Contact

I finally got around to reading a story in The Athletic from last month by Mitch Bannon, “The Blue Jays made contact hitting cool again. Can the rest of MLB follow?” According to Bannon, the Jays’ ability to make contact and get hits—that second part is important—is leading other teams to try and do the same. I would hope so. During the regular season, the Jays struck out the second fewest times in baseball while leading the majors in on-base percentage; at the same time, they were tied for eleventh in homeruns. The Yankees may dig the long ball, to the point of leading all of baseball in that department, but they lost to Toronto in the ALDS. So, there’s that. Baseball being baseball, people want to have their cake, or homeruns, and eat it, too, meaning plenty of contact. Baseball being baseball, teams will want to stock their lineups with as many Aaron Judge clones as they can find while going light on anyone like Ozzie Guillen or Luis Arraez, who struck out a mere 21 times in 675 plate appearances this season. Yet Arraez only managed a .327 on-base percentage to go with 61 RBIs and 66 runs scored. Not the kind of production you want at first base. Second base, where Arraez used to play, Yes, but his defense there is nothing to write home about. Any manager or general manager who has a player with near identical BA and OBP will check the power numbers. Arraez had eight on the season. That’s why he’s still a free agent. Vlad Guerrero Jr., on the other hand, had 23 homers to go with a .381 OBP, which is why he got himself a huge contract back in April—fourteen years, $500 million. Like I said, cake and eat it, too.