly suggests future election to the Hall.

Thus far in his 11-year career, Ramirez has accumulated 43.7 WAR (I’m sticking with bWAR throughout the rest of this article unless otherwise indicated), which is impressive but not itself remarkable. Of more importance is that he already has tallied 38.4 WAR in his best seven seasons — his peak score (aka WAR7) for the purposes of calculating his JAWS. One of those seasons is this one:

Via Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, Ramirez is forecast to produce another 2.4 WAR this year, pushing his seven-year peak score to 40.8. While that’s still 2.3 WAR shy of the Hall standard for third basemen (43.1), he has at least one other season that shouldn’t be too hard to improve upon; indeed, his preseason three-year ZiPS projection forecasts him to produce 5.6 WAR in 2024 (which would take him to 43.3) and 4.9 WAR in ’25 (inching him to 43.4).

Even without looking that far ahead, the 40-WAR peak score is significant. For a position player, it’s a strong indicator of future election to the Hall:

At every position, I’ve counted the total number of players with a peak WAR of at least 40.0; the number of Hall of Famers meeting that criterion; and the number of such players who are not yet eligible, either because they’re active, too recently retired to appear on a Hall of Fame ballot, or on the permanently ineligible list. The last of those classifications applies to Pete Rose (whom JAWS classifies as a left fielder) and Shoeless Joe Jackson (right field). For catchers, I’ve used a 32.0-WAR threshold instead of 40.0, as their values are constrained by the limits of playing time and pre-framing measures.

As you can see, nearly three-quarters of the eligible players with at least 40.0 WAR in their seven best seasons are enshrined, a higher percentage than even I would have guessed before I dug through the numbers. That percentage would be even higher if I were also to remove the players whose PED-related allegations and suspensions have effectively blocked their elections, but let’s not dwell upon them today.

Currently, eight active position players have peak scores of at least 40.0, with two more besides Ramírez on the verge: Jose Altuve (39.8) and Aaron Judge (39.6). The former’s injuries will likely prevent him from reaching the mark this year (more on which below), but the latter has already produced one of his seven best seasons (he’s appeared in only parts of eight, including his -0.3-WAR cup of coffee from 2016) and needs just 0.4 WAR once he returns from his toe injury.

With that, it’s time to launch my more-or-less annual Hall of Fame progress report. This may not seem like an obvious time to check in on such players, but the July logjam on the baseball calendar includes the Hall’s induction weekend (July 21–24) as well as the draft, the All-Star Game and its high-profile auxiliary events (the Futures Game and the Home Run Derby), and the run-up to the August 1 trade deadline. It’s a time that I get a lot of questions about active players vying for future elections, and in the interest of providing a one-stop shop — er, in three parts, so let’s call it a department store — here we are.

For this exercise, unless otherwise indicated, I will be referencing bWAR for season and career totals, my JAWS metric, and the ZiPS rest-of-season projections, since one of the goals here is to give an idea of where these players will stand at the end of the season, having banked a full complement of WAR instead of just 80-some games worth; these future candidates are already dealing with suppressed WAR totals from the 60-game 2020 season — which hardly makes them the first to experience such scheduling limitations and career interruptions due to wars and strikes. Unlike last year, I’ll cover pitching in one installment; we’ll return to Kimbrel. Note that I am by no means predicting that every player here will make it to Cooperstown or even suggesting that all are worthy; in some cases I’m particularly pessimistic, but these are the names that get tossed around. Read the rest of this entry »

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. wasn’t exactly the forgotten man at the 2023 Home Run Derby at T-Mobile Park; this scribe was hardly alone in predicting he’d win. But the 24-year-old slugger didn’t put up an astronomical total of dingers the way hometown favorite Julio Rodríguez did in the first round (breaking Guerrero’s own 2019 record of 40 homers, at that). Nor did he cruise into the finals by a lopsided score the way Randy Arozarena did in knocking off the top-seeded Luis Robert Jr. in the semifinals. Guerrero did start his night by steamrolling Mookie Betts, then narrowly eked out wins over both Rodríguez and Arozarena to take home the championship that eluded him in 2019, when he was runner-up to Pete Alonso. In victory, he joined his father, who won in 2007, as the first father-son duo to win the Derby. Congrats to Vlad and Dad.

With Blue Jays manager John Schneider serving as his pitcher, Guerrero — one of just three contestants who had participated in a previous Derby, along with Alonso and Rodríguez — needed until his fifth swing to get on the board, but once he did, with a 453-footer, he found his groove. He beat Betts handily, 26–11, then walked off against Rodríguez, needing just one homer in bonus time to win, 21–20. He hit 25 in the finals, a record for the shorter round (two minutes instead of three), then had to wait out Arozarena, who finished regulation with 20. Crucially, Arozarena only had the standard 30 seconds of extra time because he hadn’t gotten the distance bonus, unlocked when a player hit two homers with projected distances of at least 440 feet — something Guerrero managed in all three rounds. Arozarena ran out of both gas and time as his final fly balls fell short; he finished with 23 homers to make Guerrero the champion, the second-youngest in history by a day (1993 winner Juan Gonzalez was younger).

Guerrero will serve as a reserve for Tuesday night’s All-Star Game after starting at first base in each of the past two seasons. Yandy Díaz was voted to start for the AL, and it’s tough to complain when he’s hitting .323/.408/.515 for a 165 wRC+, the highest of any first baseman in either league by 10 points (NL starter Freddie Freeman is second at 155) and the second-highest of any qualified hitter behind only Shohei Ohtani.

Diaz’s 165 wRC+ is reminiscent of the league-leading 166 Guerrero put up during his 2021 season. We’re now two years removed from that breakout campaign, when at age 22, Vladito made a run at the Triple Crown, falling short but still hitting an impressive .311/.401/.601 with 48 homers and 6.3 WAR. His home run total led the league, as did his on-base percentage, a small consolation for finishing “only” third in batting average; likewise, he led in total bases and slugging percentage and was second in WAR, a pretty good offset for finishing “only” fifth in RBIs.

When you’re 22 years old and the son of a Hall of Famer, a season like that sends expectations into the stratosphere, so it’s come as something of a disappointment that Guerrero’s follow-up seasons have not been up to that standard. He hit .274/.339/.480 with 32 homers, a 132 wRC+, and 2.8 WAR last year, and arrived at the All-Star break batting .274/.344/.443 with 13 homers, a 120 wRC+, and (gulp) 0.4 WAR this year. A good — or not-so-good, actually — part of that decline in value is Guerrero’s defense, which has gone downhill quickly. I’ll get to that below, but what everyone is wondering is what’s happened to his offense. In looking at his numbers, a few things stand out. Read the rest of this entry »

In the midst of a season in which he won AL Rookie of the Year honors and helped the Mariners break their 21-year playoff drought, Julio Rodríguez took a star turn at the 2022 Home Run Derby. The 21-year-old phenom thrilled the crowd at Dodger Stadium by crushing 32 homers in the first round, including nine of at least 440 feet, and defeated Corey Seager, 32-24. He followed that by knocking off two-time defending champion Pete Alonso in the semifinals, 31-23, before falling to Juan Soto in the finals, 19-18. With this year’s Derby taking place at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, Rodríguez will try to become the fourth player to win the event on his home field, after the Cubs’ Ryne Sandberg (1990), the Reds’ Todd Frazier (2015), and the Nationals’ Bryce Harper (2018).

What’s more, Rodríguez, who’s seeded seventh this year on the basis of the eight participants’ home run totals through July 4, will again match up with the second-seeded Alonso in the first round — a pairing that coincidentally features the only two returning participants from last year. The stakes are high for Alonso here, as he’s still seeking to join Seattle icon Ken Griffey Jr. as the only three-time winners in Derby history. To do that, he may have to defeat another familiar opponent: sixth-seeded Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who was the runner-up when Alonso won for the first time in 2019.

I’ll get to the participants shortly, but first, the format, which is along the lines of what has been used for the event since 2015, a set of changes that has done wonders for the watchability of this spectacle. The competition will be an eight-man, single elimination bracket that uses timed rounds of three minutes apiece for the first two rounds and two minutes for the final round, by which point the competitors are generally pretty gassed. Each competitor gets an additional 30-second bonus in each round, and can earn an additional 30-second bonus if he hits at least two home runs with projected distances of at least 440 feet according to Statcast.

Each player is allowed to call one 45-second timeout for use during regulation time; it can’t be used during bonus time, though each player will get a break between the regulation and bonus segments. The lower-seeded player in each round goes first, and the round will end in the equivalent of a walk-off if the higher seed surpasses his total. If two contestants are tied after the bonus time, they each get a 60-second round with no bonus time or timeouts, and if they’re still tied after that, they each get rounds of three swings apiece until a winner is decided. The winner of the Derby will take home $1 million of the $2.5 million total pot.

The Derby arrives amid a season in which home run rates are on the rebound thanks at least in part to a livelier ball — one with a lower coefficient of drag — than last year’s. Where teams averaged 1.07 home runs per game last year, the lowest mark since 2015, they’re up to 1.16 this year, right around where they were in ’16 and ’18 but still below the record-setting ’19 season (1.39 per game) and the elevated rates of ’20 and ’21. Similarly, hard-hit fly balls — those with an exit velocity of 95 mph or higher — are traveling an average of 366 feet, one foot farther than last year but one less than 2021, and nine feet below the peak in 2019. However, they don’t carry as well at T-Mobile Park, which is just 10 feet above sea level, near the water, and one of the toughest parks to hit in overall. This year, those same hard-hit fly balls are averaging 359 feet at T-Mobile, one foot less than last year and nine feet less than 2019:

The impact of T-Mobile’s home run suppression is mainly upon left-handed batters, owing to the longer distance to right-center (385 feet) than left-center (378 feet). Lefty hitters have a 94 park home run factor by our five-year methodology (six percent below league average), where righties have a 102 factor (two percent above league average). By Statcast’s three-year methodology, the split is more extreme, with 90 for lefties and 104 for righties. Thus it shouldn’t be all that surprising that all of the contestants in this year’s Derby are righties, save for switch-hitter Adley Rutschman, who figures to bat righty. On that note, here’s the full bracket:

And here’s a look at the field with some relevant stats:

The method of seeding is unsophisticated, as the players are ranked based upon how many home runs they had hit when the field was finalized on July 4, with home runs since June 15 used as a tiebreaker. By that methodology, one had to go all the way down to the tie for 63rd to include all eight participants. Home run totals are hardly the only measure of a slugger’s capability, particularly in this context, and while it’s fair to question the applicability of any of the above metrics I’ve gathered when it comes to non-game situations, it’s worth appreciating the perspective they provide on this group. I’ve gone beyond the raw totals to show how often each contestant homers per plate appearance, per batted ball [HR/ (AB – SO + SF)], and per fly ball, with their average exit velocities on flies, their average projected home run distance, and their barrel rate, which according to a 2019 study by Devan Fink correlates best with recent Derby success. I’ve also included each player’s Statcast-era total of homers with projected distances of least 440 feet, the threshold that the recent Derbies (save for the 2021 one at Coors Field) have used for the distance bonus.

Honestly, it’s not the most dazzling field. Not that they would have participated if healthy, but it’s a bummer not to have Aaron Judge or Mike Trout; the latter has never participated in the contest. We don’t get Shohei Ohtani, major league home run leader, though it’s tough to begrudge the two-way superstar some rest on the heels of what may have been the greatest month in major league history. No Ronald Acuña Jr., who’s not only in the midst of an incredible season in terms of power and speed but also hits for incredible distance; his 426-foot average on home runs is the highest among any player with more than three homers. There’s no Soto to defend his title, and no Harper, either, though that’s understandable given the latter’s less-than-full-powered recovery from offseason Tommy John surgery. Guerrero is actually the only other participant besides Rodríguez and Alonso with previous experience in this contest, and one of only three participants with 100 career homers, compared to seven of eight last year.

Still, it’s a fun enough format that it should be entertaining nonetheless. Here’s a look at the four matchups

(1) Robert vs. (8) Rutschman

The 25-year-old Robert is in the midst of his best season. He’s second in the AL in homers behind Ohtani, and has already hit more than his 2021 and ’22 seasons combined (25). That has something to do with staying healthy, as he played just 166 games in those two seasons, but he’s also barreling the ball more consistently this year. He has the second-highest barrel rate of the group, as well as the second-highest average home run distance, and until Sunday he was also second in fly ball exit velocity before slipping behind in a crowded field. Given all that, he could be a very fun contestant.

The 25-year-old Rutschman is already an All-Star, a franchise cornerstone, and a face of baseball in the making, but statistically, it’s hard to make a case as to why he’s part of this field. He’s last among the group in every category above — sometimes by a lot — except for average home run distance, where he leapfrogged from sixth to fourth on Sunday by hitting the longest home run of his career, a 461-footer into the upper deck at Target Field; in fact, that’s the longest of any of this year’s Derby participants as well. What he has going for him beyond that demonstration of potential power is the local hook. He’s a native of Portland who starred at Oregon State, and he’s easily the best choice of candidates who are either native to Oregon or Washington or went to college in those states (apologies to Michael Conforto and Jake Lamb). That should make him one of the fan favorites.

(2) Alonso vs. (7) Rodríguez

Before suffering a bone bruise and sprained left wrist when he was hit by a Charlie Morton pitch on June 7, the 28-year-old Alonso was setting a 57-homer pace. In placing him on the IL, the Mets announced, “A typical return to play for this type of injury is approximately 3–4 weeks,” but Alonso spent just the minimum 10 days sidelined. He’s homered four times since returning and is currently tied with Betts for second in the NL in homers, but has hit just .147/.267/.347 since the injury while producing an average exit velocity of 87 mph, with an 7.7% barrel rate. All of which is to say that he may not be 100%, which is a shame, because a healthy Alonso is as perfectly built for this competition as any player in the majors. One thing to note is that where Mets bench coach Dave Jauss was a big part of Alonso’s success as his pitcher in the last two Derbies, this time around Mike Friedlein, Alonso’s travel ball coach from when he was a Tampa teenager, will be throwing to him.

At 22, Rodríguez is the youngest participant for the second year in a row. His season thus far hasn’t been up to the level of his stellar rookie campaign, though the drop-off isn’t as wide as his 51-point drop in wOBA suggests. His exit velocity is 0.8 mph higher and his Best Speed exit velo — the average of his top 50% of batted balls, a better indictor of performance — has improved as well (from 103.7 mph to 104.1). That said, he’s not barreling or pulling the ball as often, he’s hitting it on the ground more, and his maximum exit velocity has fallen from 117.2 mph to 115.5. His average home run distance is the lowest in the field, and he has the highest share of homers projected for less than 400 feet (61.5%), though his ballpark may be to blame, as he’s averaging eight feet fewer on his home homers (390 feet vs. 398). Still, it’s clear from last year that he knows what he’s doing in this format, and not hard to imagine the T-Mobile crowd giving him a lift.

(3) Betts vs. (6) Guerrero

The 30-year-old Betts is the oldest and most accomplished player in this field, the career leader in homers (239), the only former MVP, and already a likely Hall of Famer (he’s 14th in JAWS among right fielders, ahead of Tony Gwynn, Ichiro Suzuki, Dave Winfield, and the elder Vladimir Guerrero). At 5-foot-9, 180 pounds, he doesn’t look like a home run hitter, but after setting a career high with 35 last year, he’s on pace for 47 this year, and just three leadoff homers away from tying the single-season record of 13. He’s not much of a distance guy; just two of his career homers have reached the magic 440-foot mark, and half his homers this year had projected distances under 400 feet, a share higher than all but Rodríguez.

The 24-year-old Guerrero, on the other hand, is a distance guy. Sixteen of his 117 career homers (13.7%) have been 440-footers or longer, edging Alonso (13.3%) for the highest rate of this group. Meanwhile, Guerrero’s 409-foot average for homers is three feet farther than any of the others, and he has the lowest share of sub-400 foot homers of the group this year (30.8%). Like Rodríguez, he isn’t having a big season with the bat, but he is hitting the ball much harder than his slash stats suggest; his .547 xSLG is 104 points higher than his SLG. In other words, he brings the thunder. Of the lower seeds, he’s got the best shot at winding up in the finals.

(4) García vs. (5) Arozarena

Not only does this matchup pit a pair of Cuban players against each other, but both García and Arozarena were teammates in the Cardinals’ minor league chain before being traded away. They remain close friends, and García is godfather to Arozarena’s daughter. If the top-seeded Robert advances out of the first round to face the winner here, that semifinals matchup will also be an all-Cuban affair.

The 30-year-old García leads the group in terms of both barrel rate and average exit velocity on fly balls. His four homers of at least 440 feet puts him in the upper half here, though note that while the 28-year-old Arozarena has none, his average distance is just one foot less than that of his pal. Though not a particularly prolific home run hitter — he’s topped out at 20 in his two full seasons — Arozarena has been hitting the ball much harder this year, with his barrel rate and other Statcast numbers career highs. And as his postseason resumé and star turn for Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic have shown, he’s a player who absolutely thrives in the spotlight. That could be a big help in this contest.

If you’ve read this far, you probably want some predictions, and while I’m no expert in prognostication, my track record since joining the FanGraphs staff includes the Harper and Alonso wins in 2018-19 — the latter over Guerrero in the finals, even (not that I was going too far out on a limb either time). I haven’t done as well in recent years, however, and while my impulse is to pick Alonso based on his career resumé, instead I’m going with Guerrero over Robert in the finals. More than anything, I’m hopeful that despite the relative lack of star power, this contest will provide thrills on the level of recent Derbies.