Last year, Paul DeJong felt a lot like a create-a-player from a video game. Someone turned the power knob all the way up, spared a few points for ‘league average shortstop defense,’ and that was just all the points they had. DeJong was really interesting last year to me as a fan of baseball, but also as a thought experiment. While he improved somewhat at the end of the season, he spent a good chunk of last year running a strikeout rate around 30% and walking something like never. It felt like a great wager with the baseball gods- is it possible to be a good hitter if you strike out as much as anyone in baseball and walk as little as anyone in baseball?
Paul DeJong has Leveled Up
