Small samples torqued results in 2020. These 6 could swing the AL season
Small-sample noise - Shohei Ohtani’s 37.80 ERA, Randy Arozarena’s playoff tear, Cody Bellinger's struggles in a glorious season - was a defining theme of the short 2020 campaign. The truth about a player's ability tends to crystallize over 162 games; less so when pandemic adjustments limit the schedule to 60 dates. Pitchers max out around a dozen starts, and two-week slumps tank batting averages.
Last year, the result was that some of baseball's most consequential players - big names who hold down key roles on genuine or would-be contenders - posted stat lines that were aberrant, surprising, or uniquely weird.
In limited action, some undershot or dwarfed the rate at which they tend to produce. Others righted their career trajectory or stumbled coming off a strong 2019. Arozarena logged 76 regular-season plate appearances as an outfield platoon option, then ruled October by setting postseason records for hits and home runs. Across the board, their clubs approach Opening Day wondering if these outcomes were flukes - or signs of further shrinkage or dominance to come.
Below's a rundown of six unusual performances that have the potential, depending on whether they recur over a full 162-game slate, to swing American League playoff races in 2021. Each player's 2020 line is listed for reference below his name. The National League will follow Saturday.
Jose Abreu, White Sox 1B
Lamenting his 2020 downturn in a Boston radio interview this week, three-time All-Star J.D. Martinez admitted he was "tired of being judged on two months" of substandard production. Elsewhere in the AL, Abreu must feel the opposite, given how the abbreviated season coincided with him winning MVP.
Abreu's a very good player who looked elite in 2020. His wRC+ figure (166) jumped 50 points from 2019. He led the AL in hits and the majors with 148 total bases. Extrapolated to 162 games, his 51-homer pace would have been a significant career high; as it was, he helped the White Sox top the AL in the category.
Chicago enters 2021 favored over Minnesota and Cleveland to win the AL Central, quite the turnaround from the pits of a 100-loss season in 2018. Process the disparity between how Abreu hit last year in his club's 35 wins (.380 average, 1.159 OPS) and 25 defeats (.211, .705) and you'll be convinced: as he goes, so go the White Sox.
Jose Altuve, Astros 2B
Since pandemic protocols kept fans out of stadiums in 2020, road crowds weren't able to berate the Astros for cheating, ruling out one excuse for why Altuve bombed at the plate. By OPS+, the 2017 AL MVP was Houston's worst everyday batter last season and rated in the bottom 10 MLB-wide.
Despite losing George Springer to the Blue Jays and Justin Verlander to Tommy John surgery, the Astros will aspire to be competitive again and probably will need their once-vaunted offense to spearhead the charge. Altuve's average dipped as low as .146 a couple of weeks into 2020 and he hit limply throughout the summer, barrelling a mere 4.6% of his batted balls (down from 8.1% in 2019). The onus is on him to prove he's still an All-Star candidate after turning 30 last May.
That said, how's this for even smaller-sample fun: Altuve batted .462 with three homers against Tampa Bay in the seven-game ALCS, the best he hit in a series since Houston's 2017 World Series drive.
Randy Arozarena, Rays LF
Key context to know: the above numbers chronicle Arozarena's production in the 2020 playoffs, when Tampa Bay teammates anointed him the best player on the planet. That was unforeseen but richly deserved praise for a utility outfielder who only drew into 23 regular-season games.
Baseball already knew that Arozarena could rake, at least in the minors and in scant regular-season run. He owns a .991 OPS in 99 career MLB plate appearances, but Arozarena's October was folklorish; his heroics and exuberation are the lasting images of the Rays' World Series push. With Hunter Renfroe gone to Boston, it's only natural he'll open 2021 as an everyday starter.
Trading Blake Snell and letting Charlie Morton walk in free agency will make it difficult for the Rays to head off the Yankees and ascendant Toronto in the AL East. A full-season Arozarena breakout surely would lighten the burden.
Kenta Maeda, Twins P
Not even during his splendid 2016 rookie season with the Dodgers did Maeda finish below 1.00 in WHIP, terrain reserved for the game's elite pitchers. For the time being, 2020 elevated him into that conversation. Maeda was consistent and commanding in his first year with the Twins, recording zero bad outings as he led the majors in WHIP and trailed only Shane Bieber in AL Cy Young voting.
Is he a legit ace now? Maeda looked the part when he carried a 12-strikeout no-hitter into the ninth inning against Milwaukee in August. He showed up in the postseason - the Twins' bane going on two decades now - by holding Houston scoreless in the wild-card series opener, though Minnesota's offense and bullpen subsequently bungled the two-game set.
The Twins' consecutive division titles look hollow in the context of their 18-game playoff losing streak, which dates to 2004. With the White Sox rising, any slippage from Maeda could ensure the skid sustains another year.
Shohei Ohtani, Angels DH and P
Ohtani's summer was comprehensively nightmarish, jeopardizing his future as a two-way player. In his return from 2018 Tommy John surgery, he walked eight of the 16 batters he faced, was pulled from his first start before he logged an out, and left his next start early with an elbow strain. Limited to DH duty from early August onward, his average exit velocity dropped to a run-of-the-mill 89.1 mph. His batting average plummeted below the Mendoza Line.
Contrast that discontent with the buzz Ohtani has kindled this spring. The Cactus League has witnessed a healthy Ohtani stroke five homers and 16 hits in 28 at-bats for an otherworldly 1.701 OPS. Last Sunday he took the mound and hit leadoff - no player's done that in the regular season since 1901 - and said batting on his pitching days this season would help him generate added confidence. (His fastball touched 102 mph that day, a boost in itself.)
Team-wide, the Angels' 5.09 ERA in 2020 undercut characteristically great seasons from Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon. If Ohtani rebounds to his past peak, that could solve both problems, fortifying the rotation and the order just as Houston and Oakland begin to look vulnerable in the AL West.
Marcus Semien, Blue Jays 2B
To chart this player's eight-year MLB journey is to study two different Semiens. There’s 2019 Semien, the AL MVP finalist who slashed .285/.369/.522 for a 140 OPS+ mark, all significant career highs, in 162 games with the playoff-bound A's. Then there's the rangy infielder who's batted below league average in every other season, including 2020.
Across Oakland's pandemic-shortened campaign, Semien struck out in 21.2% of his plate appearances, much worse than his terrific 13.7% rate from 2019. His quality of contact, typified by exit velocity (86.2 mph) and hard-hit rate (28.9%), slipped well below league average. Per FanGraphs, Semien's 7.6 WAR figure in 2019 almost doubled his previous career high; a more typical 1.2 was what he mustered in 53 games last season.
That Semien's lesser 2020 production aligned with his career norm suggests that the sample size wasn't his issue. On the flipside, if last year was a blip on his nascent climb to stardom, we'll find out when he joins Springer, Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Teoscar Hernandez in Toronto's potentially lethal offense. Pitching is a club question mark, but should Semien approximate his 2019 form, the Jays' best-case scenario - capping the rebuild with an immediate pennant push - will be in reach.
Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.