Biggest wish of this season was DeGrom staying healthy. Would have been insane to see if he could have kept his numbers through the year and where it would it rank all time.
it’s because he does it every year that it makes it not special. but if someone else put up those numbers they would be insta MVP. he’s truly on his way to being the GOAT
@@adrnaline There are Season MVPs and World Series MVPs. I think that in order to be the GOAT a player need to won both, at any point of his carrer. He (Trout) would be the Stats GOAT for sure.
@@leonardoorozco318 That's exactly it. The greats that everybody thinks of are great because they won a lot of WS on top of their stats. Trout's teams can't even consistently make the playoffs, which is the big reason why he doesn't get more mainstream recognition like Jeter or Ruth. He will likely have to leave the Angels for a better set up organization to change that narrative.
@@raimarulightning yeah, but in order to change that narrative he'll need to be successful with that postseason team, till then I'll be on the list of those that don't think he's the GOAT.
Rendon said his hip injury was a problem all year but it took them a while to figure it out, hopefully he’ll be 100% next year because he’s really fun to watch
Never met Anthony, but I’ve known his dad Rene for about 30 years.. Rene is probably the best overall pool player in Houston.. Just short of champion status.. Super nice guy too.. Never break ugly Anthony into the pool hall, which was very smart, indeed..
@@the_deli_llama1630 salvy was actually outside the top 75 in WAR. He hits for power, but his offensive game as a whole is not as good as that indicates (.316 OBP, .302 career; 127 wRC+ is only 5th among catchers with 300 PA.) He’s also a terrible framer, so he has negative fangraphs defensive value even while playing a premium position
You’re right about Will Smith having had a great year. He really was gettin jiggy with it in the wild wild west this season. I wasn’t a believer a at the start of the year but around Independence day when the dodgers were going to Miami I was very impressed with his performance.....Men in Black
Definitely some notable names missing from the list but it's hard to predict when players will break out as there's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos and that'll be a home run. And so that'll make it a 4-0 ballgame.
as a former (bad) collegiate baseball player, i really appreciate how you stay respectful to players regardless of their statistics. thank you for being a #classact bailey!
Bailey, as a borderline depressed Pirates fan please throw me this one bone: what range are we looking at for Bryan Reynolds next year? He's a shoe-in for top 50. But is he top 25? Just outside the top 10? He was 10th in fWar for hitters, wOBA and WRC+. If he played for any of the decent organizations in the league I really think he'd be seen on a similar level as guys like Judge, but because of his more modest HR numbers he's flying under the radar for casual fans
Reynolds is a beast, he's absolutely one of the best outfielders in the league despite general fans not caring about him or his team. As long as he doesn't regress to his weird 2020-level, he should be a no-doubt top-50 guy (I like him more in the top-25).
as someone whose fantasy team got carried by Reynolds, I can confirm this man needs some love. however, he’s not top 15 any way you slice it. I’d be hesitant to say he’ll break the top 35
No way to have predicted it (I think...?), but Brandon Crawford's season was absurd and came out of seemingly nowhere. Managed to be top 15 in wRC+ and get back to being one of the best defensive shortstops (5th in OAA for ss). Super curious to see where you rank him next year. Can he keep this up?
@@10dimes27 he slugged the crap out of the ball this year but he had a pretty poor OBP and walk percentage, as he enters the back part of his career and loses his power ability he's gonna be hurt big time by his lack of plate discipline
i think pete alonso also showed that he could be a top 50 player, i mean, he basically repeated his 2019 without juiced balls. he also improved his defense and strikeout rate, he’s shown he can improve parts of his game that were seen as huge weaknesses.
Love your content, watched the full 90 mins. Not meant has a brutal critisism: I’d have loved if you’d talked about Vladdy a bit more. I know his season would have been hard to anticipate but it felt like a black hole. I’d want your perspective of “anticipating the breakout”. Does Franco project for the top 50 next year, etc.
It's surprising to me that Trout doesn't steal anymore. He still has a top 30 Sprint Speed in baseball and always got excellent jumps. I believe he could still steal 20 in ~25 attempts if he tried.
I have your W/L/D against MLBN at 20/11/19 with any rank you had within 2 of MLBN as a draw. No doubt a very nice year for you, but if you account for payroll you blew them out of the water.
what are your thoughts on Jake Cronenworth going forward? He essentially put up the exact same hitting numbers as he did in 2020 with solid infield defense over 152 games for 4.4 fWAR on the year. Would you put him in the top 50 going into next year?
Goldy and Nolan had some weird years. Goldy got off to a slow start, as he always does, and then he just went bonkers in the second half. Nolan was weird, because he felt completely invisible, but then his name always showed up in the box score. What a weird player
True. As a Cards fan, I was kinda frustrated with that at the end of May, and what was funny is that Goldy was average but due for a big time stretch when you looked at batted ball data and Nolan a bit of the opposite.
Sticky stuff ban definitely shook up where a lot of these guys ended up, it's crazy how different April and May were this year compared to the rest of the year league-wide
The funniest part of that top 50 video is that your main argument for ranking Trevor Story at 16 was that he is always a consistent above average hitter that never changes then he went out and played like a below average hitter
I'll never expect Bregman to go off again. His WOBA will probably always be really high, but apart from that his bbSavant and BABIP think he's a much more average player than the 2nd place MVP vote would lead on. For example, in 2019 he had a .261 xBA with a .296 BA. I don't always trust baseball savant, mostly because of players like Bregman who seem to always over perform their numbers. However, over performing at the rate that Bregman was in 2019 is just way too difficult to sustain.
@@EldritchAugur I think a lot of that has to with him recovering from shoulder surgery, and it’s evident with how much he struggled with fastballs this year.
@@stephenevans6961 I'm sure it had something to do with it but he had a 45 OPS+ in 95 games. That's basically never happened before. It's Chris Davis levels of production.
@@EldritchAugur yea it was obviously a horrible year. I think a major difference between those two is age. Davis was already past his prime, whereas Bellinger should be approaching it, physically. I’m just saying I won’t be surprised at all if he breaks out again in 2022
A thing to remember about Betts is that he struggled with a hip injury all year (and is getting surgery to fix it) and he still put up a WAR over 4. I think we could be seeing a great season next year.
Just looking at Anthony Rendon, I’d still put Jose Ramirez above him but I’m very optimistic about him going into next year. Yeah he hit badly in general when he was healthy but I think that he was one of those hitters most hurt by the combination of the deadened ball and sticky stuff. If you look at his numbers post crackdown (June 21-July 4) he slashed .282/.429/.538 good enough for a .967 OPS. Obviously it’s a small sample size, but to me that indicates that he’s primed for a comeback as long as the balls and foreign substances stay the same as they were when he went down
I think Kyle tucker will receive mvp votes next year, and while he's not well know out of Houston I'd hope to see him on these list in the upcoming years.
I find it interesting that you chose to omit the impact of the sticky substance crackdown because to me, that was the biggest factor in why some pitchers fell short of projections and the same goes for hitters who only really played in the first half
You can’t predict injury, but I saw Degrom’s issues coming. The human body isn’t meant to sustain the stress of throwing 101-102 over 7-8 innings of work
I remember thinking the same thing about Syndergaard a few years back. Damn he was fun to watch while it lasted, but the human body just isn't designed to handle 150+ innings a year of 99 mph sinkers and 95 mph sliders.
@@griffinhays2053 Even at those velocities, his body would have started breaking down sooner rather than later. In the history of Baseball, it seems only Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson could consistently bring 96+ mph fastballs for 200+ innings a year without their arms falling off.
as a dodger fan, its so weird to analyse belli's season. We know that he was recovering from shoulder surgery and we saw so so many fly balls die at the warning track when if he was at full strength they might have gone out. Add that to his broken leg and it's just a bizarre season. do i think he's an mvp? no not really. the juiced ball really helped him, but this season was really, really, bizarre..
Glad to see people are realizing Trout needs to also be rated on availability with his injury history. He’s amazing when he plays but he’s starting to really show he’s injury prone.
I think Ohtani is excusable. He only showed occasional great performance during his first year, then he struggled with injuries all the way until this year. As someone who took notice of him before his debut due to his unique disposition, I don't think anyone could have imagine Ohtani to have such consistent performance throughout 2021. When he started the year well, I was still managing my expectation. Once he started to hit 20 HRs, only then was it clear that this would be a good season for Ohtani. I think his pitching still need some works, and he gets struck out quite a lot, but his performance was really remarkable, I would even argue beyond everyone expectation, maybe even his own. Hopefully, he can maintain this level of performance for the next 5 years at least. With him in the league, it gives the hope that anything is still possible in professional sport.
As a tortured Mets fan, I would love to see a deeper dive on why Mcneil, Conforto, and Lindor were ALL MISSES. Idk if there are any interesting storylines in the numbers on why the Met's hitters performed as they did. ( Besides the sudden complete inability to hit a fastball)
I think he was just reading off the fWAR leaderboards at the end and he started at the middle of the first page so he had already passed Guerrero and didn't get to Bichette.
Does Vlad Jr. fall into the Mullins category with a breakout season, or does he fall into the Othani category where we know what his ceiling could be if he were (and did) reach it? Great video, keep up the good work!
I know this is a very late reply, but considering that Vlad Jr. was maybe the highest rated hitting prospect ever he'd probably be more in the Ohtani bracket than the Cedric Mullins one.
If MLB Network was smart, they would give Foolish a job and allow him free reign to run his show the way he wants. I never thought I’d find statistical analysis so fun to watch
I think it's fair to mention Rendon and his motivation because this was a topic even when he was a young superstar. I remember when he was really starting to break out he mentioned he doesn't even like baseball. I think he called it boring if I remember correctly.
A bit late, but I checked for the sake of it: .465 is the second highest full-season OBP since Bonds' .609, trailing only Chipper Jones' .470 2008 campaign
Bailey, to go off what you said where if a guy has a ceiling of the best player in baseball for a given year (I’d agree top 5 in this case), I’m curious as to your thoughts on Buxton. With his power/speed/defense combo, I like to believe he is that discussion, but the obvious question is will he play. Would be interesting to know your opinions on him going forward into this next season
I agree. Jose Ramirez, in spite of MVP votes, is criminally underrated. To me using 2020 to make any meaningful judgments is tough. Maybe somebody can help me remember a player with a steeper two season decline from a former MVP that has been able to recover. I mean Bellinger's line was brutal with all his rate stats going in the wrong direction. [Edit} Soto is to Ted Williams as everyone else is to, well, not Ted Williams.
Salvy is so incredibly awful defensively, and doesn’t get on base, and age will take away that pure pop. He had a top 50 season, but he likely never will again. Vlad is top 10 though
@@coreywilson7530 evidently he's just not a good defender. On Savant, his sprint speed is 96th percentile but his outfielder jump was 8th percentile last year. He's fast but I guess he just makes poor reads in the outfield.
For the first 2-3 months, Arenado was actually average/below-average defender. His positive value was accumulated largely over the second half of the season.
My List from before the season Top 50 Position Players 1 Mike Trout (good) 2 Mookie Betts (high) 3 Aaron Judge (ok) 4 Juan Soto (low) 5 Christian Yelich (oof) 6 Cody Bellinger (oof) 7 Ronald Acuna (low) 8 Alex Bregman (high) 9 Anthony Rendon (high) 10 Jose Ramirez (low) 11 Freddie Freeman (ok) 12 George Springer (ok) 13 Trevor Story (high) 14 Matt Chapman (oof) 15 Bryce Harper (low) 16 Fernando Tatis (low) 17 Francisco Lindor (high) 18 Nolan Arenado (high) 19 Yasmani Grandal (a tad low) 20 JT Realmuto (high) 21 Xander Bogaerts (high) 22 Corey Seager (good) 23 Carlos Correa (low) 24 DJ LeMahieu (way too high) 25 Yordan Alvarez (good) 26 Matt Olson (low) 27 Justin Turner (a tad high) 28 Trea Turner (low) 29 Anthony Rizzo (oof) 30 Max Muncy (low) 31 Jeff McNeil (high) 32 Ketel Marte (good) 33 Paul Goldschmidt (low) 34 Nelson Cruz (high) 35 Michael Conforto (oof) 36 Josh Donaldson (high) 37 JD Martinez (high) 38 Manny Machado (low) 39 Michael Brantley (fine) 40 Joey Gallo (fine) 41 Javier Baez (high) 42 Mark Canha (high) 43 Brandon Nimmo (fine) 44 Tim Anderson (fine) 45 Andrelton Simmons (oof) 46 Marcell Ozuna (oof) 47 Pete Alonso (fine) 48 Luke Voit (oof) 49 Will Smith (low) 50 Christian Vazquez (my biggest miss)
because of the way that they're built, Bellinger and Yelich utilize their whole body to succeed. So, I think the main reason they underperformed this season is because of injuries inhibiting their ability to put their whole body into it.
I get how everyone still hypes up Bellinger before every season I do. But I feel he should get more of the Lindor treatment. Both great defenders that have sucked at the plate for 2+ years and people are just hoping they go back to hitting great. But idk with Belli. His MVP season was rly an insane first half with an average above 400 and a terrible second half with an average below 200. I get both their celings I do. But neither should sniff the top 20 right now
Well first of all I just want to start off with saying that Bellingers second half was still amazing in 2019. He did not bat below .200. Put it this way, his second half in 2019 was better than ohtanis second half this year (hitting wise) but nobody really talks about that. Second of all, I think the difference between lindor and belli is that Mets fans are pissed off at lindor bc of how much money he’s making while belli I believe made 16 million this past year. Third of all, the difference between lindor and belli too is that yes lindor is still a super star when he’s at his best but belli is miles upon miles better than lindor when even both are at their best.
@@jackiestreak2237 also OPS’d in the mid high 800s, he walked a ton and had a lot of XBHs in 2019. 2020 was a mystery but 2021 he played injured. He picked it up in late September and the postseason
Rendon's season is similar to his 2015 season, coming off a 6win season he got hurt and produced maybe 1 war when healthy. In 2016 and 2017 he started really cold in his first 100-200 PA's, I think he'll bounce back next season, his approach is too good not too.
Do you think Yordan having a full season under his belt with his new knees(surgery on both in 2020) could lead to an even further 2022 showing? He's stated he wants to play in the field as well. Wondering if he uses the offseason to get to a point where his fielding improves enough to start him somewhere. How would that change his future oulook?
Do you think Salvador Perez should be top 50 next year? 48 homers is hard to really compare to other catchers, but his defense and framing are significant detractors as well. I think he should make it, and warranted a mention at the end, personally.
incoming reds fan bias: castellanos and winker probably shouldve gotten a mention in 30-50 range, with upwards career trends. votto obviously was pretty tough to predict, but it could be seen in his 2020 statcast #s post-adjustment. cheers
Bellinger was one of the Dodgers best bats in the playoffs. He showed in 2021 he was capable of elite production when it mattered, for as bad has his regular season was. Hopes for him (and him specifically, I'm a Giants fan so I always hope for them to stink lol) would be more of October Bellinger and less of April Bellinger
