Mookie Betts’ Historic Season
The existence of Mike Trout makes things difficult for everyone. He’s produced more wins through age 26 than any player in history, averaging 9.1 WAR per season. He’s made adjustment after adjustment after adjustment. He became an average Hall of Famer before his 27th birthday. It’s not easy to compete with that.
It’s possible that we’ve grown so accustomed to Trout’s level of production that, when another player rivals it, the effect is muted. But that’s precisely what Mookie Betts is doing this season. Betts has recorded a season on a level we’ve only seen from Trout, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez over the past 25 years. And if it weren’t for presence of Trout himself just behind Betts on the WAR leaderboard, it’s possible that Betts’ accomplishment would seems even more unusual.
In 2015, a 22-year-old Betts broke out with an impressive power-speed combo, resulting in a 120 wRC+ and a 4.8 WAR season. The following year, he improved nearly every aspect of his game and put together an MVP-caliber campaign, recording just over eight wins finishing second to Trout in the balloting. Last year, Betts fell off a bit despite another good year on the basepaths and in the outfield. He increased his walk rate without suffering a corresponding rise in strikeouts, but his power dropped and he ended up with “only” 5.4 WAR for the year, ranking 15th among MLB position players.
This year, Betts’ speed on the bases and in the outfield are just as good as they have been in the past, but his power — including an ISO of .297 — has helped him reach another level. It’s easy to point out Betts’ increased strikeouts this season — still a low 14.8% mark — and argue that he is selling out for power, but it isn’t quite so simple. Early on in the season, Jeff Sullivan noticed that Betts was no longer just trying to make contact with two strikes. Instead, Betts focused on driving the ball, and it has paid off. Since 2002, Betts is having one of the greatest two-strike seasons we’ve seen.
| Season | Name | PA | BB% | K% | ISO | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Barry Bonds | 207 | 28.0% | 22.7% | .297 | 185 |
| 2004 | Barry Bonds | 173 | 22.0% | 23.7% | .308 | 172 |
| 2014 | Victor Martinez | 304 | 5.9% | 13.8% | .205 | 159 |
| 2004 | Albert Pujols | 257 | 9.3% | 20.2% | .354 | 148 |
| 2018 | Mookie Betts | 312 | 9.9% | 28.8% | .249 | 146 |
| 2012 | David Ortiz | 163 | 9.8% | 31.3% | .301 | 141 |
| 2011 | Mike Napoli | 263 | 11.8% | 31.9% | .218 | 140 |
| 2018 | Tyler White | 138 | 10.9% | 31.2% | .264 | 137 |
| 2010 | Magglio Ordonez | 149 | 17.4% | 25.5% | .187 | 136 |
| 2007 | Placido Polanco | 240 | 5.8% | 12.5% | .109 | 133 |
More than half of Betts’ plate appearances this season have ended with two strikes due to a patient approach, but he hasn’t suffered like most — the MLB average wRC+ with two strikes is 45 — as his change in approach isn’t just a two-strike issue. Betts has done a better job this season of identifying pitches he can handle, and he’s done a much better job covering the outside portion of the plate.
In terms of approach, we can see from the graphs below how Betts has swung less often at pitches low and inside and swung more often at pitches on the outer third of the plate.
Now look at this swing from last month on a similar outside fastball. Look for Betts’ foot position before his swing and after he takes a step.
These are very similar events on similar pitches with similar outcomes. In the footage from this year, though, Betts gets under the ball a little more, the launch angle is higher, and the ball travels a tiny bit farther. Betts put himself in position with his feet to make a more level swing on the pitch away, and it has helped him this season. Betts has never put up an ISO above .100 in a season when going to the opposite field (.086 career), but his opposite-field ISO this season is .182. Betts’ ability to get pitches on the outer half of the plate has helped his performance in that quadrant, but his selectivity on the inside part of the plate might have helped his outcomes there, as well. The graphs below show slugging percentage per 100 pitches last season and this season.
Betts has been more selective on low-and-in pitches while changing his stance to give him more power away. Both of those tweaks appear to have made a positive difference.
We can’t talk about any hitter’s positive improvement without noting launch angle. Betts’ average launch angle is the highest it has been in his career, and whether that’s due to increased selectivity low combined with more aggression high or something else entirely, Betts is putting fewer balls on the ground and hitting more balls with desirable launch angles, as the charts from Baseball Savant show.
| Player | 10+ WAR seasons |
|---|---|
| Babe Ruth | 9 |
| Rogers Hornsby | 6 |
| Ted Williams | 5 |
| Barry Bonds | 5 |
| Willie Mays | 4 |
| Ty Cobb | 3 |
| Mickey Mantle | 3 |
| Mike Trout | 2 |
| Lou Gehrig | 2 |
| Honus Wagner | 2 |
| Mookie Betts | 1 |
| Lou Boudreau | 1 |
| Norm Cash | 1 |
| Jimmie Foxx | 1 |
| Rickey Henderson | 1 |
| Joe Morgan | 1 |
| Stan Musial | 1 |
| Cal Ripken | 1 |
| Alex Rodriguez | 1 |
| Tris Speaker | 1 |
| Carl Yastrzemski | 1 |
Of the players on that list, the only non-Hall of Famers are Bonds, Rodriguez, Trout, and Norm Cash. Cash is the only one without a clear Hall of Fame case, and with Betts’ eight-win season in 2016, he already has a great runner-up season that Cash can’t boast. There are 36 players in the past 100 years with at least two eight-plus WAR seasons. Twenty-seven of those players are in the Hall of Fame. Bonds would be if not for PED associations. The same might be true for Rodriguez, as well. Albert Pujols and Trout will be Hall of Famers. Chase Utley will have a good argument, too. Only Snuffy Stirnweiss, who put together his great seasons during World War II, and John Olerud fall short of Hall-type careers.
Mookie Betts isn’t just having a great season. He’s having one of the single greatest seasons of all-time and putting his career on the path to the Hall of Fame. Betts is just the 11th player to put up a 10 WAR season at 25 years old or younger, and every single one of those players, except Trout, is already in the Hall of Fame. When Trout accomplished the feat in 2012, he was the first player since Mickey Mantle with a 10-win season at 25 or younger. Let’s not let the talent and skills of Trout cloud Betts’ season, as the latter is currently putting himself up with the greatest players of all time.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
A 5-9 guy slugging .640 is unreal.
Mighty Mouse swinging a bat. When Ott slugged 40+ HRs, 5’9 was 2″ above average. Mookie is an inch BELOW average. Like your lawn boy. Unbelievable. Literally. That’s why JDM is my guy. Triple Crown Threat AND he’s a credible size for a masher.
6’3, 221!!!
JDM passes the straight-face test. No doubts about him. Mookie is nothing but a question mark, and that’s on MLB.
It’s a little doll. When Ott 40, 5 ‘9 is an average of 2. “Mookie is below the average, just like Deiko’s lawn, and have a reliable amount for the masseur.
6 ‘3, 221 !!!
JDM puts the test on the right. There is no doubt about him. Mookie is just a sign of a question, which is Milb.
“Mookie is just a sign of a question.”
Man, that’s deep.
Remove the punctuation and some people will pay you.
You say so many weird things.
Joe Morgan was 5′ 7″. Bet you would call him a “lawn boy” too.
When Joe Morgan shows power like Mookie let me know. You got to work harder than that. Also, Joe wasn’t hitting 100 mph.
Joe Morgan hit 27 HR with .256 ISO in 1976.
Joe Morgan had 5 hits and a HR (to go with an over .430 OBP) against Nolan Ryan. Safe to say he was able to hit 100 mph on occasion.
If there’s any positive to your presence here it’s that Serbian…’s will show up eventually.
Rabbit ball, maple bats, smallish parks, real hot summer
Amazing what a .367 BABIP can do for you.
To be fair, his xwOBA is slightly higher than his wOBA, and you’d expect him to outperform his xwOBA given his speed as well.
He leads the majors in both categories anyway.
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/expected_statistics
Nice cherry-picking. Do you do that for a living? How about you try using any of the batted ball data on Fangraphs?
Cherry-picking? That’s not cherry-picking. That’s showing that his overall offensive line is well-supported by Statcast data. The guy is #4 in “barrels”, so of course his BABIP is high (it would almost certainly be lower if he didn’t play in Fenway, but then he’d have more homers). If you insist on only using Fangraphs data, you can find out that the guy is in the Top 20 of hard-hit rate and the bottom 20 of soft-hit rate, but not how he’s putting the bat on the ball itself.
Don’t start at me with “what I do for a living” either, unless you want to talk shop.
I’ve made quite a few posts about the fangraphs data here, check below. Hard% is literally the only stat betts does very well on in terms of xbabip against like 6 where he doesn’t, as you’ll see if you read what i wrote, and in the recent models hard%svcoefficient is quite low. As i said, nice cherry picking but it doesn’t work with someone who knows most of the orchard.
I can’t tell whether you’re making this argument in bad faith, or if you’ve just confused yourself so much that you’re not thinking straight. But when someone is #4 in hard-hit balls at the ideal launch angle for extra-base hits and has pretty good speed, it is not at all surprising that he has a big BABIP.
Frankly, I don’t care about xBABIP one way or the other. Maybe it’s for real, maybe it’s still in beta mode, maybe it’s totally made up. However, Statcast data is most definitely not made up, and xwOBA and the other similar stats derived from Statcast data are all great. You should familiarize yourself with that data if you don’t know what it is.
And I have no idea what you’re talking about with cherry-picking, or what the orchard is supposed to be in this analogy. Betts comes out great in xwOBA, Hard Hit %, Soft Hit %, barrels, launch angle, expected slugging percentage, GB/FB, etc..is that cherry-picking? You seem to be under the impression because Betts doesn’t do all that well on some random stuff that his BABIP is flukey. But it’s the combination of crushing the ball a lot (which you can get from both Fangraphs and Statcast), not hitting the ball softly very much at all (which you can get from both Fangraphs and Statcast), having the exact right angle (which you can get from Statcast), and playing in Fenway that’s causing this.
So you aren’t going to respond to any of my arguments i make based on fangraphs stats because you don’t care about them. Great reasoning.
There are huge problems with relying on the statcast data you’re referring to. Most obviously, there’s no consideration of which direction the ball is hit. Balls hit close to the fouls lines are much more likely to be hit for homers but also more likely to be caught if they aren’t. A ball hit at a certain angle and velocity down the line has a radically different results profile from a ball hit at the same angle and velocity to dead center, but statcast data treat them the same. Batters who show clear directional patterns in where they hit certain types of balls will predictablt do worse (other things being equal) than batters who spray the ball. A hard grounder to the right side of the infield has a radically different likelihood of going through for a hit for a batter who hits a lot of grounders in that direction than for a batter who doesn’t, but statcast data treat them the same.
It isn’t even clear what you think you’re saying about ‘exact right angle’. Are you under the impression that it is possible to give a meaningful estimate of expected performance on the basis of a player’s average launch angle? You do realize that an infield popup an a ball beaten into to ground will have the same average launch angle as two line drives, don’t you?
Or are you under the impression that betts hits *all* of his balls at the ‘exact right angle’? This seems unlikely. What exactly do you mean by this anyway?
Didn’t think you guys would like to think about that.
You’re the one not thinking about it.
PSA: BABIP is not luck.
We all know .367 is unsustainable AND an outrageous gift to the hitter. No, he didn’t “earn” it any more than Trump earned the money from the companies he bankrupted. Or his stake from daddy.
Both statements are simply false.
No, but you’re allowed to say that. Welcome to America.
You changed your second statement to make it look like I support Trump.
Anyone else seeing the need to ban this troll?
How about not replying to him? Instead, you want him banned.
Similar numbers have been sustainable for Trout and Yelich, just to name a couple. Mookie has reduced his pop-ups, reduced his GBs, increased his LDs and FBs and is generally hitting the ball harder (he has among the highest barrel rates per Statcast) and is among the quickest players in MLB. There is no real luck baked into these figures. While maybe .367 is not his true-talent, it also may not be far from it, if in fact Mookie has found a new level.
You better check what goes into xBABIP (for example here: https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/gettin-shifty-with-it-introducing-the-new-xbabip/). A higher GB% is correlated with a HIGHER BABIP (the coefficient is +.223 in the model in this article). More fly balls is correlated with a LOWER xBABIP (-.428 in the model in this article). Hard% is indeed correlated with a higher xBABIP, but the effect is comparatively weak (+.158). Aside from this, pulling the ball is correlated with a lower xBABIP and Betts’ pull rate has gone up this year. His LD% has gone up and his IFF% has gone down this year, as you said, but with the greater number of flies and pulled balls and the fewer grounders, his BABIP this year should be about the same as his career average (.305 before this year) instead of more than 60 points higher.
You better check what goes into xBABIP. A higher GB% is correlated with a HIGHER BABIP. More fly balls is correlated with a LOWER xBABIP. Hard% is indeed correlated with a higher xBABIP, but the effect is comparatively weak. Aside from this, pulling the ball is correlated with a lower xBABIP and Betts’ pull rate has gone up this year. His LD% has gone up and his IFF% has gone down this year, as you said, but with the greater number of flies and pulled balls and the fewer grounders, his BABIP this year should be about the same as his career average (.305 before this year) instead of more than 60 points higher.
Trout’s career IFFB% is 5.6; Betts’ in 2018 is 9.3%. Trout’s career IFH% is 12.7%; Betts’ in 2018 in 8.9%. Trout’s career Pull% is 40.1%; Betts’ in 2018 in 47.2%. Trout’s career GB% is 38.4%; Betts’ in 2018 is 34.0%. Trout’s career FB% is 39.7%; Betts’ in 2018 is 45.1%. Trout’s career LD% is 21.9%; Betts’ in 2018 is 20.9%. In all of these stats correlated with BABIP, Trout’s career stats are better–usually much better–than Betts’ in terms of supporting a high BABIP. The only statistic according to which Betts’ 2018 is better is Hard% (44.7% vs 38.5%), but this is a statistic which doesn’t show a strong correlation with BABIP. Yelich is the same story as Trout (IFFB% 3.0, Pull% 35.2, GB% 57.7% (!!), FB% 20.0, LD% 22.3–IFH% is only 5.7% but he hits such an enormous number of grounders that his total number of infield hits is higher than Betts’ (3.2% of balls in play for Yelich, 3.0% for Betts’ in 2018). Trout and Yelich both have batted ball profiles supporting a very high BABIP; Betts—in 2018 or any other time in his career for that matter—simply doesn’t.
I see people don’t like the stats but have no argument against them…
I highly doubt that pulling the ball as an RHB in Fenway is bad for your BABIP. I’d be willing to bet it’s the opposite.
Ted Williams and Ichiro Suzuki would laugh at your false claim.
I mean, the mitigating factors that might support your point are the lack of foul territory, the short porch in LF, and the big RF. But Mookie hits so many line-drives in the air. Plus, he is fast and can beat out singles and doubles off the Monster.
So, assuming you thought this far, your “argument” is still weak.
Okay, so it’s amazing what playing in Fenway Park can do for you. In terms of evaluating his actual ability, I’m not seeing the difference. I’ve had this identical argument about various Red Sox players for years. I’ve thought it through pretty well.
“actual ability” LOL. Part of “actual ability” is taking advantage of your home park.
Also, Betts has a 181 wRC+ on the road–better than all but Trout’s *overall* wRC+.
Try doing research before spouting nonsense.
You’re not wrong that he is inevitably helped by the confines of Fenway, but Betts combination of line-drive hitting and speed will always beat the standard .300 BABIP on average. You can check his splits and see the impact of Fenway, though you also have to consider that he has hit noticeably more HRs on the road.
A hitter who hits like Betts has, at Fenway (I watch most Sox games) will be helped a lot in the doubles department, but not so much in the HR department. Deep RF (the pole is much closer but it is nearly impossible to try to hit a HR near the pole), high wall in LF, lots of line drives….
Again, he’s actually below average in terms of LD%.
Somehow on his previous 3 full.seasons in the majors his average babip ix exactly .300
Players improve. I guess that’s not possible in your world.
He may have improved but whatever he’s done isn’t something which would account for having a BABIP more than 60 points higher than the rest of his career (.367 in 2018 vs. .305 in his 3 previous full years). In fact, compared to his career averages he has fewer grounders, more fly balls, fewer infield hits, and more pulls than his career average–all of these are correlated with LOWER BABIP.
Um, actually both Betts’ career LD% (20.8%) and his 2018 LD% (21.2%) are lower than the league average of 21.5%, so there really isn’t any evidence for his ‘line-drive hitting’, let alone that it can explain his BABIP this year. Speed will certainly help, but in 2018 if you’ll look at the 10 hitters with a faster speed rating equal to or greater than Betts’ 6.9, you’ll notice that their average BABIP is .306, which is 61 points lower than Betts’.
You clearly haven’t thought about it all if you see BABIP and automatically assume witchcraft
“Amazing what playing in Fenway Park can do for you”. Betts has a .342 BABIP on the road this year. You didn’t think it through well at all. Womp womp.
Oh, you’ve thought it through? Sorry, didn’t realize that. In that case you must be correct.
I’m not sure how I feel about saying a guy who’s tailor-made for Fenway is over-playing his “actual ability.” There’s a point to be made there, sure, but one could also argue that he’s just playing the game in the best possible manner for the environment in which he plays, which is what every baseball player should be trying to do.
The only ‘evidence’ that Betts’ is tailor-made for Fenway Park is his .367 BABIP this year. But in his other 3 full seasons his BABIP is .305. So supposedly he discovered how to play in a way which is tailor-made for Fenway Park only this year. And (see posts I’ve made here) whatever he discovered, it isn’t reflected in his batted ball data in terms. So there really isn’t any evidence at all. It’s just a guess based on the assumption that it couldn’t possibly be luck, because–well, because people don’t want to believe that it’s luck.
He’s a RHB who pulls a ton of fly balls and hits them hard. That is perfect for Fenway. He is doing all three of those things more this year than in the past. There was a piece on here a few years ago back when the Red Sox signed Hanley and Panda showing how insanely valuable fly balls to left are in Fenway relative to the rest of the league.
Anyway, you keep referring to xBABIP, which is a really crude tool based on bucketing batted balls into what are still pretty big buckets. Though the correlations between those buckets and BABIP at a macro level are true, since the data isn’t very granular when you zoom in on any one player there is a ton of room for error.
Sadtrombone referred you to xWOBA earlier which has Mookie at the very top of the league and is actually based on the hit probability of every single batted ball’s velocity and launch angle. This supports what anybody who has been watching Mookie every day this year can tell you – he is killing the ball.
The problems with the statcast data are that they use two independent variables and because they’re continuous (as opposed to buckets), each data point can only be compared with a tiny number of other data points which god only knows why they produced the results of the deoendent variable which they produced
This is typical of the ‘garbage in, garbage out’ statistical approach to statistics which is the consequence of the assumption that any new type of data should be analyzed for its own sake even if there is no model behind it
I teach for and do research for a research university and i see this kind of thing in articles i review for publication in scientific journals all the time. It’s characteristic of junior researchers who need to publish and get tenure fast and don’t care if theirfindings don’t hold up in 5 years
Of course the bucket approach has problems and i would be the first to say we need a few more buckets. But in terms of fondings which actually hold up over the course of time, a bucket approach is the only one to take, because it hypotheisizes some kind of a model
I’d also like to point out that I doubt anybody here would disagree with saying that Mookie has had good luck this year. Unless your name is Trout, Bonds, or Ruth, ANYBODY who reaches 10 WAR got help from luck. It’s a luck/skill combo and the question is how much of each. You’re talking as though you think it’s 100% luck and that’s what is crazy.
He has clearly made changes to his approach at the plate and they are clearly paying off both at the results level and at the (granular Statcast, not your Fangraphs batted ball numbers) batted ball level. Maybe it’s 50% luck. Maybe 25%. I don’t know. But the skill improvement is not insignificant.
In any case, a .367 BABIP does not explain a .297 ISO.
It isn’t all luvk obviously. He’s onviously a very good player. But this article claims he’s having one of the greatest seadons of anyone ever when he’s clearly benefiiting from a lot of luck which he didn’t have before. And it isn’t obvious that the chamges he’s made have led to a particular improvement
Your post is obvious that sometimes people post things that aren’t real world. Mookie is only “a very good player?” And a lot has to do with luck? If a guy hits 150 pop flys over the wall – it’s mostly luck? IOWs taking advantage of a park is mostly luck?
I did think about it, and then dismissed it in the face of the evidence, which suggests he is crushing the ball.
His Hard% has definitely gone up (44.7%), no question about that. But that’s the only really impressive stat he has this which isn’t largely the result of BABIP luck in terms of crushing the ball, and there are 21 major league players this year with 400 or more PAs who have a higher Hard%, so this doesn’t really suggesting ‘one of the greatest single seasons of all time’. What’s actually most impressive in his stats is the BB-K ratio (13.0%-14.8%), but that isn’t crushing the ball, it’s seeing it.
Good point. Guess the downvoters can’t stand the black and white truth. That’s been my experience.
Honestly?
Do we need this combination of lizard-brain + ignorance here? I like coming here for good analysis. I don’t want to see this place turn into another Yahoo or PFT because of a couple people deciding to dominate the chat with stuff like this.
Just another Russian operative trying to be divisive.
The lizard brains are the ones who pretend to care about analysis but can’t analyyze there way out of a sack when it comes to putting Betts’ season into perspective. The greatest sports season ever by a pipsqueak.
Your “analysis” is that Mookie Betts is short.
I will not sit here and watch you denigrate Paul F Tompkins in this way.
You may agree with me, but I don’t agree with you. I vainly hope that people don’t confuse what I’m saying with what you’re saying.
I have read your comments throughout the comment section and will respond here. I doubt if many members of the Fangraphs community watch more Red Sox baseball than I do and I feel somewhat qualified to speak. Perhaps you should look at Mookie’s 2016 and 2017 BABIP before putting hand to keyboard. 2016 was .322 and in 2017 he had a .268 BABIP which explains, for anyone with an IQ higher than Mookie’s uniform number why he hit .264 last year. If you are here you should know something, at least a wee bit. about reversion to the mean. It appears that both of these past two years can be considered outliers to a great extent. The facts speak more sense than you do.
Obviously this year is an outlier. That’s been my point from the beginning. Are you trying to disagree with me?
Amazing what a .354 BABIP can do for you. Guess Trout has just been lucky his whole career.
Okay, I’ll repeat the data which I gave comparing Trout and Betts 2018 above (someone also referred to Yelich, so I gave data for him too). Trout’s career IFFB% is 5.6; Betts’ in 2018 is 9.3%. Trout’s career IFH% is 12.7%; Betts’ in 2018 in 8.9%. Trout’s career Pull% is 40.1%; Betts’ in 2018 in 47.2%. Trout’s career GB% is 38.4%; Betts’ in 2018 is 34.0%. Trout’s career FB% is 39.7%; Betts’ in 2018 is 45.1%. Trout’s career LD% is 21.9%; Betts’ in 2018 is 20.9%. In all of these stats correlated with BABIP, Trout’s career stats are better–usually much better–than Betts’ 2018 in terms of supporting a high BABIP. The only statistic according to which Betts’ 2018 is better is Hard% (44.7% vs 38.5%), but this is a statistic which doesn’t show a strong correlation with BABIP. Yelich is the same story as Trout (IFFB% 3.0, Pull% 35.2, GB% 57.7% (!!), FB% 20.0, LD% 22.3–IFH% is only 5.7% but he hits such an enormous number of grounders that his total number of infield hits is higher than Betts’ (3.2% of balls in play for Yelich, 3.0% for Betts’ in 2018). Trout and Yelich both have batted ball profiles supporting a very high BABIP; Betts—in 2018 or any other time in his career for that matter—simply doesn’t. Throughout their careers, both Trout and Yelich have had batted data associated with an extremely high BABIP. Betts never has, including in 2018.
2-strike at bats
28% walk rate
excuse me wtf
Yes, that’s fascinating. I recall an article on Fangraphs earlier pointing out that players like Votto/Trout strike out more frequently on called third “strikes” that were actually balls because they are better than the umpires at knowing the strike zone.
I wonder if Mookie has developed a more valuable skill – identifying which balls are close enough to the strike zone they might be erroneously called strikes, thereby avoiding the false third strike call and extending BAs long enough to draw more walks.
Actually I’ve heard that he can simply foretell the future in general. He knows which pitches the umpire is going to call strikes before the pitcher even throws the ball.
For as much as I enjoy watching Altuve, Trout, Lindor, Judge, etc…. Mookie is easily my favorite player to watch in baseball. My favorite thing about him is how 3-4 times a year he will get super aggressive while running the bases and embarrass the defense. Like taking third when no one is covering it after a steal of second. Or scoring from 1st on a single. I have always heard Red Sox players get preferential treatment when it comes to HOF consideration. I assume he just needs 4-5 great seasons and he will be a lock?
He’s definitely on track but the standard is around 60 WAR, and Mookie’s only at 30 now. If you think he’s a 7.5 WAR true-talent guy (almost Trout-like) that’s 4 more years before he’s a lock. If he’s a 6-win player in his prime, that’s 5-6 years of prime/near-prime production. If he’s a 4.5-win guy, it’s his 4-5 remaining prime years plus 4-5 decent years (but if you think he’s really just a 4.5 WAR true talent guy now, I don’t understand you)
In 2016 he had a 9.7 bWAR and he earned 5.4 WAR in 2017 and finished 6th in the MVP voting when he had his only somewhat mediocre year and is at an incredible b10,8 this year. He is already at 35bWAR and he is 25. His all-around game is amazing. He gets lots of acclamation for his defense and base running but it must be seen on an every game basis to realize just how good he is. As Sonny Price said, several times a year he makes base running plays that are reminiscent of Jackie. One comes to mind. Mookie was on 1st in the 1st inning and Benintendi hit a sharp liner directly in front of the left fielder. Now in Fenway nobody goes 1st to 3rd on a sharp single to left but Mookie saw that the 3rd baseman, who had been shifted, was slightly out of position and took off and just beat the throw as the 3rd baseman scrambled back to the bag. A Sac Fly followed and he stole a run. Even Joe Castiglione couldn’t believe it.
Ah, the days of Magglio Ordonez were golden ones indeed.
Mookie is the answer to the Mike Trout MVP yearly debate. Possibly JoRam if he can stop slumping
It’s a little too late for Jose Ramirez, don’t you think?
“JoRam”, man, the days of great nicknames are surely gone.
The crazy thing is that Trout probably played better this year despite how good a season Betts has had. They missed a similar amount of time due to injury (it’s crazy that they both put up about ten fWAR, more than ten bWAR and more than 9 WARP despite missing time due to injury), but Trout also played through injury for about ten days in June or July during which his WAR went down a bit.
Betts therefore absolutely had the better season because those ten or so days did happen and Betts should win the MVP. It’s just crazy that even in a season where Trout misses time due to injury and plays through injury, one needs to have as incredible a season as Betts has had in order to be a tad better.
(Also, Betts has better protection for whatever that is worth)
Mookie deserves MVP this year. This piece also emphasizes the greatness of Mike Trout. He had clearly the highest WAR in 2012 and 2013 and should have won MVP over Cabrera. In 2015 he got beat out by a spectacular 2nd half of a season by Josh Donaldson, even though Trout again had the highest WAR. And this year, the only reason he won’t win another MVP is that another candidate is having a top 50 season of all time. We could/should already be looking at Trout with 5 MVP awards and working on his 6th this year. Mookie Betts, take a bow for this exemplary season!
A reminder that the MVP award isn’t a “highest WAR” award. WAR does not claim perfection at determining the best player with certainty (but it sure helps), and the MVP explicitly is presented as more than a “best overall player” award (nothing wrong with treating it as one if that’s your preference, of course).
I don’t get too caught up with MVP award totals. Just cite the number of top WAR seasons from Trout and that pretty much says it all.
As always, you guys are great at compelling analysis you can’t get anywhere else. Thanks.
The most powerful pipsqueak ever, at a time when height is way up! Nothing suspicious about that. Well, unless if you look at it honestly, which I’ve been finding few people want to do.
If only he could be as a big as Jose Ramirez or Jose Altuve.
Both of whom would be suspects (well, J-Ram is) if they performed like Betts.
Wait, Altuve isn’t a suspect? He hit 24 HR each of the last two seasons. That’s 8-10 fewer than Mookie, but he’s 3 inches shorter.
How many HR is a 5’6” player allowed to hit?
How many HR is a 5’7” player allowed to hit?
How does it scale from 5’6” to 5’9” to 6’1”? Is it linear? Is there a threshold?
Show us your work – and your rigorous *intellectual honesty*.
“J-Ram”, so original.
Perhaps Jose Ramirez, Jose Altuve, Mookie Betts, Ozzie Albies, and every other short guy is taking steroids. It is more likely that guys with elite hit tools have such good plate discipline and bat control that they can hit the snot out of the ball when they get a good pitch, and are fast enough to grind out extra bases.
In the live-ball era, contact ability is magnified.
I think it’s safe to say (seeing how many HRs Betts is hitting this year with him performing this well) that Betts will never hit 50 HRs in a season. I think it’s fair to view that absolute power ceiling as the result of his height. If a bigger guy can hit 50ish HRs, it makes sense that the best of the best shorter guys can hit 25, 30, 35, maybe even 40 HRs.
Above, you claim people are afraid of analysis. Then, you make a circumstantial claim instead of one of substance. Do the math on that!
Yuck.
Betts: 5’9, 180
…
JDM: 6’3, 221
Trout: 6’2, 235
Judge: 6’7, 282
Stanton: 6’6, 245
What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing. The honesty of the viewer is the key.
Who are the real mashers? Well you see it takes a little honesty. 5 footers don’t win high jumps. They just don’t. Not without drugs.
Who else draws similar attention? J-Ram (5’9, 165). He deserves attention, too, like any other outrageous performance outlier, though he’s regressed a bit. Albies was drawing attention but he came back down to shorty earth.
Note: when Ott did his thing at 5’9 he was 2″ taller than average (and he was playing a significantly different game under different conditions). He was TALL. Mookie is an inch BELOW average. He’s SHORT. Like a HS student. I’ll even bet he’s been ribbed for being a little squirt. Not JDM.
What Mookie is doing makes Ott’s performance look pedestrian. I mean, we’re talking cartoon physics, here folks.
I, for one, am not fooled. I can look at the obvious truth, stare it in the face, understand it, and accept it. Can you?
I *think* you are implying some sort of performance enhancement for Betts on the account of… him not being big? Just trying to understand, is he taking PED’s that both make him insanely strong, patient, and with upper echelon hand-eye coordination but also has no visible impact on his body?
That’s exactly what he’s implying. I suspect Midichlorians.
Because there are no PEDs in MLB, I suppose. Only Cano. Oh, Cano did it because it’s high risk? Everyone who does PEDs gets caught? WRONG. Cano did it because it’s LOW risk. Lots of ballplayers are doing it. Still. Duh. So you have to look around for the probables. Like Betts. It’s obvious. And PEDs should be an open subject at a place like Fangraphs. Making it taboo is just dumb.
And here I thought midichlorians resided in the cells of all living things…
Kinda like what it did for Bonds and Ortiz in his 40th year. Yeah. Cause it works. You new?
David Ortiz never got better overall as he got over. At his peak, he had incredible bat speed to go with his physical strength. Then he had an injury that made him drop off big time while he was at the start of his decline. His bat speed was permanently never the same once he returned from injury, but like Carlos Delgado also did late in his career Ortiz responded by locking in his swing a fraction earlier than he used to (costing him a little bit of read of where the pitch was going) in order to be able to get his bat around. After that huge adjustment, he rebounded to being a high-end hitter, and only after he made further adjustments against LHP did his overall numbers become top notch again.
You could find baseball, health, and technique reasons behind Ortiz’s varying stats as his career moved along, if you actually bother to think about it. That doesn’t rule out PEDs in the slightest, but PEDs are not the only explanation.
There is little doubt that being a full time DH for the bulk of his career helped Ortiz age better than most. The lack of daily wear and tear on his body had to have helped him stave off inevitable age related decline.
When I look at Mookie, the first thing I think of is “Wow, he looks just like 40-year-old Barry Bonds and David Ortiz.”
Since I am nothing else if I’m not a glutton for punishment, I did a quick Play Index search looking at players 70 inches (5′ 10″) or shorter, sorted by SLG%. Out of batting title qualifiers, Betts’ season clocks 6th. If you go down to 5′ 9″– 69 inches–Betts slides into 2nd (the four seasons from 5’10” players are 3 Willie Mays seasons and Kevin Mitchell in 1994) .080 behind Hack Wilson’s 1930.
Additional context: there were 502 batting title qualified player-seasons between 1930 and 1940; since 2008, there are 177 in a larger league. It’s pretty clear that between population changes and scouting, MLB selects for taller players at a greater rate.
12 of the 177 shorty-qualified seasons in the last decade featured SLG over 500. They come from only 5 different players (Betts 2, Jose Ramirez 2, Khris Davis 3, Jose Altuve 2, Yoenis Cespedes 3). Jean Segura’s 2016 falls outside the cutoff by 1 point (.499).
I’m not convinced of anything other than these dudes are outliers without a little more evidence, though. There’s an argument to be made that MLB scouts won’t pay attention to guys without the physical attributes unless they have top shelf talent–so the guys who do make it through will tend to be outliers.
Mel Ott wasn’t “tall.” He may have been taller than the average American man, but by MLB standards he was average at best. In 1938, he hit 38 homers, his highest career total. All of the other players who ranked in the top 10 in the NL that season in home runs and Offensive WAR were taller. Several were 5’10”, but several others were 6′ and above. Ernie Lombardo was 6’3″. People look at Mookie Betts and think “short” as both an MLB player and as an American man (which might be unfair really). I have a very hard time believing that anyone would think that Mel Ott was a tall player. His two closest contemporaries, Gehrig and Foxx were both 6′. You say that Betts is like a HS student. Ott debuted in MLB when he was 17 years and one month old.
Also, for what it’s worth, why does average height matter? Met Ott hit 40 at 5’9″. That other guys were 5’7″ doesn’t make him any stronger. That Aaron Judge exists doesn’t make Betts weaker in an absolute sense.
Trout and Judge both have hit 50+ HRs in a season. Betts isn’t ever going to do that. There you go, that’s the difference between 5’9″ and 6’6″+.
I think Trout will probably hit 50 HRs sometime, but the closest he’s ever gotten so far is 41.
It’s hilarious that you can look at Aaron Judge and Mookie Betts and decide that Mookie Betts is the one who must be on PEDs.
JDM: Triple Crown threat AND a credible size for a masher!
I know a guy who does machine learning. I feel like this guy scraped the Fangraphs comment section, did some supervised machine learning on the text, and programmed a bot to say the things that sound the most insane to Fangraphs commenters. And then called it RWinUT.
Well, that *is* more plausible than him actually believing what he’s writing.
JD Martinez’s mom, go home, you’re drunk.
He’s no Triple Crown threat. Not credible size for a mudder.
Just neighing.
If you read this in the voice of a 1920’s carnival barker it makes it a lot better
That’s true of many things! We could do with more of that.
In other words he’s having a fairly normal Mike Trout season.
Mike Trout is amazing, no doubt, but Mookie has, in just 134 games, matched the highest WAR that Trout ever produced. That’s the most remarkable fact of all, I’d say!
More like a peak Mike Trout season.
Indeed, Trout’s awesomeness isn’t so much his ceiling as it is his floor.
Annnnddddd now we’ve gone too far in the other direction. “Mike Trout” is most definitely not Mookie’s floor–that’s a preposterous claim. We can say that this season, Mookie has arguably been better than Trout ever has, but that doesn’t mean that Mookie 1) will recreate this consistently and 2) has significant room to improve, both of which seem to be implied by calling this his floor.
I think he meant that Trout’s exceptional mostly not because he has the capacity to produce a 10 win season, but because he will always produce at a 9 win rate.
“We can say that this season, Mookie has arguably been better than Trout ever has”
In almost the same games, they have almost the same WAR.
1) Thus the word “arguably” and 2) sure, it’s close, but Betts is still ahead in WAR having played fewer games, so if I had to give someone an edge….
On the other hand, I see now that I misunderstood redsoxu571’s post.
The crazy thing is that Trout probably played better this year despite how good a season Betts has had. They missed a similar amount of time due to injury (it’s crazy that they both put up about ten fWAR, more than ten bWAR and more than 9 WARP despite missing time due to injury), but Trout also played through injury for about ten days in June or July during which his WAR went down a bit.
Betts therefore absolutely had the better season because those ten or so days did happen and Betts should win the MVP. It’s just crazy that even in a season where Trout misses time due to injury and plays through injury, one needs to have as incredible a season as Betts has had in order to be a tad better.
(Also, Betts has better protection for whatever that is worth)
Mookie was hurt I think early in the Atl game. – anyways you count those 7-8 games he hit at or under .200 with one extra base hit a hr.
Hard to believe Henry Aaron never had a 10 win season. His reputation as a RF was that he was pretty good; not in Clemente’s class, and Mays in CF was outstanding. Still. Great article.
Hank Aaron’s career was insane though. Between 1957 and and 1971, he had ELEVEN years where he topped 7 fWAR or more. Lower that to 6.8 (he hovered around the 7 win mark a lot) and he had FIFTEEN years like that in between 1956 and 1971. The guy never put up one of those jaw-dropping 10-win seasons like Mays or Trout, but holy cow did he have a lot of seasons where was a true superstar.
Baseball fans can never be reminded too much about how ridiculously good Hank Aaron was. I’m still sad that he is no longer the first name listed alphabetically in the baseball registry, as there was an elegance to that being the case.
He remains first, no?
No, David Aardsma is first alphabetically
Will always be my favorite player. His peers were amazing but he had a long peak and just a ridiculously long productive career. And perhaps most impressive is the way he handled and continues to handle himself off the field. All class.
I was a Giants’ fan when Willie Mays was playing, and I was more in awe of Aaron than Mays even before Aaron passed him in home runs. Mays could do more things on the field but Aaron just had this inexhaustible energy which no one could match (well, I guess Steve Carlton could, but that was later).. I remember a story which went around my school when I was like 10 that Aaron batted cross-handed, with his left hand higher up the barrel, and we all actually believed it. It was a few weeks before the Giants played the Braves on TV and we discovered it wasn’t true, but it shows the extent to which Aaron was perceived as being from another planet or something.
About Aaron batting crosshanded: I always heard he batted like that up until the minor leagues, when he finally had a coach show him the proper way. If true, it would have definitely given him crazy wrist strength.
Aaron WAR from 1955-1971: 6.3, 7.2, 8.0, 7.3, 8.6, 8.0, 9.4, 8.6, 9.1, 6.8, 7.9, 7.8, 8.5, 6.8, 8.1, 5.0, 7.2…holy cow.
When Trout broke out, fangraphs led the way to slowing him down with articles about high fastballs. Time for an article on Mookie’s weakness.
Fangraphs didn’t lead the way. The Royals led the way and Fangraphs reported it.
Fangraphs slowed Trout down?
I don’t think those words mean what you think they mean.
Tyler White?
Tyler White.
I can’t believe it was this far down before anyone said this?!
Batting 378 on GB (league average 243). BABIP has helped. Also he has only started 129 games.
I thought he had a better year in 2016 TBH. Plays in a division with a lot of hitters parks and some pretty poor pitching . I think Trout plays in a more competitive division and tougher parks (23 HR against 500+ teams vs 7 for Betts)
Norm Cash is well remembered in Detroit even if not a HOFer. And a 139 wRC / 54.6 WAR for your career ain’t shabby. Expansion in 1961 probably helped him and a few others that season maybe? BTW, Todd Helton 132 wRC and 55 WAR— they look pretty equal on paper.
The Craig Edwards stirnweiss hoax continues:)
The really interesting question here is whether the writer of this article actually doesn’t realize that Betts is a good-to-very-good player getting enormously lucky with BABIP for one season (see all the arguments I make for this in earlier posts here, which have been downvoted but which no one has even tried to respond to), which would be alarming considering that Fangraphs’ writers are supposed be more statistically sophisticated than that, or he is dumbing down the article to get more readers, which would also be alarming albeit in a different way.
You should just try enjoying baseball instead of trying to tear down a players success for literally no reason. Its more fun.
The reason no one has responded to your arguments is because it’s absurd to think that Fangraphs’ manually-coded batted ball data and one writer’s xBABIP estimator are superior to MLB’s directly-measured Statcast data and xBA estimator.
While MLB/Baseball Savant does not publicize xBABIP estimates, we can derive an estimated xBABIP from xBA. Looking at 2016-18 for Betts, we have the following xBAs (actual BAs in parentheses):
2016: .275 (.318)
2017: .268 (.264)
2018: .321 (.346)
To reach his xBA in these seasons, Betts would need the following hit totals (rounded to the nearest whole number):
2016: 185 / 672 AB
2017: 168 / 628 AB
2018: 165 / 515 AB
We have the following BIP+HR for the same seasons (HR in parentheses):
2016: 554 (31)
2017: 520 (24)
2018: 388 (32)
Subtracting HR from his estimated hit totals by xBA and his actual BIP results in the following non-HR H / non-HR BIP:
2016: 154/523
2017: 144/496
2018: 133/356
This produces the following xBABIP estimates from Statcast:
2016: .294
2017: .290
2018: .374
Let’s put these alongside his actual BABIP from those seasons:
2016: .294, .322
2017: .290, .268
2018: .374, .367
2016-17 appear to be fluctuations around what Betts’ BABIP should have been, given his quality of contact. 2018 suggests Betts has improved his quality of contact.
In other words you have no counterargument at all but prefer to refer to make up other stats to refer to
Something else you could add to this – every ball that hits the wall in Fenway has a 1.000 BABIP and always will.
Maybe no one has tried to respond to those arguments because the article is clearly about Betts’ season being historical in terms of fWAR, and while you present a great deal of batted ball data, you present no argument as to what correlation there is between BABIP and fWAR in a given season While Betts and Trout’s BABIP are .367 and .350 respectively, the rest of the top 5 in terms of fWAR are:
3. Jose Ramirez 8.0 fWAR .254 BABIP
4. Alex Bregman 7.6 fWAR .290 BABIP
5. Francisco Lindor 7.6 fWAR .284 BABIP
then at 6 you have Yelich at 6.9fWAR and a .368 BABIP
Not to mention the BABIP/batted ball talk completely side-steps baserunning and defense (both things Betts excells at). So it just seems like you’re arguing a point the article’s not making.
I agree his stats this year are great. My point is that a very large portion of this is simply luck in terms of where he’s hit the ball
Instead of harping on BABIP in about 100 different comments for this article, why don’t you talk about how lucky Mookie was with his .297 ISO.
Very nice article. One nitpick: I cannot for the life of me see the difference between the two swings you posted.
That Babe Ruth fellow was pretty good, right?
Trout aside, I don’t see how Mays isn’t the best all around player ever. Betts is Mays minus one inch and ten pounds. He appears to be making up for that with application. We’ll see.
I was fortunate enough to see Willie play from 1951-1957 and he will always be the gold standard. What more could he have been expected to do? There are 5 tool players but there are very few 5 tool players in which every tool is an 80. (Trout’s arm is well short of that level.) His 1954 season cannot be matched regardless of what some numbers put on it more than 60 years later might say.
Yo what’s with all the Mookie hate here? Dude is a boss!
A response to “johnforthegiants” and others on BABIP. My conclusion is simple: Betts, Trout, and Ramirez all had elite, historically significant seasons no matter how you slice it. None of them were merely “good to very good”. Here goes:
1. I chose to compare Betts, Trout, and Ramirez because the falloff behind them is steep. I adjusted their hits (1B, 2B, and 3B) so that their BABIP for 2018 matched their career average (note, I slightly overshot their career averages, since their current career averages are affected by 2018).
Betts loses 14 1B, 6 2B and 1 3B –> BABIP = .311
Trout gains 3 1B and 1 2B –> BABIP = .355
Ramirez gains 15 1B, 7 2B and 1 3B –> BABIP = .298
2. I uses average Linear Weights and the 2018 runs/WAR figures on this site. The changes in Offensive Runs and WAR are:
Betts loses 12.6 runs and 1.3 WAR –> New total is 8.9 WAR.
Trout gains 2.2 runs and 0.2 WAR –> New total is 10.0 WAR.
Ramirez gains 13.5 runs and 1.4 WAR –> New total is 9.5 WAR.
So, adjusted for BABIP only, I’d suggest that Trout had the historically ridiculous season, Ramirez had a generationally ridiculous season, and Betts had a decade-range ridiculous season. All of them produced ELITE, ELITE seasons this year.
3. However, if we’re going to adjust for BABIP, the same logic calls for adjusting for playing time. So I took a simple approach – scale all three players to 700 PA. This accounts for injuries as well as team (the Angels cost Trout many PA) and lineup slot.
Betts @ 700 PA = 14% more PA –> WAR/700PA = 10.2
Trout @ 700 PA = 15% more PA –> WAR/700PA = 11.5
Ramirez @ 700 PA = WAR/700PA = 9.5
No surprise, by total production, and on a per game basis Trout laps the field as usual. Betts is 2nd and Ramirez is 3rd. Trout is the most valuable player purely by productivity, and Betts and Ramirez deserve similar consideration by the context crowd. And in all three cases, they would be strong MVP candidates most seasons. Pick a path:
Who’s the MVP?
Go by what actually happened = Betts
Adjust for BABIP = Trout
Adjust for playing time = Trout
Only consider players on playoff teams = Betts or Ramirez