Juan Soto's "bad start"

The Nats have a couple hitters lighting things up in Yadi Hernandez and Josh Bell.  The talk recently has been of Manny Machado MVP.  And if you kept your ear to the ground you probably picked up some Arenado (4th in OPS) and Aaron Judge (9th - coming off a "bet on myself" contract passing) chatter. But little about Juan Soto. He must be doing not great right? 

Juan Soto is currently 13th in the MLB in OPS+. *

That's few spots ahead of Vladdy Jr and few spots behind Judge. It's better now than Yadi Hernandez. The short of that is he is still one of the best hitters in baseball and has hit like it so far. Yes, a lot if it is wrapped up in walks. He has 23 now to lead baseball, 4 ahead of 2nd place Matt Olson**. But I think we're just so used to him being incredible that merely high All-Star level can seem like a disappointment. 

It doesn't help that he hasn't driven anyone in. He has only 7 RBI.  How odd is that?  The next worst hitter with that few RBIs is Yandy Diaz with the Rays (.301 / .440 / .425) but you can see his value is all walks (16) and singles (only 5 XBH). Then K'Bryan Hayes (same - no homers!) then Myles Straw. At that point you are at a guy with no homers and is hitting .271.  That's not comparable.

If you follow Dougherty on Twitter he's said many times it's NOT because of a lack of chances and he's right. He may not have a ton of them but he's certainly had enough to drive in more runs.  The problem is he hasn't hit well with RISP. I'm understating.  He's hitting HORRENDOUSLY .095 / .174 / .095.  If you can read that line you can see it's not about walks either. With a man on first he hits a lot better but it's all singles - a .474 batting average but only one XBH. Is it an oddity of small sample size or an effect of pitchers pitching around him and Soto wanting to do something? Probably a mix of both. But if it continues the Nats would actually be better served by Soto taking those walks instead of forcing things. 

Of course this tells you how great he's doing with no one on when pitchers will sometimes throw to him. A .268 average is meh - but a .453 OBP and a .661 SLUG (nearly .400 pts above his BA is crazy) are not. That's HoF type numbers. 

As of today, Juan Soto hasn't had a bad start, or even a "bad for him" start. He's had a great start. He remains one of the best hitters in baseball*** and Nats fans are lucky to have him for however long he's here. 

Some other baseball hitting numbers and sundries

The leader in GIDP?  Josh Bell. Tied with him? Maikel Franco. Yes the Nats lead the majors in GIDP.  The Nats actually have a very good average  (3rd in majors), they are average in walks which means their OBP is good. But they have no homer power (5th from last). Only Bell joins Soto with more than 2 (and only 2 guys have 2 - Franco and Cruz)

The best two hitters in baseball as of today are Taylor Ward and yes Mike Trout (and he's playing very good CF defense still! He is better than Soto taking everything in - but as we all have said by now - it's much like saying Willie Mays is better than Ted Williams). Ward won't keep that up but Ohtani is ok. Rendon is hitting again - though needs to get that average up.Walsh is a solid 1B bat. Marsh looks like he can hang in the majors. Stassi is good for a C. WIth Syndergaard pitching well, Lorenzen is fine. Sandoval looks fine... They can keep this up? Trout in the playoffs?!

JP Crawford is finally breaking out. Ok it's just a month but it's been great. 363 with 4 homers, 6 doubles and a triple and 13 walks.  But to be fair to Philly it took three additional years of patience to get him to here. That is a very long development time that a team trying to win usually can't do. 

Is Jazz Chisolm this kind of hitter? (.324, 4 homers, 5 doubles, 3 triples, 6 SB). Maybe. In the minors the problem was more average than homers with a ton of Ks (well into 30%s in K rate) early on. He doesn't have to be a contact guy, just keep K-rate under like 25% and he's a superstar. 

Rowdy Tellez always should have hit with this power. Now he is and Milwaukee has a guy to help them win this division. 

Rizzo won't hit 45 homers (I don't think) but having him, a healthy LeMahieu and yes Kiner-Falefa has helped transform the Yankees lineup with their low K rates. 

Franmil Reyes (CLE) strikes out so much (44% K rate)

*These things are still pretty variable - before yesterday he was 20th. But all I say will hold through even a bad series. 

**5 ahead of Anthony Santander.  The kid had 23 ALL of last year in 110 games! Talk about a change in approach. 

*** Defensively... he's one of the best hitters in baseball.  Look I've told you this for a while - he's going to age out of OF sooner rather than later in his career. He's been pretty bad this year but it's WAY too early to read into that. But suffice to say there's nothing here to say he's getting better from his current status as "ok for a RF" which for an athletic 23 year old is disappointing. But also he hits like he does so it's very very mildly disappointing.