Author: Mark Leonardi (markleonardi2023@u.northwestern.edu)

There’s no way around it: the 2020 MLB season was unique in a way that we will hopefully never see again. Sure it gave us a glimpse into the future with a designated hitter in the National League and an expanded playoff, but a 60 game season is just simply not enough for those of us who love the marathon that is an MLB season, nor enough of a sample to validate the statistics produced this season. For every breakout star to emerge this season like Mike Yasztremski (.297/.400/.568) or Teoscar Hernandez (.289/.340/.579), there was a dimming star somewhere else. Perennial MVP candidate Christian Yelich, who had surpassed a .320 average and 1.000 OPS each of the past two seasons, finished the season hitting at a .205 clip and a .786 OPS. Just as we know Yelich will likely return to an elite level of play next season, history also tells us that many of the players that enjoyed a career-best 60 game stretch this year will fall back to earth in 2021. Let’s travel back to June 7, 2017 when the Red Sox called up a certain player who would proceed to slash .390/.433/.642 over 136 plate appearances , good for a 1.075 OPS (third-best in the league min. 100 PA) and a 2.1 WAR over the team’s next 60 games. No, that was not all-stars Mookie Betts, Rafael Devers or Xander Bogaerts, that was journeyman Sandy Leon. If a pandemic had struck at some point in August of 2016, Leon likely would have been the most unexpected MVP finalist of all time; instead he has been arguably the worst hitter in the league the last four seasons with a .194 average and a .569 OPS. 

Methodology

We will attempt to avoid choosing the next Sandy Leon as a breakout pick by using Statcast data from Baseball Savant and underlying statistics from FanGraphs for this exercise. For hitters, the Statcast data we will focus on is average exit velocity and hard hit percentage (how hard the batter hits the ball) and whiff percentage (how often they make contact), while on Fangraphs we will look at K% and walk%. Let’s get into it:

Will Smith, C, Los Angeles Dodgers

2020: .289 AVG / .401 OBP / .579 SLG, 164 OPS+, 137 PA, 37 G

Do the Dodgers need another young superstar? No. Nonetheless, they have one. Granted he only played in 37 games, Will Smith’s incredible season flew under the radar. The former first-round pick out of Louisville was a Statcast superstar this season, finishing over the 80th percentile in every Statcast batting metric. His most impressive marks were his low whiff rate (95th percentile) and his 47.3% hard hit rate (88 percentile). Three players in the MLB last season had a hard hit percentage over 45% and a whiff rate under 19.5%: DJ Lemahieu (45.7% hard hit, 11.2% whiff), Mike Trout (55.1%, 19.5%) and Will Smith (47.3%, 15.5%). Not bad company for a player in his sophomore season, especially at catcher. If a 37 game sample is not enough for you to buy into Smith, just look back to the .907 OPS he posted his rookie year, giving him the highest OPS and WRC+ in the league over the past two seasons among catchers. Look for Smith to entrench himself in the discussion for best catcher in the league next season and work his way into the MVP discussion at some point over the next 5 years.

Yandy Diaz, INF, Tampa Bay Rays

2020: .307 AVG / .428 OBP / .386 SLG, 131 OPS+, 138 PA, 34 G

Going into his age-29 season, Diaz may just be what he is at this point: a frustratingly above-average hitter. While the Rays certainly will not complain about a 131 OPS+ (31% better than the average MLB hitter) from a player they swapped Jake Bauers, a failed first base prospect, for, Diaz is just oozing with potential if he can fix one part of his game. Sitting in the 96th percentile of BB% and 95th percentile for whiff rate, he was just one of 8 players in the league last season with a walk rate higher than his strikeout rate (Juan Soto, Bryce Harper, Freddie Freeman, and Anthony Rendon being among the others). Diaz should be forcing himself into the all-star conversation with those kinds of numbers. What makes Diaz so frustrating is his league-worst -7.9º average launch angle, the lowest in a season and one of just 6 players to average a negative launch angle since Statcast began tracking the stat in 2015. It is not as if Diaz can only make weak contact on the ground; he pounded the ball at an average exit velocity of 91.7 MPH in 2019, which ranked in the top 10% of the league. Diaz’s combination of hard, consistent contact and an incredible eye should make him one of the game’s best players and the Rays know this. If Diaz can make an adjustment to start hitting the ball in the air, the Rays could be headed back to the World Series.

Luis Torrens, C, Seattle Mariners

2020: .257 AVG / .325 OBP / .371 SLG, 96 OPS+, 78 PA, 25 G

Torrens is only 24 years old, but has already been in three organizations in his short career. A former top prospect in the Yankees system, Torrens was unprotected in the 2017 Rule 5 Draft after posting a .687 OPS in A-ball as a 20 year old and was promptly scooped up by GM A.J. Preller of the San Diego Padres. Torrens was stashed on the MLB roster in 2017 in an effort to keep him in the organization, posting an abysmal 22 OPS+ when he had no business being in the majors. Torrens spent 2018 and 2019 in the minors, showing promise in 2019 when he slashed .300/.373/.500 with 15 home runs in 97 games at Double-A. Torrens only started to receive regular playing time when he was shipped to Seattle in the Austin Nola deal midway through the abbreviated 2020 season. In 18 games as the Mariners catcher, he hit .254 with a .696 OPS: nothing too special. However, he ranked 10th in the MLB in average exit velocity last season (93.0) and was just one of two players to be in the top 20 of average exit velocity while also striking out less than 20% of the time. The other player was Corey Seager, postseason hero and MVP favorite for a good portion of the season. With consistent playing time, Torrens could enjoy a fruitful campaign in his first season as the Mariners’ catcher.

All stats used via FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Baseball Savant