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Ten statistics and facts about the 2020 season

The 2020 season is officially in the books.  It can be argued that the season was a disappointment for the Yankees, seeing as they failed to repeat as AL East Champions and could potentially be bounced out of the first round in the playoffs.  Right now though, at least they are going into the postseason at full strength offensively and  anything can happen during October baseball.  Since 2020 in general has been unusual, both in baseball and in real life, here are 10 statistics and facts about the 2020 season to hold you over until Bieber vs. Cole match-up tonight.

  1. The Kings of Walking

This year marks the first time the Yankees have led the league in total walks since 2011.  The team totaled 251 and walked 11.4%, just edging out the Reds (11.3%) in terms of percentages.  Looking back a few years, I expected to see the Yankees higher up on the charts at the end of every season in this category, but I was surprised to find that they only finished in the top five in walks in eight of the last eleven seasons going back to 2010 (2010 to 2012, 2015, and 2017 to 2020).  There is something each of those seasons have in common though.  They were all playoff seasons.  In conclusion, OBP over AVG!

 2. The other New York team

Speaking of batting average, the New York Mets led the league in that category, buoyed by Michael Conforto, Robinson Cano, Dominic Smith, and Jeff McNeil who hit .322, .316, .316, and .311 respectively.  They even had a decent OBP to go with their league-leading batting average.  Alas, this didn’t account for much at the year as the Mets failed to reach the postseason in 2020.  Keep your head up if you support the team from Queens though.  They just sold their team so that’s a thing I guess.

3. The “mythical” .300 hitter

2020 saw the first hitter to ever win the batting title in both leagues.  DJ LeMahieu won the AL batting title four years after he won it in the NL playing for the Colorado Rockies.  He finished 2020 hitting .364, marking the first time baseball had a hitter with a .350+ average since Josh Hamilton accomplished the feat in 2010.  In fact, there were two .350+ hitters this year:  Juan Soto of the Washington Nationals also hit .351.  Man, that kid is a stud.  The batting average stats don’t stop with those two though.  23 hitters hit .300 or better this season, marking the first time at least 20 players hit over .300 since 2017.  Five hitters hit .330 or better this year, the most since 2016.  It’s a shame we didn’t get to see a player flirt with .400, even in a 60 game season, but it’s still cool we got a handful of guys who averaged a hit every three at bats.4. WAR…what is it good for?

4. According to Fangraphs, your 2020 WAR leader is Jose Ramirez, followed by Freddie Freeman (3.3 WAR) and Shane Bieber (3.0 WAR).  If we extrapolate out Ramirez’s 3.4 WAR this year over a 162 game season, he would have had 9.5 WAR.  That total would be the third highest WAR in a single season since 2015 behind only Mookie Betts and Mike Trout’s 2018 totals of 10.4 WAR and 9.7 WAR.  In fact, extrapolating out the top ten performers in terms of WAR over a 162 game pace, 2020 would have had five players clear 8.5 WAR.  That would be the most 8.5+ WAR players since 2015, when there were four (Harper, Trout, Donaldson, Kershaw).

5. Becoming a Belieber

Shane Bieber joined the historical elite of pitching this season by winning the Triple Crown.  Bieber not only led the AL in strikeouts, ERA, and wins, but also led all starters in K/9 (14.2), LOB% (91.1%), FIP (2.07), WAR (3.0), and WPA (3.05).  No matter how you look at it, Bieber was out of his mind this year.  He is going to win the AL Cy Young and I’m really interested to see who doesn’t vote for him.  Oh, and the likely 2020 AL Cy Young winner will pitch against the Yankees…tonight.

6. Bullpen Overload

Coming into the 2020 season, some of us thought that bullpens would be utilized more due to the abnormal schedule and as a result, the numbers for relievers would suffer.  The number to look at is 4.44.  That’s the ERA for relievers league-wide in 2020.  It’s actually slightly lower than the bullpen ERA for 2019 (4.46).  Since the phrase “Super Bullpen” started to be used frequently during broadcasts in 2015, we have seen an upward trend in bullpen ERA.  Here are the bullpen ERAs from 2015 to 2020:

  • 71 in 2015
  • 93 in 2016
  • 15 in 2017
  • 08 in 2018
  • 46 in 2019
  • 44 in 2020

Even though the bullpen ERA was slightly lower in 2020, it will be interesting to see if the trend continues and we see bullpen ERAs continue to balloon across baseball.

7. The 2019 MVPs….and regression

All of the top three finishers for both leagues MVP races in 2019 had some form of regression in 2020.  Some had it worse than others though. Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon still had relatively great seasons this year but here are the stats the other MVP top finishers:

Name

Year

Team

G

PA

H

2B

3B

HR

R

RBI

SB

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS

Alex Bregman

2019

Astros

156

690

164

37

2

41

122

112

5

0.296

0.423

0.592

1.015

Alex Bregman

2020

Astros

162

694

143

46

4

23

73

85

0

0.242

0.350

0.451

0.801

Name

Year

Team

G

PA

H

2B

3B

HR

R

RBI

SB

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS

Anthony Rendon

2019

Nationals

146

646

174

44

3

34

117

126

5

0.319

0.412

0.598

1.010

Anthony Rendon

2020

Angels

162

723

168

34

3

28

90

97

0

0.286

0.418

0.497

0.915

Name

Year

Team

G

PA

H

2B

3B

HR

R

RBI

SB

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS

Christian Yelich

2019

Brewers

130

580

161

29

3

44

100

97

30

0.329

0.429

0.671

1.100

Christian Yelich

2020

Brewers

162

690

115

20

3

34

109

61

11

0.205

0.356

0.430

0.786

Name

Year

Team

G

PA

H

2B

3B

HR

R

RBI

SB

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS

Cody Bellinger

2019

Dodgers

156

660

170

34

3

47

121

115

15

0.305

0.406

0.629

1.035

Cody Bellinger

2020

Dodgers

162

703

148

29

0

35

95

87

17

0.239

0.333

0.455

0.789

Name

Year

Team

G

PA

H

2B

3B

HR

R

RBI

SB

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS

Marcus Semien

2019

Athletics

162

747

187

43

7

33

123

92

10

0.285

0.369

0.522

0.892

Marcus Semien

2020

Athletics

162

721

144

28

3

21

86

70

12

0.223

0.305

0.374

0.679

Name

Year

Team

G

PA

H

2B

3B

HR

R

RBI

SB

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS

Mike Trout

2019

Angels

134

600

137

27

2

45

110

104

11

0.291

0.438

0.645

1.083

Mike Trout

2020

Angels

162

737

171

28

6

52

125

141

3

0.281

0.390

0.603

0.993

 

Bregman, Bellinger, Semien, and Yelich all fell off substantially.  Semien failed to build of his breakout year in 2019 and couldn’t even crack a .700 OPS.  Bregman had a decent year but still lost over 200 points off his OPS, hit below .250, and didn’t steal a single base.  Cody Bellinger had a similar drop off to Bregman, but the real disaster for 2020 is step back that Christian Yelich took.  After narrowly missing out on the NL Batting Triple Crown in 2019, Yelich barley managed to hit over .200 in 2020.  The rest of his advanced stats suggest it may have been some bad BABIP luck and an extended cold streak since his power numbers and on base numbers looked pretty good even if there was regression.  Either way, I’m going to see which Christian Yelich decides to show up in 2021.

8. Division titles don’t come cheap.  Or do they?

Two of the most famous penny-pinching teams in baseball one their divisions for the first time in a long time.  The Tampa Bay Rays won the AL East for the first time since 2010, and the Oakland Athletics won the AL West for the first time since 2013.  Both of these teams have never tried to hide their budget issues and honestly it looks like they took advantage of a 60 game season where randomness has a bit more bite.  Both teams took advantage of some slow starts and long losing streaks by the preseason picks to win the division (Yankees and Astros) and pulled out a division title in the COVID-shortened season.  Now all I can picture is Billy Beane laughing until he gets bounced from the playoffs by the Yankees again.

9. Speaking of division winners…

2020 is going to be the second season in a row where the defending World Series champions failed to reach the postseason.  The 2020 Nationals (like the 2019 Red Sox) aren’t going on a Cinderella run to a title this year and you can understand why.  They lost Anthony Rendon to free agency, had a multitude of issues in the bullpen, and lost Stephen Strasburg for most of the year on top having sub-par seasons from Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin.  Hopefully they can get some more talent to surround Juan Soto with because, I have to say it again, the kid is a stud.

10. Which division is the roughest to weather?

Each year there is always a debate on which division is the toughest.  Ten years ago it was the AL East.  Five years ago it was the NL Central.  This year that debate has flip, turned upside, down (hah Fresh Prince reference).  The best division by total record (the NL West at 160-140) only had two playoffs teams (the Dodgers with the best record in baseball and the Padres) while the division with the second worst total record (the NL Central at 143-155) had four playoff teams (the Cubs, Cardinals, Reds, and Brewers).  I think the NL Central was better than the total record says though since the worst team in baseball, the Pittsburgh Pirates at 19-41, calls that division home.  I guess the debate will rage on when we get back to a regular 162 game season.

There you have it.  Ten statistics and facts for this weird baseball season that just concluded.  Postseason baseball is here and the regular season doesn’t really mean anything now.  Let’s focus on getting number 28 in the books and in 2021 we can have a regular, 162 season with an All-Star game and a normal postseason please.