Best hitting of the 21st century: Introduction

Happy week! I hope this is a great week for you. We're back at Inside Baseball. As every week, I hope you enjoy our baseball columns. This time, I wanted to bring you the introduction to the Best hitting of the 21st century column, which I announced a couple of weeks ago. I have been working a lot on this and other projects that I mentioned before. We'll get to each surprise very soon.

So we will make a short stop with our “Rewind of the Week” space, to immerse ourselves in the great memories that this column of Best hitting of the 21st century in Cuban baseball will bring us. How will we do this? We will start with a publication where I will let you know the Top-50. If you still don't know what time frames were taken into account, here you can see how this investigation will develop:

Period from 43 Series (2003-2004) to 47 Series (2007-2008)

Period from 48 Series (2008-2009) to 52 Series (2012-2013)

Period from 53 Series (2013-2014) to 57 Series (2017-2018)

Period from 58 Series (2018-2019) to 62 Series (2023)

According to these 5-season periods, our selection of the Top-50 Cuban hitters will be based. Remember, after we finish this trip with the hitters, we will do something similar with the pitchers from those years. We are going to have fun!

Here you can read a little introduction to this madness that I came up with, and suggested by bold readers like Jeff, who have been loyal to Inside for a while now:

So, once the Top-50 hitters are selected, I will start ranking them in different publications. Of course, all this will lead us to meet again with a considerable group of Cuban hitters who were stars and shone in Cuban baseball since the beginning of this century. So, we will travel through our memories. I think that will be a big part of the drive to remember past stories, enjoying the emotions that baseball generates in us. Basically, these will be the five categories that I will bring for you:

1) Best hitters

2) Best stealers

3) Best hitter in plate discipline

4) Best Sluggers

5) MVP by positions

José Abreu was one of the great hitters in Cuban baseball in the late 2000s. Photo: Aslam Castellón.

There will also be a couple of key questions that we can't miss in the rankings: 1) The biggest surprise in the Top 20, and 2) The Best Hitter who didn't make the Top 10.

Another question you may be asking yourself could be: how will we choose the best of each period? Here I explain the process again:

I will make the selections by analyzing the contribution of each hitter in my statistical system. I am going to explain in detail how the tool I created works. This is the oVAL (Offensive Value of the hitter), a statistic that I presented seven years ago as yWAR in my BaseballdeCuba.com column. I think that, despite the differences, we could function as a kind of WAR for Cuban baseball. But, essentially, the oVAL takes into account other particularities that give offensive value to the contribution of each batter.

If you like statistics, and all this crazy math and formulas, you will definitely have fun.

I don't think oVAL is the statistic that gives us the final word on hitter dominance during each five-season span, but I think it will weigh heavily on this journey.

After pitching, I hope to continue with pitching. I also have other ideas that we will alternate during the presentation of each story. As I told you before: I am thinking a lot about you, dear reader. So, if you have any ideas to share, don't hesitate to do so.

I hope you like this proposal and enjoy the pair of exclusive series of Best hitting of the 21st century that I will write here in the coming weeks. Wait for more news.

Have a great week!