We are getting warmed up for the Ptolemaic MVP calculations, which will re-commence here in the next few days. Those, of course, use two-month data...what follows below is data with twice as much sample size--the top 25 hitters in baseball over the past four months worth of games (back to August 1, 2012). Our list is sorted by good old on-base plus slugging (OPS):
There are three, maybe four, names here that will be a bit surprising. Most of them can be found in the American League: once you get past the monster numbers put up by Chris Davis (going toe-to-toe with Miguel Cabrera for the HR lead), you'll be slack-jawed with wonder at the solid performances of a couple of members of the Oakland A's (
Josh Donaldson and
Brandon Moss) who would never have been remotely considered as potential presences at or even relatively near the top of such a list.
Bryce Harper continues to outshine
Mike Trout as a "pure" hitter even as we extend into what is roughly two-thirds of a season's worth of data. The Yankees, suddenly faltering a bit at the hands of their lowly crosstown rivals, might wonder whether they should have let
Nick Swisher get away in favor of a lame "victory lap" for Ichiro!, what with only
Robinson Cano hitting up to snuff. Looks as though they're going to need to get some of that "high-priced spread" back after all...
