Who Is the Most Average Hitter within the League?

When I’m not watching or writing about baseball, I prefer to play video games. Board video games, card video games, video video games — I’m not choosy, I’m a fan of all of them. I like them for a lot of causes: they assist me hold my thoughts sharp, I like selecting aside puzzles and attempting to enhance my very own thought processes, they usually’re simply enjoyable. One ancillary profit: I find yourself hanging out with lots of people who’re youthful than me.

At 37, I’m a card-carrying previous within the gaming neighborhood. I can’t sustain with the children in video video games — my hand-eye coordination gained’t cooperate — however in different arenas, I give nearly as good as I get. It’s satisfying to butt heads with individuals a lot youthful than me, and I believe it helps to broaden my horizons. Also: I get to be taught some great slang. This is a long-winded intro that hasn’t been a lot about baseball, however there’s a slang payoff: “kids” as of late prefer to name all the pieces “mid,” and I adore it.

Mid means kind of what you assume it means: common or below-average. It’s broadly relevant, pejorative with out being overly harsh, and conveys that means shortly and effectively. I’m a mid slang explainer, for instance; not my fault, I’m too previous to be higher. But listening to one among my performs described as mid — a play I assumed was completely common — bought me questioning: who’s essentially the most mid hitter in baseball?

Here’s how I’m desirous about it: this man goes to be precisely common in as many issues as you possibly can think about. Really, it’s essentially the most common participant in baseball, however I couldn’t resist speaking about myself somewhat bit up on the high, and studying new slang is enjoyable anyway. Now, to the duty at hand: what does essentially the most common hitter in all of the land appear to be?

You’d assume this might be simple; in any case, wRC+ helpfully turns all of hitting into one statistic and facilities common at 100. But a fast take a look at a few of the guys round 100 is sufficient to see that this gained’t be good as a sole standards. Steven Kwan has a 101 wRC+, and he’s fairly clearly not an “average” participant; he has far beneath common energy but additionally by no means strikes out. I’m on the lookout for somebody who’s common throughout the board along with being common total.

To give you this, I first tried a quite simple take a look at: utilizing our plus stats leaderboard, I regarded for the participant whose batting common, on-base proportion, and slugging proportion deviated the least from league common. In different phrases, I wished to search out the participant who regarded nearly precisely like a mean participant. That gave me 5 candidates:

These guys all have actually boring batting strains. It’s only a truth. But the factors nonetheless aren’t ok. Davis strikes out practically 30% of the time and makes up for it by hitting for energy. Ruiz barely ever strikes out, however he additionally walks much less and has a low BABIP. They can’t each be common by the definition I’m going for, as a result of they appear nothing like one another.

Okay, then, time to fold in additional statistics. I began including plus stats left and proper: BB%+, Okay%+, ISO+, BABIP+, even wRC+ for good measure. Then I regarded for essentially the most common gamers, measured by minimal complete deviation from 100s throughout the board, by this extra exacting standards:

Now these are some common hitters. The solely factor India does at a clip that diverges from common by even 10% is strike out, and even then, he strikes out 20% of the time, so it feels fairly middling. Rizzo and Renfroe are common at all the pieces apart from energy (in reverse methods). Suzuki and Correa stroll quite a bit and do all the pieces else at a traditional price. They’re all inside three factors of a 100 wRC+, as well. This looks like a really strong listing to me.

I believe the right reply to this query is India. But I made a decision to go somewhat additional down the rabbit gap as a result of I used to be having enjoyable slicing numbers up. India is decidedly not common in his habits on the plate; he’s a affected person hitter, one thing you possibly can inform after watching him for only some at-bats. What in regards to the hitter who makes essentially the most common swing choices and makes contact a mean quantity of the time whereas doing so? That looks like one other manner that you may be utterly middling on the plate.

To do that, I turned O-Swing%, Z-Swing%, O-Contact%, and Z-Contact% into plus stats. Then I utilized the identical technique to these 4 numbers and regarded for the bottom deviation from common. It makes for an attention-grabbing listing:

That’s one other strong group. Varsho is spectacularly common throughout the board there, and Machado isn’t far behind. The drawback right here: Machado, for instance, hits the snot out of the ball when he connects, so this listing doesn’t fairly really feel proper. As it seems, “makes normal decisions at the plate” doesn’t really feel significantly vital to me once I’m desirous about essentially the most cookie-cutter hitters. I care extra about what occurs with strikeouts and walks, and likewise what occurs after the ball is in play. So I plus-ized the Statcast leaderboards on our website to get an thought of whose contact is essentially the most common. More particularly, I did it to barrel price and hard-hit price; the “plus” idea works fairly effectively with charges and never very effectively with complete numbers.

This chart isn’t fairly as busy, however all of those guys appear extraordinarily common. I went to 10 gamers for an apparent purpose:

Ah sure, our previous good friend Jonathan India. He could be barely extra affected person than the typical hitter, however that’s the one factor he’s doing in another way. He hits for common energy. He has common persistence and strikes out a mean quantity. He even hits for common common. I’ve seen sufficient. He’s essentially the most common hitter there’s. Congratulations.