Trevor Bauer, as we all know, is a big name free agent this year, and Michael Conforto may be the same next winter if the Mets and he do not agree to an extension soon.
Commonality.
What else do they have in common?
Outsized 2020 performance in a season less than 40% of normal length.
Bauer won the NL Cy Young, and as I've noted of late, his combined spring, regular season, and playoff stats in 2020 included an ERA WAY below 2.00, tons of Ks, and a microscopic hit rate of one every 2 innings, over a 90 inning span.
But in the rest of his career, he has mostly never come close to those numbers. Will 2020 be the new norm, or will there be substantial regression?
Baseball Reference bets on regression - in fact it projects him at just 11-10, 3.62.
Michael Conforto hit .322/.412/.515 in 2020, far above his career norm...but as Texas Gus astutely pointed out yesterday, he hit a crazy high, and most likely unsustainable, .412 BABIP.
Why hard to repeat? Conforto led the majors in BABIP in 2020, with the second guy having a BABIP 16 points lower at .396. If Conforto even slipped to # 25 in the majors next season, and 2020 was a barometer, well, # 25, was at .348, or 64 points lower than Conforto.
Baseball Reference bets on regression - in fact it projects him at .260/.362/.472 with 26 HRs and 78 RBIs in 579 plate appearances.
Regression commonality?
Given the above, would you sign Bauer and extend Conforto at huge dollars?
Are Baseball Reference projection #'s way too conservative for both?
Whaddya think?
I actually do think those projections are conservative for both of them.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I have railed against Bauer and his attempt (and most likely success) on cashing in on the shortened 2020 against some of the worst hitting teams in the league, I do believe that he is a better than average pitcher and he finally unlocked his potential and hype. I still don't believe he is 'elite' and a $30+M per year deal seems a bit much, but his 2018 may be more indicative of what he will be for the next few years than his 2019 was.
As for Conforto, with his line to line hitting approach and his natural opposite field power, I think both his OBP and his BABIP numbers could stay higher than most. I can see him settling in to be a .300 hitter with .900+ OPS.
$5 that Nimmo has a higher OPS than Conforto after 2021 season.
ReplyDelete(Please know: I won't actually pay.)
Jimmy
We only take cryptocurrency bets here LOL.
ReplyDeleteI'd also think Nimmo will have a higher OPS. He is an on base machine.
I do think, also, that both players will exceed those awfully conservative 2021 Baseball Reference projections.