WHAT we said we'd have for you today isn't quite ready...it needs some more background data and some time to establish some additional context--but it will be here soon.
In the meantime, we've grabbed the best performances of the past ten years by batting order position (BOP). As you'll see, there are 31 such high-flying BOPs, each registering an OPS of .950 or higher.
We've also identified the hitters who populated those batting order positions--which will doubtless clue you in on who's going to show up on the list more often than anyone else. (Cue the primordial comedy line from the late 1960s, already: "Here come de Judge!")
Of the 31 BOP seasons listed, four of them are from the now close-to-halfway-complete 2024 season. It will be interesting to see which of these will remain on the list: we suspect the two Yankee sluggers have the best bet, followed by the Dodgers' Shoheo Ohtani, with the Orioles' Gunnar Henderson least likely in our minds (and yours) due to his dearth of a track record.
Here's the full list:
BREAKING that down by BOP, that's ten of the top 31 from the #3 slot, ten from the #2 slot, six from the #4 slot, and five from the #1 slot, Seven of the slots have a SLG of .600 or higher, while twelve have a batting average of under .300.
Fifteen of the BOPs have totaled 40 or more homers in a season, as befitting the "launch angle age" in which we live...
Note that there is an on-again, off-again pattern to these "peaks of BOP performance (Mal Waldron, eat your heart out...) that focuses on the odd years, as the chart at right indicates. (Odd years account for 21 of the top 31 BOP performances since 2015, when HRs first started sucking the air out of the room.)
MORE soon, stay tuned...
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