Puig In The Company of Greatness

In the history of MLB there have been only a dozen players with career stats lines of:

• .300 Batting Average
• .400 On Base
• .550 Slugging

Los Angeles Dodgers phenom Yasiel Puig is on this very elite list…

Player            HR   BA  OBP  SLG From
Yasiel  Puig       28 .323 .401 .552 2013
Albert  Pujols    504 .320 .408 .597 2001
Manny  Ramirez    555 .312 .411 .585 1993
Frank  Thomas     521 .301 .419 .555 1990
Larry  Walker     383 .313 .400 .565 1989
Stan  Musial      475 .331 .417 .559 1941
Ted  Williams     521 .344 .482 .634 1939
Hank  Greenberg   331 .313 .412 .605 1930
Jimmie  Foxx      534 .325 .428 .609 1925
Lou  Gehrig       493 .340 .447 .632 1923
Rogers  Hornsby   301 .358 .434 .577 1915
Babe  Ruth        714 .342 .474 .690 1914

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 5/22/2014.

Dodgers v. Cardinals, Not That Close on Paper

The upcoming best of 7-game series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals will decide who goes to the World Series.  Since the stakes are so high It is worth looking at basic fundamental production levels of each team from the 2013 regular season:

Runs Scored: Cardinals – 783, Dodgers – 649

Runs Allowed: Cardinals – 596, Dodgers – 582

Both teams play in slightly pitcher friendly ballparks so we don’t need to adjust the numbers much.  We can say the run prevention skills during the season were nearly identical for each team.

The difference between the clubs is in the lineups.  Mike Matheny‘s Cardinals led the NL with 4.8 runs scored/game.  Don Mattingly‘s squad is a league average offense.

You say “what about since Yasiel Puig joined the Dodgers?”.  It’s true that the Dodgers offense improved significantly since Puig and Hanley Ramirez were inserted into the lineup in early June. LA managed just three and one-half runs per game in the first two months of the season as opposed to four and one-quarter in the final 109 games.

Finally, the Dodgers best offensive month was July.  They scored an even five runs/game in twenty-five contests.  This average is just barely better than the Cardinals’s full season performance.

Simply put the Dodgers pitching is going to have to be superb in order to slow the juggernaut that is the Cardinals lineup.  Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke may have to pull a Randy Johnson/Curt Schilling circa 2001 performance against St. Louis in order for Donnie Baseball to get his ticket punched to the World Series.

Emerging Young Hitters Since the ASG

Eight big league batters have posted a .450 On-Base Percentage since the 2013 all-star game. To little surprise we have Mike Trout, Yasiel Puig and Joey Votto among the elite hitters.

There are more interesting names among the leaders.  Of course this is a small sample size (3 weeks of games), but I want to give Astros, Mets and Cubs fans something to be happy about.

Rk		Tm	G	H	BB	BA	OBP ▾	SLG
1	Mike Trout	Los Angeles	21	26	22	.382	.543	.647
2	Wil Myers	Tampa Bay	16	25	10	.431	.507	.741
3	Jayson Werth	Washington	20	24	12	.393	.500	.705
4	Ike Davis	New York	20	17	17	.327	.493	.538
5	Yasiel Puig	Los Angeles	19	26	13	.356	.472	.575
6	Joey Votto	Cincinnati	20	25	15	.362	.471	.565
7	Welington Castillo	Chicago	17	16	12	.327	.468	.449
8	Robbie Grossman	Houston	11	17	4	.415	.467	.707

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/10/2013.