Looking for Excellence in an 82 Game Season
According to recent reports, MLB owners have come up with a proposal to play the 2020 season. Should this come to fruition, an 82 game season would begin in July, with teams playing in their home stadiums (with local and state government approval). There would be a universal DH and 14 playoff teams.
There are many variables involved in order to make this happen, and the rumored proposal from MLB owners is rife with complications. At FanGraphs, Craig Edwards does an excellent job of explaining the situation based on recent history in a post with a title that says it all, “After Years of Profits, MLB Owners ask Players to Subsidize Potential Losses.”
Here at OTBB, we wonder why we the owners at all.
In addition to the financial ramifications, there’s the health aspect of playing baseball during a global pandemic, even an 82 game season. Washington Nationals’ relief pitcher Sean Doolittle created a long Twitter thread pointing out the health risks that everyone involved would be taking, from the players on the field to their loved ones at home to the team support staff to the stadium workers should games be played in 2020. Doolittle is a thoughtful, intelligent player who makes many valid points that can’t be easily disregarded.
Should there be an 82 game season that begins in July, it wouldn’t be difficult to play 82 games over three months. Looking back to last year, the halfway point of the season was around June 30 for most teams. That meant about 80 games were played in July, August, and September, so it should be feasible to do the same this year.
Interesting things can happen in a shortened, 82 game season. Back in April, I wrote about how the standings would have changed had previous seasons been limited to 60, 80, or 100 games. A smaller sample of games makes it more likely that some surprise teams make the playoffs because it’s easier to sustain good fortune over 80 games than 162.
Later in April, I wrote about the best performances at each position for players who were limited to 90 games in a season. This list including some very good players who had long productive careers—guys like Tim Raines, David Ortiz, Mark McGwire, and Bill Madlock—along with some surprise guys like Yan Gomes, Hubie Brooks, and Jose De Leon.
I’m doing something similar with this post, but rather than include players who were limited to 90 games or fewer in full seasons, the players included here were pulled from the last two strike-shortened seasons, 1981 and 1994. In 1981, teams averaged around 107 games, with a range of games played between 103 and 111. In 1994, teams averaged 114 games, with a low of 112 and a high of 117.
On an individual player basis, there were some incredible performances in these shortened seasons, which was at least in part due to a smaller sample size of games. It’s easier for a player to put up monster numbers over 80 or 100 or 110 games than over a full 162.
With that in mind, I looked at the top performances in 1981 and 1994 and made a guess at which players in 2020 might replicate them. This isn’t mean to be a rigorous analysis. It’s mainly just a fun exercise while we wait to see if baseball is played in 2020.
To find potential matches, I used two advanced metrics and the ages and position of the players involved. For hitters, I used wRC+ (from FanGraphs), which credits a hitter for the value of each outcome and adjusts for park effects and run environment, so that 100 is league average. For example, a 120 wRC+ means a player created 20% more runs than an average hitter would have in the same number of plate appearances. This metric can be used to compare hitters in different seasons with different run environments. You can think of this scale:
160 wRC+ is Excellent
140 wRC+ is Great
115 wRC+ is Above Average
100 wRC+ is Average
80 wRC+ is Below Average
75 wRC+ is Poor
60 wRC+ is Awful
For pitchers, I used ERA+ (defined here at MLB.com), which I pulled from Baseball-Reference. Like wRC+, ERA+ is adjusted for league and ballpark. A pitcher with a 150 ERA+ is 50 better than MLB average.
So let’s take a look back (and a look forward). Here are some players who had elite shortened seasons in 1981 or 1994 and the active player I think is most likely to follow suit.
1994 1B Jeff Bagwell, 205 wRC+ (career 149 wRC+), age 26 season
110 G, 479 PA, 104 R, 39 HR, 116 RBI, 15 SB, .367/.451/.750
1994 1B Frank Thomas, 205 wRC+ (career 154 wRC+), age 26 season
113 G, 517 PA, 106 R, 38 HR, 101 RBI, 2 SB, .353/.487/.729
The strike-shortened 1994 season was the absolute peak for both Bagwell and Thomas, who were famously born on the same day and same year back in 1968. With a little more than two-thirds of the season in the books, Bagwell and Thomas were on pace for around 55 homers each. This put them just behind Ken Griffey, Jr., with 40 homers, and Matt Williams, with 43. Bagwell and The Big Hurt were also looking at potential 150-RBI seasons and both had the best wRC+ of their careers, more than 50 points higher than their career marks.
My Bagwell/Thomas Pick at 1B for 2020 is Cody Bellinger (career 140 wRC+, 24 years old).
Bellinger doesn’t quite have the same career wRC+ as Bagwell or Thomas, but he’s still the best pick among first baseman based on his age advantage over the other contenders. Plus, he won’t need to produce a 200 wRC+ for as many games as Bagwell and Thomas. Should the MLB season be cut down to 80 games, we can look back at last year when Bellinger hit .353/.450/.702, which gave him a 190 wRC+ through the Dodgers first 80 games.
1981 3B Mike Schmidt, 198 wRC+ (career 147 wRC+), age 31 season
102 G, 434 PA, 78 R, 31 HR, 91 RBI, 12 SB, .316/.435/.644
Like Bagwell and Thomas, Schmidt had the best wRC+ of his career in a shortened season. His home run pace was typical Schmidt, but where he really excelled was in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage (leading the league in OBP and SLG). Part of it was a .318 Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP). His career BABIP was .280. This excellent season earned Schmidt his second straight NL MVP Award.
My Schmidt Pick at 3B for 2020 is Kris Bryant (career 139 wRC+, 28 years old).
Kris Bryant was the shiny new toy at third base back in 2016. That year, he hit 39 homers in his second major league season and sealed the Cubs’ first world championship since 1908 with a throw across the diamond to his buddy, Anthony Rizzo. Since then, it seems like he’s been a bit lost among a group of impressive third base talent that includes Alex Bregman, Anthony Rendon, Nolan Arenado, and a resurgent Josh Donaldson. He’s still very good, though, and could bust out in a half-season’s worth of play for a Schmidt-like 1981 season in 2020.
1981 2B Bobby Grich, 167 wRC+ (career 129 wRC+), age 32 season
100 G, 404 PA, 56 R, 22 HR, 61 RBI, 2 SB, .304/.378/.543
In 1981, Grich was heading into his tenth full season and had been quite productive despite not getting the recognition at the time that he would get if he were active today. Much of his value came from defense and on-base percentage, which was masked by batting averages generally in the .260 range. In 1981, he hit over .300 for the first time, had a .378 OBP, tied for the league lead in homers, and led the league in slugging percentage. His 167 wRC+ was 38 points higher than his career mark.
My Grich pick at 2B for 2020 is José Altuve (career 127 wRC+, 30 years old)
Altuve is heading into his ninth full season, even if this time full means and 82 game season. Given his age, career wRC+, and extra time to rest and heal after last season’s injury-shortened year, he’s the best pick to have a 1981 Grich-like season in 2020. He already had a 160 wRC+ in his AL MVP year in 2017, so another season slightly better than that would put him in the company of Grich. With the shortened season, he only needs to keep it up for 80 games, rather than the 153 games he played in 2017.
1994 CF Ken Griffey, Jr., 163 wRC+ (career 131 wRC+), age 24 season
111 G, 493 PA, 94 R, 40 HR, 90 RBI, 11 SB, .323/.402/.674
This 1994 season wasn’t really an outlier for Griffey, but those 40 homers in 111 games was a major story in 1994. This included a stretch in May in which The Kid launched 10 homers in 12 games. Along with Matt Williams and the aforementioned Jeff Bagwell and Frank Thomas, Griffey was looking to challenge the single-season home run record before games stopped in August. One of the more interesting aspects of this season for Griffey was that the Mariners played only 44 games at home and 67 on the road, including their last 20. This was a result of ceiling tiles falling from the Kingdome roof. Griffey hit 18 homers in those 44 home games, a 162-game pace of 66 dingers.
My Griffey pick at CF for 2020 is Ronald Acuña, Jr. (career 133 wRC+, 22 years old)
Looking for a young, talented center fielder who could have a season with a wRC+ 30 points higher than his already-impressive career mark? Then Ronald Acuña, Jr. is your man for 2020. In the second half of the 2018 season, Acuña, Jr. hit .322/.403/.625 in 68 games, good for a 171 wRC+. At just 22 years old, he could do it again for 80 games this year and be the 1994 Ken Griffey, Jr. of 2020.
1994 SP Greg Maddux, 271 ERA+ (career 132 ERA+), age 28 season
16-6, 1.56 ERA, 2.39 FIP, 202 IP, 156 K, 31 BB
Maddux broke out as an elite pitcher in 1992, but took it to another level with this incredible season in 1994, then continued pitching at this elite level in 1995. Across those two years, he had a 1.60 ERA and 0.85 WHIP in 411.7 innings. This was at a time of increasing offensive production, as the ERA in baseball went from 3.75 in 1992 to 4.19 in 1993 to 4.51 in 1994 and 4.45 in 1995. This 1994 performance earned Maddux his third of four straight NL Cy Young Awards.
My Maddux pick at SP for 2020 is Gerrit Cole (career 127 ERA+), age 29 season
Gerrit Cole will be a year older this year than Maddux was in 1994, but he similarly reached an elite level two years ago (144 ERA+) and bumped it up a notch last year (185 ERA+). To get to 1994 Maddux-level, he’ll likely need to have an ERA below 2.00 in the 80 or so games the Astros play this year, much like he did last year when he went 11-0 with a 1.79 ERA in 14 second-half starts.
1981 SP Nolan Ryan, 195 ERA+ (career 112 ERA+), age 34 season
11-5, 1.69 ERA, 2.28 FIP, 149 IP, 140 K, 68 BB
Ryan was already 34 years old when he had a 1.69 ERA in 149 innings in the shortened 1981 season. Of course, 149 innings isn’t really a shortened season these days, but Ryan was coming off a run of five straight seasons in which he averaged 255 innings per season. This impressive season ended up being Ryan’s most effective year based on his league-leading 195 ERA+.
My Ryan pick at SP for 2020 is Carlos Carrasco (career 112 ERA+), age 33 season
On the one hand, Carrasco is just one year younger heading into 2020 than Ryan was in 1981 and they have the same career ERA+. On the other hand, he’s coming off a season that was cut short by leukemia and will be pitching during a highly-infectious global pandemic. The good news is Carrasco was expected to be healthy this year even before getting two or three extra months to get into top shape.
1981 RP Goose Gossage, 465 ERA+ (career 126 ERA+), age 29 season
20 saves, 0.77 ERA, 2.06 FIP, 46.7 IP, 48 K, 14 BB, 2 HR
With their much smaller sample size over an 82 game season, relief pitchers have a better chance of putting up truly crazy-looking seasons than starting pitchers or everyday position players. This is a good example from the flame-throwing Gossage. He allowed just four earned runs in 46.7 innings this year and two of those runs came on solo homers. He also had a miniscule .185 BABIP-allowed and an incredible 90.6 percent Left On Base percentage (LOB%).
My Gossage pick at RP for 2020 is Hector Neris (career 129 ERA+), age 31 season
Neris is a couple years older than Gossage was in 1981, but they have the nearly same career ERA+ and this is mostly a guessing game anyway. To pull off a sub-2.00 ERA, Neris will need to reduce his home runs allowed (8 to 11 dingers allowed in each of the last five years) and maybe get about 100 points of good BABIP luck. In a short season, anything can happen.
1981 RP Rollie Fingers, 333 ERA+ (career 120 ERA+), age 34 season
28 saves, 1.04 ERA, 2.07 FIP, 78 IP, 61 K, 13 BB, 3 HR
Fingers was a workhorse reliever in the 1970s who continued to pitch a ton of innings in relief in the first couple seasons of the 1980s. In this 1981 season, he pitched 78 innings for a Milwaukee team that played 109 games. That’s a full-season pace of 116 innings. Even the 78 innings he pitched in the shortened season is more than most closers pitch in a full season these days. Like Gossage, mentioned above, Fingers had an excellent Left On Base percentage (92.6 percent). He also had a BABIP-allowed that was 34 points lower than his career mark.
My Fingers pick at RP for 2020 is Kirby Yates (career 120 ERA+), age 33 season
This might be cheating a bit because Yates is actually coming off a 1981 Fingers-like season. Last year, he had a 1.19 ERA and 1.30 FIP (358 ERA+). And he did it without a low BABIP (.325) or extremely high Left On Base percentage (80.8 percent). If he can repeat that for a half-season, he’ll be the 1981 Rollie Fingers of 2020.
