Amazing that he is doing all this at the age of 22. He is on track for great career. Already has a WS under his belt and is the centerpiece of the Nats.

Soto is on track to the best position player in Washington MLB history, eclipsing Sam Rice, if he signs an extension with the Nationals.

An unusual thing about Soto relative to his recent historically great slugger comps is that he's a pretty heavy GB hitter. His career G/F ratio is 1 and he's been comfortably above that the last two years. Bonds and Frank Thomas had G/F ratios around 0.5. I thought "maybe somebody like Bagwell" but nope, he was at 0.62; Sheffield 0.66. Albert & Miggy were well below 1. Among recent guys who walk as much as they K, early Chipper is the only guy I've found with a G/F ratio around 1. Soto's still just a kid of course so, like Chipper, he might become more FB-focused later. (FB in this context including LD.)

Anyway, the walks and GBs have kept his HR rate at a good but not great 5%. His HR/FB also is "just" very good, not great in this era, and that's not likely affected by being pitched around. In terms of overall numbers, Thomas might be the better comp than Bonds right now. But once we bring age into it, we have no good modern comps -- not sure we have anybody other than Sheffield and Harper to even compare him to. Sheffield was not very good at these ages (possibly in part because he was trying to play his way out of Milw) and Harper Ks too much (relative to Soto) although both have had great age-22 seasons.

I've edited down the quote at the top because the extended version was messing up the Newsstand page format. Carry on.

Votto had a .535 OBP in the second half of 2015 as well.

In 1941, Ted Williams' OBP after the ASB was .583. Oh, and he slugged .790 He waled 92 times, and struck out 18.

In 1941, Ted Williams' OBP after the ASB was .583. Oh, and he slugged .790. He walked 92 times, and struck out 18.
(not sure why I cannot delete or edit #6 above...)

I thought it was a list of who had OBP of over .500 in the 2nd half rather than over .535, because I would have guessed George Brett did in 1990 when he hit .390. Seeing that he was under .300 for most of the first part of the year he was way over .400 batting in the second half and would have had to walk a lot to reach .500, looks like he had .064 non-hitting OBP for the year.

For high-walk, low-strikeout, great hitters who didn't have high FB rates, Brian Giles fits the parameters but started too late to have a truly great career.

For high-walk, low-strikeout, great hitters who didn't have high FB rates

Alas Giles had a 0.60 career G/F ratio, including his younger years, so he doesn't fit either.

G/F of 1 or higher and power probably isn't unheard of -- Clemente certainly had a high GO/AO -- but finding a guy like that who also walks a lot is stumping me. If we adjust power for era, Yaz might have done it -- his GO/AO is 1.16 ... but Soto's is 1.54 so Yaz might not be that GB-heavy.

Wow, prime Joe Morgan made only half his outs on the ground. That's the same as McGwire in his prime. Clearly Joe should have been hitting the ball on the ground more to take advantage of his speed in those yearrs. :-)

I opened up Giles' page and everything to post that. Not sure how I misread it so badly.

Okay, now I see - I was looking at "advanced batting" (which I guess doesn't include liners in its ratio?), which had him at 1.19 career, rather than "ratio batting."

Ryan Braun had some GB/FB ratios around 1.0, more in his weaker years, though, and I didn't realize how infrequently he walked.

G/F of 1 or higher and power probably isn't unheard of -- Clemente certainly had a high GO/AO -- but finding a guy like that who also walks a lot is stumping me

I thought of Ferris Fain. GO/AO of 1.14, SO/W of 0.29, averaged well over 100 walks a year. Now, one might not consider Ferris Fain a great hitter, but when he was briefly winning batting titles he was very good, at least. Also a very long time ago and a different style of play, some guys walked a lot in those years.

#11 ... yeah I wondered if you'd gotten suckered in by that. :-) I've pointed out to b-r that they are defining G/F differently on the two pages and that the one in the "advanced batting" table uses a non-traditional measure. It's a shame we have to dig a page deeper to get the "correct" number.

Holy crap -- they just fixed it. As in like between when we posted and now when I just checked. I pointed it out to them months ago and have commented on it a few times here with nothing happening ... you mention it once and get results! I'm well jel. :-)

So Giles' G/F now correctly shows as 0.60 in "advanced batting."

BDC ... but Fain had no power. I'm looking for high(-ish) average, walks and power from a GB-heavy hitter. For BA, walks and GBs we don't have to go farther than some Wade Boggs seasons. Soto is (kinda) Boggs with 500-HR power.

Deleted

Sorry, Walt, my reading comprehension is declining by the day :-D

How about Bob Elliott, then, among Fain's contemporaries? 1.14 GO/AO on his career, decent power, always walked more than he struck out and sometimes a lot more.

Though the totals are misleading. Early on in Pittsburgh, Elliott hit a lot of ground balls and not many home runs. Later with Boston he hit 20 HR a year, walked a lot as always, but had consistently more AO than GO. He had two half-careers with different styles of hitting.

Roy Cullenbine, another walking man of that era, was similar. When he finally started to hit some HRs late in his career, he also started to record more GO than AO.

Soto 2nd half: 86 BB to 38 K.

Holy crap -- they just fixed it. As in like between when we posted and now when I just checked. I pointed it out to them months ago and have commented on it a few times here with nothing happening ... you mention it once and get results! I'm well jel. :-)

But still no progress on my multiple requests to have Jeter's WAR dropped into the low 40s.

He wasn't a huge power hitter or a huge walker, but Bernie Williams averaged 75 unintentional walks and 22 homers per 162 games with a .94 GB/FB ratio. Even in some of his better seasons he was hitting more grounders than fly balls.

It's a weak field, but who else? Soto is #1 in National League WAR. #2 is Tatis, who won't win for obvious reasons. #3 is Trea Turner, who won't win either - the Dodgers were good before and after acquiring him. Then it's a cast of thousands.

Wheeler has more WAR than any position player in the NL according to Fangraphs and BB-Ref. He probably has no chance at winning the award, but he should be in the conversation. And Corbin Burnes actually leads in fWAR because his FIP is so good, but no way is a starter with only 163 IP winning the MVP. He’s pretty far behind in bWAR, too. I would argue his value is somewhere in the middle, but closer to the bWAR number.

An unusual thing about Soto relative to his recent historically great slugger comps is that he's a pretty heavy GB hitter. His career G/F ratio is 1 and he's been comfortably above that the last two years.

Possibly for that reason, he led the National League this season in GIDPs with 23.

It's a weak field, but who else? Soto is #1 in National League WAR. #2 is Tatis, who won't win for obvious reasons. #3 is Trea Turner, who won't win either - the Dodgers were good before and after acquiring him. Then it's a cast of thousands.

This is one of those years where the Fangraphs WAR shows a different race. Turner, Harper, Soto, and Tatis are tightly grouped #1-4 in that order, and then there's a step down to Bryan Reynolds.

I'd vote for Soto but Harper also had an incredible second half (1188 OPS) and was just about the only Phillie to hit down the stretch. The biggest difference between bWAR and fWAR is that bWAR doesn't like Harper's defense, while fWAR gives it a slightly positive rating. If Harper had somehow carried the Phillies into the postseason, I might give him the nod. But they ultimately came up well short.

Zack Wheeler
leader in IP, KO, CG, ShO... and bb-ref WAR over the position players above
nice 2.78 ERA

No real close pennant races in the NL to give extra credit to. Giants won yesterday and that win lets them avoid game 163 against the Dodgers, and potentially getting eliminated by the Cards if they lost it.

The guy who did the most to win that game was Logan Webb. He went 7 innings, allowed 4 runs which is not great. But he had 2 hits, one a homer, and scored 3 times. So give him the MVP for clutch performance in the pennant race. Or not, and just give it to Soto for what he did over the season.

Webb gave up 4 runs only because of the weird decision to bring him out for the 8th. Had they gone to the bullpen he would have given up just 1.

I’m not a strong advocate for Wheeler (or Burnes, Woodruff, or Buehler) but it’s weird to me that people here completely leave pitchers out of the discussion. I guess the issue is that similar to the hitters, there’s not necessarily a consensus choice amongst pitchers, either.

It really is wide open this year, and could give us a dark horse candidate like when Ivan Rodriguez won.

Harper 32 more total bases while Soto has 45 more walks which seems about =. Harper has a 45 point edge in OPS. Same defensive position