Juan Soto Won’t Be the 2020 NL MVP, but His 2020 Performance Deserves More Attention

major league baseball in 2020 hasn't exactly been normal expanded playoffs cardboard fans a 60 game season jacob degrom throwing a 95 miles per hour slider it's all been pretty hectic i mean just look at this pitch how does a pitcher throw above the league average velocity for a fastball with an off speed pitch like i said this season has been hectic another aspect of 2020 baseball that has boggled my mind are the award races when mike trout isn't the clear front runner for the almvp you know something is wrong okay maybe not wrong per se but just look at the front runners for the almvp race jose abreu shane bieber and jose ramirez i'm not faulting them they all had fantastic seasons but i couldn't have predicted going into the season that these three players would be the front runners however i want to take a look at the nl mvp race there's a plethora of players to choose from but the player that will most likely win is freddy freeman and i say deservedly so freeman played all 60 games he was the best player on a team that won the nl east and either led the league or was near the top of the league in many key offensive stats but then you notice the stats that freeman doesn't lead the league in are led by someone else and that player is juan soto the nationals weren't quite as successful as the braves which has likely overshadowed soto's season performance but make no mistake juan soto is legit and he will win an mvp one day foolish baseball already made a video discussing soto's elite hitting skills but that was back in 2019 it's a whole different year a much different year and soto has somehow outdone himself i won't spend too much time on his rise to the big leagues but some context is always nice signed by the nationals in 2015 during international free agency sota wasn't exactly considered an elite prospect as he ranked 22nd in mlb's top 30 international prospects list as well as 13th by baseball america he was one of the most polished hitters in the 2015 group and he wasted no time making a name for himself in the minor leagues in 2016 at the age of 17 sota made his professional debut in rookie league and was the gulf coast league mvp over the next couple of years soto would be on the fast track through the minor leagues going through three levels of minor league baseball in the span of two seasons then after eight games in double-a soto would be called up to the nationals making his debut on may 20th 2018 at age 19. since the beginning of the integration era which was around in 1947 soto is the only player in an age 19 season to have an obp over 400 and ops over 900 through 494 plate appearances which is how many plate appearances soto had in his age 19 season if we move the parameters all the way back to 1871 the only other player that touches this list is mel ott in 1928 who had a similar ops but still had an obp under 400. in 2019 soto showed what he can do in a near full season he essentially replicated his 2018 season but on a scale of 150 games he was among the league leaders in many offensive categories notably an on base percentage ops and walk percentage also he was a key contributor in the nationals 2019 playoff run winning the babe ruth award along with steven strasburg which is an award given to the player with the best post season performance while a lot of his stats were more or less the same when you compare a 116 game season to a 150 game season soto did make significant improvements to his game he doubled his launch angle and raised his exit velocity barrel percentage and hard hit percentage the sophomore season for any player can be a tough one as the pitchers adjust to the hitter's strengths but soto's approach at the plate allowed him to maintain his high walk percentage and league average strikeout percentage while developing his bat-to-ball skills and 2020 was no different well actually that is a lie so much about soto's 2020 season was different there's nothing i can do to prepare you for soto's 2020 stats i just have to show you a wrc plus of 200 and an ops plus of 212. offensively he was twice as effective as the league average hitter why are we not celebrating these numbers these numbers should be put on a billboard that hangs right over nationals park right next to the howie kendrick statue now before i get ahead of myself yes 60 games is a small sample size and soto's sample size is even smaller as he played only 47 games due to a particular situation but let's just take a look at how historic these numbers are if we look throughout the entirety of mlb history there have been 28 instances where a player has finished a season with an ops plus of at least 212. however 20 of these instances were between the years of 1871 and 1957. after 1957 it took until 1994 for another player to put up a season of this caliber there were actually two players frank thomas and jeff bagwell since then mark maguire accomplished the feat during his 70 home run season in 1998 and barry bonds hit the mark four times between the years of 2001 and 2004. of course there may have been some outside influence but the feat is still very impressive and soto accomplished these feats for the first time since bonds in 2004 but of course he only played 47 games and not only did he not play in a standard 162 game season he didn't even play the full 60 game season and while soto played like an mvp in the shortened season there have been many occasions throughout mlb history where a player has performed on the level of soto and a shortened span and not just a 47 game span but a 60 game span fan graphs has a tool where they show some of the best and worst 60 game hitting spans since 1974. now you can see that there are quite a few results on this page meaning many of them are bad hitting streaks which is no use to us however if we sort the leaderboard by wrc plus we see that since 1974 there have been 103 instances where a player has recorded at least a 200 wrc plus in the middle of a season soto doesn't appear on this list even though he qualifies to be on it i'm assuming that fan graphs is waiting until the end of the season to add to 2020 performances but that still doesn't change the fact that soto's feat is not entirely uncommon through a 162 game season so that brings us to this question would soto have maintained this pace throughout a 162 game season most likely not given that no one has done it since barry bonds in the early 2000s i think a good rule of thumb is if mike trout hasn't done it yet it's very unlikely anyone else will but in 2020's 60 game landscape soto is not only above the qualified amount of plate appearances to compete in award races but according to the stats it seems like he approached hitting in a different way let me explain take a look at his average launch angles since 2018 he was hitting a lot of ground balls in his rookie year but he made some adjustments in 2019 resulting in more fly balls but something changed in 2020 his average launch angle was lower than ever the ideal launch angle starts around 15 degrees for line drives and that goes as high as 35 degrees for home runs so the optimal launch angle for both extra bass hits and home runs is around 25 degrees with a launch angle of 4.3 degrees that's a recipe for routine ground balls but while his ground ball percentage did raise significantly he continued to maintain his elite average and ops he also continued to hit for power as shown with his slugging percentage and home runs so how did he do this well you could say he was just lucky but i would disagree here is a collection of stats that include babip hard hit percentage barrel percentage and expected weighted on base average throughout the league soto had the 15th highest babip out of 142 qualified players in 2020. when you compare soto's career babbitt and his 2020 babip it's understandable to question whether his level of production on balls in play is sustainable especially because he's only played 313 career games however the other stats i've listed show that he's made adjustments to become a more efficient hitter the improved hard hit percentage and barrel percentage coupled with his increasing on base percentage shows that soto has developed a very mature approach to the strike zone considering he's only 21 throughout his young career soto's clear favorite pitch has been the fastball in 2019 he started to recognize off speed pitches but not breaking pitches in 2020 soto was able to recognize all three categories of pitches while it's important to note that soto's expected batting averages on off speed and braking pitches were lower than his actual batting averages soto has shown clear progression in regards to plate discipline notably soto's first pitch swing percentage was much lower than previous years and he lowered his chase percentage but interestingly his zone swing percentage was lower while his zone contact percentage was higher this signifies to me that soto is more selective when it comes to swinging he may be looking for pitches in a particular area of the strike zone rather than particular pitches like a fastball i believe the heat maps confirm this as it seems that soto is swinging at more balls towards the outer half of the plate the heat maps may not be completely different from one another but there is a slight noticeable progression since 2018 however maybe it's easier to visualize if soto tells you himself you're very you're very selective at the plate and you're attributing to your approach right you look for the pitch you want and you're disciplined with it correct yeah that's that's that's what i'm thinking always look for one spot if they're missing that spot i can kill it yeah you gotta i gotta kill it also you have to take a look at where he is hitting the ball we've clarified that he is hitting more ground balls but he is also hitting more line drives this stems from the fact that he has significantly decreased his pull percentage and increased his straight percentage while keeping his opposite field percentage consistent so i'd say i've clarified that soto has elite plate discipline but there's one other thing that's still messing with me soto was more successful than ever in 2020 but why did his average launch angle get so low it would seem counterproductive to make that adjustment well take a look at this graph this shows that soto's median launch angle is pretty similar to 2019 in 2020 his median launch angle was around 7 degrees the difference between median and average is that the median is the middle value in a list of numbers which can be a better representation of central tendency rather than average where you just add up all the numbers and divide by the amount of numbers so you could expect soto's normal launch angle in 2020 to be around 7 degrees granted this is still pretty low and is a major difference compared to his 14 degree median in 2019 so while soto may not continue on this barry bonds like hitting streak throughout a full season it's important to note his 2020 progression turning into one of the most disciplined and efficient hitters in baseball a lot will have to go right in order for soto to maintain his 2020 production on a full season scale i can't stress how unlikely that would be but if there is anyone not named mike trout that could reach the 200 wrc plus and ops plus club it's juan soto he missed 22 percent of the 2020 regular season so soda will likely not win the mvp but if there is anything i've learned through the making of this video it's that soto has a real shot at becoming the best hitter in baseball and i truly believe that so in the words of foolish baseball i'll leave you with this hey juan soto why don't you make any sense and why aren't we talking about you more i hope you guys enjoyed the video leave a like if you did subscribe if you want to stick around thanks for watching [Music] [Music] you

Channel: SportStorm

Views: 38,584

Keywords: sportstorm, baseball, mlb, juan soto, mlb juan soto, juan soto mvp, juan soto nl mvp, juan soto 2020, soto mvp, 2020 nl mvp, 2020 mlb mvp, juan soto future mvp, juan soto all star, juan soto 2020 performance, juan soto home runs, mlb 2020 awards, washington nationals, juan soto nationals, mlb awards

Id: 5UeJ8FbYhR0

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020