Yordan Alvarez is a beast and I can’t wait for this season

In 135 games he had a slash line of .306/.406/.613 with 37 home runs. If you extrapolate that to 162 games, that’s around 45 home runs.

That doesn’t take into account the dip in his power numbers in the second half of the season though, when he was dealing with that nagging hand injury. For reference, at the all star break he was sitting at 26 HR and a .653 SLG% in 75 games. Extrapolate that to 162 games and we’re approaching 60 HR. Ooh yeah that’s the good stuff.

I’m only kidding of course. It’s 2023. Home runs are lame, and chicks dig the OPS. It’s been talked about a lot how lefties will get more hits because of the shift ban, and which players will benefit the most. I believe in the case of Yordan, it goes a bit deeper than that. There’s a very real possibility teams will decide a lot more often that it just isn’t worth it to pitch to him.

The man hates baseballs and crushes them for a living. If there’s a runner on base and no safety net in right, good luck pitching to him losers. Well guess what. If there’s ever a season in which he’s intentionally walked significantly more, that’s when his OPS will exit “Mike Trout territory” and start to approach “Barry Bonds territory.”

At least one estimation has Yordan at a net loss of 15 hits in 2022 due to the shift. I just want to paint a picture with that. If Yordan had 15 outs turned into singles, that would have put his OPS at 1.078. Don’t check my math, just assume that I’m correct. Just a slight increase to his walk rate would then put that number over 1.100. Now look, I’m not trying to say he would have had an 1.100 OPS last season without the shift. I just want to point out that these words I’m typing are making me feel tingly. All supported by my low effort misuse of analytics.

So now for the question I want to ask: Could it be possible that this season Yordan has a 1.200 OPS? Heck yeah. We caught a glimpse of what he’s really capable of last June. Peak flax seed oil Barry Bonds.

At 25 years old, Yordan is already one of the very few elite players to finish a season with an OPS+ higher than Mike Trout, and he did that while facing the shift. Now that it’s gone, Barry’s 1.400 OPS is in his sights. Also baby daddy Breggy is going to pop off next year like it’s 2019 all over again.

Edit: Ooh yikes sorry guys. Didn’t realize the article would put that photo of Corey Seager on our sub. Just marked it NSFW