Welcome to our final regular-season edition of the 2022 MLB hitter rankings, otherwise known as “Aaron Judge and the Mere Mortals.”
St. Louis’ Paul Goldschmidt had been holding down our No. 1 spot for months, but while the Cardinals first baseman has faded in recent weeks, Judge has been on quite the heater and could be on the brink of joining 2012 Miguel Cabrera as the only Triple Crown winners in the past 55 years.
Judge was barely top 10 in the AL in batting average in early September, but going 30-for-61 (.492) over 16 games changed things in a hurry.
Based on a combination of contact, power, plate discipline and what we’re calling “pitch immunity,” we’ve cobbled together a ranking of the current 10 best hitters in baseball. A report card grade has been assigned for each of the four categories, and rankings are loosely based on each player’s average grade.
We’re focused on full-season production, but recency bias does play a bit of a factor here. For instance, both Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt have MVP-caliber year-to-date stats, but those Cardinals have struggled over the past month and each slipped a few spots as a result.
“Previous Rankings” are based on our last batch of hitter rankings from August 29. Unless otherwise noted, statistics are courtesy of FanGraphs or Baseball-Reference and are current through the start of play on Sunday, September 25.
Honorable Mentions: Rafael Devers, Andrés Giménez, Bryce Harper, Michael Harris II, Eloy Jiménez, Nathaniel Lowe, Shohei Ohtani, Albert Pujols, José Ramírez, Julio Rodríguez, Juan Soto
Previous Rank: No. 10
Contact: B
Austin Riley was a .303 hitter in 2021 and went bonkers for a .435 average from June 30 through July 31 of this season. But he has been more of a slugger than a contact hitter thus far in his MLB career, and his average has trickled down to .278 over the course of the past eight weeks with fewer balls flying out of the yard.
Power: A+
Without question, Riley has not been the same slugger since signing his massive extension with Atlanta at the beginning of August. At the end of July, he was slugging .604 and on a 162-game pace of 47 home runs and 50 doubles. Since then, he’s slugging .404 with a combined total of 15 home runs and doubles in what has been nearly one-third of the season. However, he’s the only player in the majors with at least 37 of each, and he’s still top-five in the majors in slugging. That gets an A+.
Plate Discipline: B-
In Sunday’s extra-innings showdown with Philadelphia, Riley wore the golden sombrero for the third time this season. He also whiffed four times in May against the Mets and in June against the A’s, and he is now up to 160 strikeouts on the season. That’s not the worst mark in the majors, but it’s not good, especially when coupled with just 51 walks.
Pitch Immunity: A-
If you throw Riley a curveball, you deserve to give up a home run. He has been best in the majors against that pitch, with Shohei Ohtani as the runner-up—and it’s not even remotely close. Riley has also been one of the best against sliders. He would at least get an A, if not an A+, if he wasn’t so mediocre against fastballs.
Previous Rank: No. 8
Contact: B-
Mookie Betts is leading the NL in runs scored, but that is much more a product of hitting in front of Trea Turner and Freddie Freeman than it is an indication of Betts racking up all of the hits. He’s only hitting .268, which ranks last among players in our top 10. He has really struggled in September, too, batting just .195 with nine hitless nights.
Power: A+
I’ll be honest, 35 home runs feels like a bit of a letdown after Betts went for a dozen in the month of May alone. He was No. 1 in our hitter rankings back in early June, on pace for somewhere around 50. But he missed a couple of weeks with a cracked rib and hasn’t been quite as explosive since his return. Still, a career-high 35 home runs—not to mention 73 total extra-base hits and a .537 slugging percentage—is a mighty fine season.
Plate Discipline: A-
Betts’ year-to-date strikeout rate (16 percent) is still the worst of his career, but it has been almost a month since he last struck out multiple times in a game. He’s still mighty impatient for a leadoff hitter, though, drawing walks less than nine percent of the time.
Pitch Immunity: A
At the start of play on Sunday, Betts and likely NL MVP Paul Goldschmidt were the only players worth at least 3.0 total runs above average against each of the five main pitch types (fastball, slider, cutter, curveball and changeup). Betts was not top-10 against any of the five individual pitch types, but it’s a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none situation in which he is easily top-10 against that five-pitch arsenal as a whole.
Previous Rank: No. 5
Contact: B+
Nolan Arenado has had 13 three-hit games this season, getting to four hits in four of those stellar performances. But that was also true four weeks ago, as he is batting .222 since the beginning of September, dropping his average below .300. Even with the recent slump, though, it’s still a substantial improvement from uncharacteristically hitting .254 between 2020 and 2021.
Power: A-
In Saturday’s loss to the Dodgers, Arenado reached both 30 home runs and 100 RBI in a season for the seventh time in his career. However, it was just his second home run of September, bringing his slugging percentage down from .571 to a less-impressive-but-still-darn-good .540. His 41 doubles certainly haven’t hurt his cause.
Plate Discipline: A
Though both his average and slugging have dipped in September, at least he’s still seeing the ball well. Heck, Arenado has been getting a bat on the ball as well as anyone in the majors not named Luis Arraez or Jeff McNeil. He has just six whiffs in his past 94 trips to the plate, though a lot of those balls in play are finding fielders these days.
Pitch Immunity: B
Arenado is leading the majors in value added on cutters and ranks 10th against curveballs. But he has been below average against everything except for cutters in September and has been mediocre against both sliders and changeups over the course of the season.
Previous Rank: Honorable Mention
Contact: A-
Despite recording multiple hits in eight consecutive games in mid-August, Manny Machado slipped to just outside our top 10 one month ago. He responded by going 11-for-25 with four home runs in his next six games. All told, he has 46 multihit performances this season compared to 40 games in which he recorded multiple plate appearances with no hits. As was the case in 2016, 2018 and 2020, whether he finishes the season above or below a .300 batting average is going to be a photo finish.
Power: A-
Machado is one of seven players who have already reached 30 home runs and 30 doubles this season, which is a feat he also accomplished each year from 2015-18. More than half (16) of his 31 home runs have come since the All-Star break, as he is slugging nearly .600 in the second half.
Plate Discipline: B+
He’s still whiffing less often (20 percent) than the average MLB hitter (22.3 percent), but Machado has averaged one strikeout per game dating back to June 30. He’s swinging at pitches more often than ever before but making contact on those swings at the lowest rate since his rookie season in 2012. Good thing his batting average on balls in play (.334) is also a career high.
Pitch Immunity: A
Machado is above average against all six pitch types, hitting curveballs, changeups and sliders better than he has in any season in the past decade. He may swing and miss more than his fair share, but it’s not a specific pitch throwing him for a loop.
Previous Rank: Honorable Mention
Contact: A+
Few hitters have been hotter than Jose Altuve has been over the past two months. He was batting a modest .269 heading into the final day of July, but he is at .339 with 62 total hits, 15 doubles, seven home runs and 10 stolen bases over his past 48 games, and he’s making a serious run at what would be the sixth .300 season of his career.
Power: A-
Altuve’s power waned right around when he started hitting for average. From early May through late July, he was homering at a 162-game pace of 42, but he has been operating at a 162-game pace of 21 over the past two months. He does have 24 total extra-base hits in his past 55 games, though, bringing his year-to-date OPS up to .900.
Plate Discipline: A-
As far as pitches per plate appearance are concerned, Houston is one of the least-patient teams in the majors. But Altuve is drawing walks at the highest rate of his career (11 percent) with only a modest uptick in strikeouts. Per FanGraphs plate discipline data, he’s swinging at pitches outside the zone at a career-best rate of 28.5 percent.
Pitch Immunity: B+
On a per 100 pitches basis against both fastballs and changeups, Altuve is enjoying the best season of his career. But against sliders, cutters and sinkers, he’s pretty much right at or slightly below the league average. While being average against three pitches is arguably better than having one pitch you can’t hit at all, it’s still not great.
Previous Rank: Honorable Mention
Contact: A-
Between the back injury that kept him out for five weeks, the Angels being terrible, Aaron Judge and Albert Pujols soaking up all of the spotlight as of late and the fact that he’s having a less dominant season than usual, we’ve all kind of forgotten about Mike Trout. He’s still extremely good, though, batting .278 in spite of that one seven-game stretch earlier in the season when he went hitless for 26 consecutive at-bats.
Power: A+
I mean, you can’t homer in seven consecutive games within the past month and get anything less than an A+ for power. In 17 games played from August 23 through September 12, Trout hit 11 home runs in 74 trips to the plate, good for a 162-game pace of 105 dingers. (Naturally, the Angels went 5-6 in the games in which he homered.) He has a total of 19 extra-base hits since returning from his back injury.
Plate Discipline: B-
From 2016-19, Trout darn near averaged one walk per strikeout. His walk rate was 18.4 percent and his strikeout rate was 19.7 percent. But this season, he’s sitting at 10.8 and 28.0, respectively, chasing pitches outside the strike zone like never before and also making contact at a career-worst rate.
Pitch Immunity: A
Say this much for Trout: He can still destroy fastballs, and he’s doggone good at hitting changeups, too. Sliders and curveballs have been his nemeses this season, though. He’s still marginally above average against both, but it’s chasing the breaking stuff that has given him some trouble this year.
Previous Rank: No. 1
Contact: A-
Though the Cardinals have fared quite well against a mostly easy schedule, Paul Goldschmidt has been sputtering to the finish line. On August 28, he was leading the majors with a .338 batting average and looked like a real threat to win a triple crown. Since then, he’s batting .217 and no longer has the NL lead in AVG, HR or RBI. But, you know, batting .338 through your team’s first 128 games is still great. St. Louis just needs to hope he snaps out of this funk in time for the playoffs.
Power: A-
The batting average is down, but his slugging has dropped even further. After a two-HR game against the Cubs on August 25, Goldschmidt was slugging .637 and homering at a 162-game pace of 45. He has two home runs since then, slugging .340 over his past 27 games. He’s probably still going to win NL MVP, but he sure has left the door open for Freddie Freeman or Nolan Arenado to make a serious push past him.
Plate Discipline: A-
Despite his recent struggles, not much has changed here. Goldschmidt did have a nightmare four-strikeout performance in the second game of a Sept. 17 doubleheader against Cincinnati, but he has mostly done a good job of not extending the strike zone and making contact when he does swing.
Pitch Immunity: A+
This is where Goldy has been king all season long. He’s the only player in the majors with at least 200 plate appearances who has been worth at least 1.0 runs above average per 100 pitches against each of fastballs, sliders, curveballs, changeups and cutters. Just for good measure, he has also destroyed splitters. He has struggled a bit with sliders in the second half of the season, but he’s still about as immune to pitch type as it gets.
Previous Rank: No. 3
Contact: A+
Bit of a no-brainer grade for the man leading the majors in batting average. Dating back to his back-to-back four-hit games in mid-July, Freddie Freeman is batting .371 over his past 65 contests. His batting average is up to .328, leading the majors by nine points and matching teammate Trea Turner’s MLB-best mark from last season. And speaking of Turner, he’s the only player anywhere close to Freeman atop the hits leaderboard, as those two Dodgers are at 191 and 184.
Power: A-
If you look solely at the home runs, Freeman probably feels like a B, at best. Surrounded in our rankings by guys with at least 35 home runs, his 20 pale in comparison. But he’s leading the majors with 46 doubles, and he has a slugging percentage (.517) that has oscillated back and forth along the top-10 cut line over the past few weeks.
Plate Discipline: A+
Freeman has always seen the ball well, but he’s having a great year of plate discipline, even by his standards. His strikeout rate (14.4 percent) is almost below where it was at when he won NL MVP in 2020 (14.1 percent), and his 83 percent contact rate when he swings is the highest such mark in his career. He has 32 walks compared to 30 strikeouts since the All-Star Break.
Pitch Immunity: A-
Curveballs have given Freeman trouble all season long, but especially over the past month—which is hard to believe, since it feels like he’s finding the grass against any and every pitch as of late. That said, he’s top-15 in the majors in total runs above average against each of fastballs, sliders, cutters and changeups, so the occasional flail at a good curve is hardly a deal-breaker.
Previous Rank: No. 4
Contact: A
In our previous ranking, I noted that Yordan Alvarez’s longest hitting streak of the season was just seven games. He responded with a 10-game hitting streak in mid-September, including a four-game run of multihit performances. His batting average is now back above .300 as he closes in on 40 home runs and 100 RBI.
Power: A+
Only two players with at least 200 plate appearances can currently boast an OPS north of 1.000: Aaron Judge (1.118) and Alvarez (1.021). He had a three-HR game against the A’s two weeks ago and is sitting at 37 for the year. That’s good for second-best in the AL, albeit with a massive gap behind Judge.
Plate Discipline: A+
What a night-and-day difference from his first three seasons. Alvarez basically averaged one strikeout (240) per hit (249) and well over two strikeouts per walk (102) from 2019-21. But this season, he’s at 135 hits and 77 walks against just 99 strikeouts. And dating back to August 24, he has 27 hits, 15 walks and 11 whiffs. Incredible ratios for the slugger.
Pitch Immunity: B+
Alvarez has destroyed changeups and four-seam fastballs all season long, and he is hitting sliders substantially better over the past month than he did in the first half of the season. Cutters remain a significant issue for Alvarez, though. Fortunately those are only thrown 6.6 percent of the time, but it’s worth noting for October that the Rays, Yankees and Guardians all throw cutters much more often than the league average.
Previous Rank: No. 2
Contact: A+
Aaron Judge: Come for the home-run record; stay for the possible batting title. He has been hitting well all season long, but he was on a completely different level from Sept. 3-21, batting .492 with a .584 OBP over the course of 10 percent of the regular season. As a result, Judge’s YTD average surged to .317 and temporarily into first place in the AL. Whether he wins the triple crown will boil down to whether he can out-hit Xander Bogaerts and Luis Arraez the rest of the way, as they are basically in a three-way tie for the batting title.
Power: A+
Not a whole lot to say here that hasn’t already been said. At 60 home runs, Judge is 20 clear of his closest challenger in either league (Kyle Schwarber at 40). Just since the All-Star break, Judge has as many home runs as Rafael Devers or Julio Rodríguez has hit in the entire season. It’s basically the home-run version of watching Tiger Woods mercilessly lap the field in major golf tournaments in the early 2000s.
Plate Discipline: A
Judge does still whiff a fair amount, but at least he is drawing more walks as opposing pitchers understandably have grown terrified of throwing him anything to hit. Through his first 87 games, Judge had 100 strikeouts against just 43 walks. But since mid-July, he’s at 65 and 56, respectively, with only 11 of the walks officially going down as intentional. It’s impressive that he’s seemingly become more patient while chasing history.
Pitch Immunity: A+
Judge remains the patron saint of destroying fastballs and sliders, but he has also improved drastically against other pitches to the point where he has been one of the best in the majors against changeups since the All-Star break. In reverse chronological order, his September home runs came off these pitches: sinker, slider, sinker, slider, knuckle curve, changeup, slider, sinker, changeup. So, yeah, good luck.
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