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Every baseball site that is part of SB Nation will be running these polls all week. We want to know what you all think about best hitter(MLB), best pitcher (MLB), best defensive play (MIL), best celebration/bat flip (MIL), best breakage of unwritten rule (MLB).
Today we're going to vote for MLB's best hitter. I struggled with what direction to take this. Do I simply sort MLB hitters by wRC+? Do I choose them based on criteria I find important? I'm not sure there is one right way to go about it. I even contemplated just going with the six MVP finalists (NL + AL). Ultimately I decided to go with a hybrid approach.
The players you will get to vote on are the 6 MVP finalists plus the 4 best hitters by wRC+ that weren't one of those 6 players. I don't know that it's the perfect approach but it's the best I could think of. You don't have to feel obligated to simply vote for the player with the highest wRC+. In fact you can create your own criteria by which you make your selection. That's the whole point of this. We want to hear your opinions.
Your choices will be Bryce Harper, Joey Votto, Paul Goldschmidt, Mike Trout, Lorenzo Cain, Josh Donaldson, Miguel Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, Edwin Encarnacion, and Jose Bautista.
Hitter | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | HR | wRC+ |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jose Bautista | 666 | 250 | 377 | 536 | 40 | 147 |
Miguel Cabrera | 511 | 338 | 440 | 534 | 18 | 165 |
Lorenzo Cain | 604 | 307 | 361 | 477 | 16 | 129 |
Nelson Cruz | 655 | 302 | 369 | 566 | 44 | 158 |
Josh Donaldson | 711 | 297 | 371 | 568 | 41 | 154 |
Edwin Encarnacion | 624 | 277 | 372 | 557 | 39 | 150 |
Paul Goldschmidt | 695 | 321 | 435 | 570 | 33 | 164 |
Bryce Harper | 654 | 330 | 460 | 649 | 42 | 197 |
Mike Trout | 682 | 299 | 402 | 590 | 41 | 172 |
Joey Votto | 695 | 314 | 459 | 541 | 29 | 172 |
That is an amazing collection of hitters. One of the things that stands out to me is that three of them are Blue Jays. It's no wonder they vastly outscored every other team in baseball. It's also interesting to note that 7 of these 10 players are from the American League. Anyway, those are your choices. Start voting now because I'm going to end each poll at midnight on Sunday.
Also feel free and feel encouraged to share your opinion and thought process in the comments. Just remember, these are all the best hitters in baseball and there might not necessarily be a right or wrong answer.