Freddie Freeman won the 2020 NL MVP award. He collected 37 extra base hits, leading the majors. Facing pitches with at least 2500 rpm was not a problem for Freeman in 2020, he posted a .433 batting average.
Darin Ruf didn’t have any MLB appearances between 2017 and 2019. He signed a minor league deal with the Giants in January 2020 and was invited to spring training. He played 40 games in this shortened season and slashed .276/.370/.517. His batting average against high-spin pitches looked pretty good. That might be something worth noticing.
Michael Conforto posted a career high .322 batting average and it’s his first season to finish hitting above .300. Conforto also did pretty well when hitting pitches with at least 2500 rpm.
Look at xwOBA, how great Freddie Freeman is. Freeman’s xwOBA was .560 against pitches with at least 2500 rpm and he’s the only player to have an xwOBA over .500.
Corey Seager won the NLCS MVP and the World Series MVP. During the regular season, he was hitting .307/.358/.585. The quality of his contact against pitches with at least 2500 rpm was really good in 2020 and his xwOBA was .454.
The San Diego Padres are loaded with young stars such as Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jake Cronenworth. Trent Grisham is also worth watching. He can make quality contact when seeing high-spin pitches, posting an xwOBA of .449.
In the top 10, we see AL MVP Jose Abreu, former MVP Mookie Betts and Bryce Harper. Kyle Lewis is also in the top 10 and it will be interesting to see how good this young star will do in a 162-game season.
Meanwhile, there is something that truly surprised me. When I scrolled down, I saw Kris Bryant at the bottom. REALLY? The 2016 MVP Kris Bryant?
2020 has been a really tough year. The 2020 season had been extremely tough for the former MVP. Kris Bryant slashed only .206/.293/.351. Bryant consistently hit between .270 and .300 from 2015 to 2019. Unfortunately, he failed to hit even .250 in 2020.
What happened to Kris Bryant? In 2020, Bryant only had 6 hits when facing pitches that were at least 2500 rpm and his xwOBA was only .114. Meanwhile, his swing and miss rate was 5.5%. Most of these swings and misses came from four-seam fastballs and sliders. To make a comparison, when pitches below at spin rate of 2500 rpm, Bryant’s xwOBA was .337. That really tells us that Bryant had some problems at dealing with these kinds of high-spin pitches. At the beginning, I was just wondering who is good at hitting high-spin pitches. When I saw MVFree, Freddie Freeman, in the top, it was not a surprise. However, when I saw Kris Bryant at the bottom, that really shocked me. In this offseason, Kris Bryant and the Cubs will definitely have a lot of work to do.
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