Quote:
Originally Posted by rats60
Ohtani's best month was August when Trout was on the DL most of the month. They were in the line up together for only the last 7 games of the month. Justin Upton, a .257 hitter with an OPS+ 122 wasn't providing protection for him either as Ohtani hit behind him the whole month of August. Hit hit ahead of Trout once all season. When he started hitting ahead of Upton some in September, his stats were slightly worse.
These are the OPS+ of the other hitters in the Angels every day line up, 71, 92, 95, 109, 62, 80. Their main reserves were all below 100. The Angels line up was pretty much garbage outside of Trout and Upton. Ohtani wasn't getting better pitches because of where he hit. Gregorious had an OPS+ of 120. 5 of the other 8 Yankees regulars had an OPS+ of 118 or above and 3 reserves were above 100. Andujar had much more protection in the Yankees line up no matter where he he than Ohtani did, even the few game that Upton hit behind him. Nice theory, but it doesn't hold water.
A better theory is that Ohtani batted in 34 of the Angels first 85 games and 70 of their last 77 games. So when he became an every day player, he got in a rhythm and produced better numbers. The bottom line is that he was a much better hitter over the whole season, even though he was a part time hitter for more than half of the season.
As far as 2016 AL ROY, Fulmer 5.2 WAR Sanchez 3.0 WAR. You may not like it, but we are in the era of advanced stats and voters are using them when voting for awards.
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So using WAR as a comparison for the 2016 results is okay but not in the 2018 comparison because it doesn't help with the explanation? Okay. Since Ohtani won as a DH (not a pitcher), the voters in 2018 didn't exactly use the advanced stats (his offensive WAR).
Everyone is entitled to their own theory about why Ohtani started hitting(again) in August.... Through June he was batting .289, then slumped in July before getting back on track in Aug-Sept. Why does any rookie start off hitting well then begin to slump? ....pitchers didn't start off with sufficient scouting for Ohtani (in spring training he didn't hit well). Once there is sufficient scouting, the pitchers/fielders make their adjustments. From there is up to the batter to adjust again and/or the manager to get make line-up adjustments. If the theory is he got hot in August because of regular playing time, that is not exactly true as he played sporadically starting at DH in only 14 games and appeared as PH in 10.
I'll stick with he saw better pitches later in the season than what he saw in July (post pitcher adjustments) because of moving up in the line-up and then having a 30 HR guy batting behind him later .
Andujar had Didi for less than a month last season batting behind him. For a few weeks he had Torres behind him before Torres got hot and subsequently moved up in the order. Most of the season he had players like Tyler Austin, Torreyes, Romine, Bird, Etc batting behind him. Not exactly the league's strongest batters.
Either way, IMO there is a bias for southern CA teams with voting for these awards. If Ohtani stays in the ML as a batter, I believe he will have a great career.