(670 The Score) 2019 has been one big goggle-eyes emoji for 25-year-old White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson, who in the third season of what could be an eight-year deal is MLB's leading hitter with an average of .453 while slugging .679 and adding enough value as both a defender an baserunner to have already accrued a full win, per Fangraphs.com.
Analyst Joe Sheehan of Baseball America and Sports Illustrated joined the Bernstein and McKnight Show on 670 The Score on Tuesday, and his assessment of Anderson's heady start initially seemed to deflate some of the excitement.
"We've always known he's got the strength and the bat speed to be a productive hitter on contact, but I don't think he's changed fundamentally as a hitter," Sheehan said. "A 10-to-one strikeout-to-walk ration is still miserable. This isn't an approach difference -- this is just raw skills taking over. Any hitter who has Anderson's ability has the ability to go nuts for 50 at-bats, which is what we've seen here."
And the larger context of baseball's on-contact hitting numbers reveal a jaw-dropping and record-setting trend of which Anderson is a part. As Sheehan noted, MLB batters are hitting homers at a best-ever rate of 5.23 percent on contact, a big jump from even from the staggering record of 4.82 percent in 2017. They're slugging a record .565, with a record isolated power figure of .237 that tops the previous high mark by 14 points, and this isn't a sample size without some meaning, now that 10 percent of the season has been recorded. The ball is jumping off the bat, in other words, when the two actually happen to collide.
Still, Sheehan remains bullish on Anderson, if realistically so.
"This could end up being a peak season -- the year he hits .315 or .320 -- but I think he's the same fundamental player that he's been," Sheehan said. "Even being a flawed player, he's still a good one. That contract is a fantastic deal, he's going to be a 3-win player. He's a plus defender, he's plus on the bases."
So where are we in the overall picture with him, seeing what he's doing at the moment while we assess what he will mean if and when the rebuild accelerates into competitiveness and contention?
"Anderson's peak is going to be as a 4-to-5 win player," Sheehan concluded. "He's not someone who is going to be one of the five best players on a championship team, but he's going to be part of that next group of players that really puts the team over the top."
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's Bernstein & McKnight Show in middays. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein.
