Welcome to Week 25 in our ongoing series highlighting the best hitters and pitchers of the previous week. The final week of the season was last week. We’re featuring two playoff bound players and two that have gone home by now. By chance all of them come from the East though not all from the same league. We also feature what might have been one of the all time great pitching performances in baseball history.
BEST HITTER: Edwin Encarnacion, 1B/DH, Blue Jays
The Blue Jays finished just shy of having the best record in the American League. Two games shy to be exact. In fact they lost their last two games of the season. That was not Encarnacion’s fault though. He led baseball in the two most accurate offensive metrics–wOBA and wRC+. He hit .389/.500/1.056 with four home runs. He also drew twice as many walks as he had strikeouts. The Jays are going to be a dangerous playoff team if Encarnacion can keep this up.
Honorable Mention: You don’t have to be on a playoff team to have an excellent offensive week. Odubel Herrera is a member of the worst team in 2015 but he was pretty excellent in the final week of the season. He lead baseball in batting average and on-base percentage. He hit .556/.619/.722. Herrera has made quite an impression in his first major league season accumulating a hearty 3.9 fWAR. That’s something positive Phillies fans can focus on going into next year.
MLB Leader:
AVG – Odubel Herrera (.556)
OBP – Odubel Herrera (.619)
SLG – Edwin Encarnacion (1.056)
wOBA – Edwin Encarnacion (.621)
wRC+ – Edwin Encarnacion (308)
HR – Manny Machado (5)
SB – Elvis Andrus (4)
fWAR – 3 players tied (0.8)
NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 03: Max Scherzer #31 of the Washington Nationals celebrates his no hitter with Wilson Ramos #40 against the New York Mets after their game at Citi Field on October 3, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
BEST PITCHER: Max Scherzer, Nationals
The Nationals were the greatest disappointment in baseball this year. They came into the season as the presumptive World Series favorites with their super rotation. Yet they didn’t even make it to the playoffs. It’s no wonder Matt Williams has already been fired. Not necessarily in his defense, but they did suffer some pretty debilitating injuries thoughout the season.
Despite all that, Max Scherzer was still an excellent pitcher for them and I still believe they’ll be a strong favorite for the division next year. This past week Scherzer was on top of his game. He started two games but it’s the second one that earns him top honors. If it weren’t for a Yunel Escobar error, Scherzer may very well have completed a perfect game. Instead he has a complete game shutout where he allowed no walks or hits. That’s painfully close to perfection. And on top of that he struck out 17 batters. Very honestly it might be one of the best pitched games in baseball history.
Honorable Mention: Interestingly the pitcher with the best FIP last week was Matt Harvey who pitched opposite Scherzer in his near perfecto. Harvey lasted six innings and did allow a run on four hits. He didn’t walk anyone and struck out 11.
MLB Leaders:
K% – Ian Kennedy (50.0%)
BB% – 17 players tied (0.0%)
AVG – Max Scherzer (0.37)
WHIP – Max Scherzer (0.29)
ERA – 13 players tied (0.00)
FIP – Matt Harvey (-0.03)
xFIP – Ian Kennedy (0.21)
fWAR – Max Scherzer (1.2)
Statistics courtesy of FanGraphs
