Washington Nationals leftfielder Juan Soto has been getting a lot of ink recently. He\u2019s probably the second-most talked about person in town, after, you know, the guy who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.<\/p>\n
Trump wishes he were having such a year as Juan.<\/p>\n
Of all Soto\u2019s stats, his most incredible number is this\u2026<\/p>\n
Nineteen.<\/p>\n
As in, 19 years old.<\/p>\n
Soto is flirting with and\/or has broken nearly every \u201cteenage\u201d batting record in his year with the Nats. Sure, not every teenage Wunderkind turns into a Hall of Famer, but when you\u2019re passing names like Griffey and Ott you know you\u2019re off to a good start.<\/p>\n
Soto\u2019s teammates describe his maturity, especially his maturity and discipline at the plate, and the numbers bear that out.<\/p>\n
For example, Juan Soto sees an average of 4.18 pitches per plate appearance. Major league average is only 3.91. (If that doesn\u2019t sound like a lot multiply it by six or seven hundred plate appearances a season.) He sees a 2-0 count on 17.1% of his plate appearances, versus 13.7% for the rest of MLB. And swinging strikes? Only 14.2%, compared to 18.2% for everyone else. (Guy doesn\u2019t swing and miss.)<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s where a knowledge of math and numbers helps illuminate some details.<\/p>\n
To the untrained eye, percentages like 14.2 and 18.2 sound close. But remember, 18.2% isn\u2019t four percent more than 14.2, it\u2019s nearly 30 percent\u00a0<\/em>more. Remember Crash Davis\u2019s speech in Field of Dreams<\/em> about \u201cone more hit a week\u201d? One more hit a week gets you from being a .250 hitter to being a .300 hitter? The difference between being a benchwarmer and a Hall of Famer is the difference between getting a hit 25% of the time and doing so 30% of the time. What Crash didn\u2019t explain was that 30 percent is 20 percent more<\/em> than 25 percent.<\/p>\n #mathclassed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Washington Nationals leftfielder Juan Soto has been getting a lot of ink recently. He\u2019s probably the second-most talked about person in town, after, you know, the guy who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump wishes he were having such a … Continue reading