Everywhere you look, it says Mike Yastrzemski is the best Giants hitter. *you carefully crack into a fortune cookie, you read about how Mike Yastrzemski is the best Giants hitter, slowly you look up* I told you. Everywhere. Don’t doubt me again. More people agree on Mike Yastrzemski being the best Giants hitter than anything else in this country. It’s the last thing that binds us. If Brandon Belt becomes the Giants’ best hitter, we will completely unravel. Sadly, being the best Giants hitter is like being the world’s tallest midget. Similarly, Mike Yastrzemski fits under the idea of most other players’ ceilings. In JKJ’s piece on NL West DH candidates, he mentions Yaz Jr. Jr., while also mentioning Wilmer Flores, and that’s prolly the name there to keep in mind for their DH spot. Or as I said in the Joey Bart dart throw, Posey could DH while Bart catches. Yaz Jr. Jr. doesn’t need the DH. He is the Giants’ best hitter — have you already forgotten? It’s the one thing that unites us! Yaz 2.0 won’t DH most days; he’ll just play the field. Either way, he’ll play every day. He’s the Giants’ best hitter! So, what can we expect from Mike Yastrzemski for 2020 fantasy baseball and what makes him a great dart throw?
Last year in 107 games and 371 ABs, Mike Yastrzemski hit 21 homers and .272. The counting stats will be miserable because the Giants are not good — he’s their best hitter! But his power is real. In 147 games last year when jamming Triple-A with the majors, he hit 33 homers. His longest homer was 472 feet. I just did a boing in my pants. He averaged 406 feet on his homers with a 18.5 Launch Angle. If you don’t know, that’s good — he hits a lot of fly balls and they’re not rinky and/or dinky. His 43.3% FB rate would’ve been top 20 in the majors, and his 43.3% Hard Contact is top 42, and 51st best for barrels per plate appearance. Mike Yastrzemski is the Giants’ best hitter, but that’s selling him a little short — no offense, tall midgets. Yastrzemski isn’t just good for power. Not just in relation to the hashtag fail that is the Giants’ lineup. What is extremely undersold in his game is that he was top 65th percentile for Sprint Speed, and stole as many as ten bags in Triple-A in only 13 attempts. If he were on the Yankees, people would be like, “30 homers and ten steal potential? I’m going for that with my 75th overall pick.” Mike Tauchman gets more pub than Mike Yastrzemski. Mike check one two, what is this? A five-footer stepping with the Yastrzemski business. Speaking of Tauchman (I was, check 21 words ago), he’s going around 360th overall on NFBC and Yastrzemski is going around 303rd. That’s goofy. Yastrzemski should be going around 175th. Then there’s the one perceived problem in Yaz 2.0’s game, his average. As I alluded to with “perceived,” will his average actually be an issue? He hit .272 last year in 411 plate appearances in the majors. He’s never struck out a lot in the minors. He hits the ball hard, as mentioned. His line drive rate was as good as Nick Castellanos. Why is he not hitting for a good average? That’s not rhetorical. I’m seriously confused. Unlike most dart throws where they are long shot gambles, Mike Yastrzemski is an even money bet that’s prolly more like a 3rd to 4th outfielder in a mixed league, especially if this shortened season is about 50 games long. Hey, MLB, can we have word already about how many games you’re playing?
