This may not be going out on a limb, but it needs to be said: There is no left-handed hitter in MLB better than Yordan Alvarez.
Baseball fans around the globe were awakened by the “rocket heard around the world” when Yordan Alvarez took Robbie Ray out of the park on Tuesday Night, and it opened everyone’s eyes to just how good Alvarez is. His stature in the game may not rank amongst the likes of Freddie Freeman, Juan Soto or Bryce Harper, but his production outperforms them all.
Living in the shadow of the stars of Houston for so long has made it easy to just look over just how much of a better hitter Alvarez is than every teammate he has or has had. When one thinks about the Astros run of dominance, the names that come to mind are George Springer, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, and Carlos Correa, and that doesn’t mention the immense success they have had on the mound. Yordan Alvarez isn’t on that list, but as I wrote on in a prior piece, this will be the postseason where he announces his prominence on the charge to Houston’s second title in six years.
Here are his ranks among all hitters (132 qualified players) with at least 240 plate appearances as a Left-Handed Hitter in 2022:
wRC+: 1st
AVG: 4th
SLG: 1st
wOBA: 1st
HR: 2nd
2B: 15th
RBI: 5th
BB: 7th
When the qualifications are lowered and more hitters are included, it does not change much for Alvarez, who still ranks top 10 in almost every analytic listed above. So, what makes Alvarez so special and what sets him apart from the rest of the field? Let’s take a look at Alvarez in comparison to his fellow LHH and how he lines up analytically (All unspecified numbers are Left-Handed hitters exclusively).
Alvarez does a pretty good job of putting the ball in play. His 18.9% strikeout rate sits below the league average rate of 22.2%, and he is one of only six qualified left-handed hitters who hit north of .300 in 2022. He has improved on both of these numbers since 2021, but even with lower numbers for the year prior, Alvarez still ranks 6th among all LHH in AVG and better than the MLB K-rate. Alvarez also has an in-the-zone contact percentage of 89.6%, which is the same as Jeff McNeil and tied for 30th among all hitters, right of left, and tied for tenth among all LHH.
Alvarez also doesn’t chase at a ridiculous rate or swing and miss that much. For someone who is certainly a power hitter, he sits at 30th of all hitters (15th for all LHH) in out-of-the zone swing percentage while only swinging and missing 9% of the time, 2.2% below league average for all hitters. For comparison, Aaron Judge swung and missed 11.8% of the time this year while having one of the greatest overall seasons in the history of the sport. Alvarez is considerably different than the modern idea of a power hitter.
Another key for Alvarez is that he absolutely mashes the fastball. Of all players in Major League Baseball, the only hitters with more success against fastballs in 2022 are Judge and Paul Goldschmidt. Even though the usage of the fastball has dipped in recent years, it is still the most frequently utilized pitch in the sport, and Alvarez hits it better than any single LHH in the game.
It may seem like a simple answer to getting Alvarez out – throw anything else but the fastball. That may seem to work, but here’s another key detail as to why Alvarez is so difficult to retire… he also hits the slider as well as anyone, too.
Utilizing the same analysis of Alvarez’s success against the fastball, Yordan is the 11th most valuable hitter in all of baseball against the slider and 3rd among all those who hit from the left side. His ability to be the top LHH in the entire sport against the most commonly thrown pitch and a top three LHH against the next most common pitch makes him unusually great, and it also makes him quite possibly the most difficult out in the entire sport.
I would also like it noted that, as I am writing this, Yordan just piloted a ball into the Crawford Boxes for the lead in Game 2. The pitch he hit… a fastball. You can’t make this stuff up.
There is one more distinguishing factor in the success of Yordan Alvarez, and it is by far the most important aspect of his success… he hits the ball really damn hard.
In terms of all left-handed hitters, Alvarez is first in average exit velocity, first in hard hit %, first in barrels, fourth in sweet spot percentage, fifth in total balls hit 95 mph or harder, and third in max exit velocity. Oh, and here are his percentiles within the entirety of the game, per Baseball Savant:
It makes it easier for the ball to find a gap, or the seats, when it comes off the bat as fast a kid runs to the ice cream truck on a hot day, and Alvarez does just that. He hits it hard, he hits it hard often, and that leads to good outcomes.
It is so easy to look at the approach of Freddie Freeman or the flair of Juan Soto and fall in love, as I find myself doing just that all the time. But, I think it is time we hand over the crown to the rightful king of the Left-Handed Hitters, which is Yordan Alvarez. In two postseason games, he has already given us two of the biggest, game-changing swings we may see the entire postseason: a three-run walkoff home run with 2-outs in the bottom of the ninth, off a lefty, and a go-ahead two-run blast off the hottest pitcher in the sport. Yordan is the real deal, and he is the best at what he does, or more like where he does it, in the entire game.
