After just a single month of play in the 2017 Major League Baseball season, we already begin to see familiar faces across leaderboards as numbers begin to stabilize. Of course, Ryan Zimmerman, Eric Thames and Mitch Haniger are all still in the Top-10 in the fWAR department, but there are many names that are already in their expected places.
You don’t even have to go very far to see it, either. In fact, baseball’s two wunderkinds— Bryce Harper and Mike Trout — are No. 1 and No. 2 in 2017 position player fWAR to date. To me, this is funny to see. The fact that the two best baseball players on the planet (let me hyperbolize for a second because many, many others have a good case) are already playing like the two best players on the planet after just a combined 229 plate appearances which tells you something about their abilities. Seeing Harper and Trout sit calmly at the top of this list makes me happy. It makes me feel like we are finally entering an era where the two players who were expected to create dinner table arguments will finally do so. It reminds me of this Sports Illustrated Kids cover (yes, I used to read that) that already made me ponder the question then: who will be the better player? Click here to read more on Beyond The Box Score.
0 Comments
Never known as an offensive force, Yankees second baseman Starlin Castro has done nothing but mash to begin the 2017 season. In 88 plate appearances over 21 games, Castro is hitting a cool .361/.398/.578 with a 177 wRC+, easily the highest mark of his career to date. He already has been worth 0.8 fWAR, which is 72.7 percent of his total from 2016 (1.1).
This is quite a change from Castro’s past production. Before this spurt, Castro’s highest career wRC+ was 117, back in 2014. His highest fWAR total came way back in 2012, and he was only a league-average hitter that year (100 wRC+) but benefitted from excellent defense at the premier infield position. Despite having been in the league since 2010, Castro is still young at 27, and he could be beginning to hit his offensive prime. And it isn’t even just Yankee Stadium’s doing; we know that because of his wRC+ — both park- and league-adjusted — showing that he’s almost 80% better than the league-average hitter at creating runs. Click here to read more on Beyond The Box Score. |