Chances are you’ll assume you’ve already heard sufficient about Aaron Decide’s heroics throughout this postseason, particularly contemplating that he wasn’t in a position to preserve his crew from getting knocked out barely every week into October. Heroes normally do a extra thorough job when saving the day. I’m certain you’ve heard rather a lot about Decide’s 2025 playoff excellence. However I’d argue that you just haven’t heard sufficient, as a result of there’s a little bit of context I’d such as you to contemplate. That context? The whole thing of postseason historical past.
Over the course of the American League Divisional Sequence in opposition to the Blue Jays, Decide batted .600. If you happen to think about his .354 batting common in opposition to the Purple Sox within the Wild Card spherical, he batted a fair .500 over 31 plate appearances this postseason. Now let’s head over to our handy-dandy postseason leaderboard. If you happen to set a minimal of 30 PAs, you’ll discover that Decide simply ran the third-highest batting common ever over a single postseason; his .581 on-base share is the second highest. His 253 wRC+ is the 14th highest in postseason historical past (simply behind the 255 mark that teammate Giancarlo Stanton put up in 2020). By that customary, Decide simply produced one of many best postseason performances ever.
Biggest Postseason Batting Traces
Minimal 30 plate appearances
To be clear, these numbers are barely deceptive. We have to qualify them, however after I accomplish that over the subsequent couple paragraphs, I’m going to indicate you that even with all the fitting statistical context, this was nonetheless a really particular run. Alright, now let’s do our sabermetric responsibility and throw some chilly water on all of this.
The minimal of 30 plate appearances is essential right here. First, it guidelines out an enormous chunk of postseason historical past. Till 1969, the postseason consisted solely of the World Sequence, which generally goes as few as 4 video games. To that time, baseball noticed simply 207 cases of gamers accumulating not less than 30 PAs in a single World Sequence. Nobody ever made it to 40.
Subsequent, the smaller the pattern, the noisier the outcomes. In postseason historical past, 171 totally different gamers have put up a wRC+ above 400, however none of them made greater than 17 plate appearances and solely 5 of them (together with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in 1928) made greater than 10. Then again, the bigger the pattern, the extra time there may be for regression to the imply. Decide’s 253 wRC+ is wonderful, nevertheless it’s a lot much less wonderful than the 245 that Barry Bonds ran over 74 plate appearances in 2002. The graph beneath exhibits each postseason efficiency in baseball historical past. Decide is the purple circle and Bonds is the inexperienced one.
This actually makes Decide look a bit much less spectacular. He’s up towards the highest of the heap for a participant round 30 plate appearances, however he’s not standing out from the pack the best way Bonds did. In accordance with this chart, probably the most spectacular efficiency in postseason historical past is undoubtedly Randy Arozarena’s magical, homer-filled 2020 run with the Rays, all the best way to the fitting. With fewer than 100 common season plate appearances underneath his belt, Arozarena by some means ran a 240 wRC+ over 86 PAs. He wouldn’t even win the Rookie of the 12 months till the subsequent season! All of that is to say that Decide obtained simply sufficient plate appearances to get to the purpose the place he doesn’t actually need to compete with gamers from earlier than the divisional period, however few sufficient that he can nonetheless profit from most variation. It’s an excellent sample-size candy spot for wanting like an outlier.
If we head over to Stathead and look not at entire particular person postseasons, however somewhat postseason spans of seven video games and not less than 30 plate appearances, we discover that 79 totally different gamers have put up stretches with the next OPS than Decide’s 1.273 mark. It could be exhausting to argue that he really put up the 14th-greatest postseason efficiency of all time. Now that we’ve put it in context, let’s discuss what makes it so particular anyway.
First, it’s not less than just a little bit unfair to penalize Decide that harshly for the plate appearances he didn’t take. He did nearly the whole lot humanly doable to attempt to get the Yankees a deeper postseason run, and whereas his efficiency might have fallen again right down to earth if he’d stored going into Recreation 5 or the ALCS, Decide has a profession OPS of 1.018, and Stathead lists 189 totally different (although usually overlapping) 15-game stretches throughout which he ran an OPS above 1.300. That’s a greater efficiency over a interval that’s twice as lengthy. It’s not simply doable that he might have stored this going; it’s one thing he’s performed time and again.
Subsequent, if we return to full postseasons, Decide continues to be an outlier even when you decrease the plate appearances threshold. The record of player-postseasons with not less than 20 PAs incorporates 10,842 entries. That’s a giant pattern, and inside it, simply 167 gamers have maintained a wRC+ of not less than 200. Decide really seems within the prime 40 twice. He is available in thirty eighth place this season, and his 2018 run of twenty-two PAs with a 284 wRC+ ranks twentieth. By any measure, Decide has had two of the most effective full postseason runs in baseball historical past. Furthermore, he’s the one participant who seems within the prime 40 twice.
As you may recall, Decide was fairly good in the course of the common season, too. He led all of baseball in batting common (.331), on-base share (.457), and slugging (.688). He put up a serious league-best 204 wRC+. That’s the Twenty fifth-highest mark ever amongst certified batters, and it’s simply the third-highest mark of Decide’s profession! Within the postseason, Decide elevated his wRC+ by slightly below 49 factors, a rise of 24%. Basically, I simply weighted Decide’s weighted runs created plus once more, this time in opposition to his common season numbers. It was enjoyable, so I took all 167 of the person player-postseasons with not less than a 200 wRC+ over 20 or extra plate appearances and weighted them the identical means. Postseason wRC+ is on the x-axis, and the share above common season efficiency is on the y-axis.
As you’d anticipate, the trendline goes from the underside left to the highest proper. The higher your postseason efficiency, the extra seemingly you might be to simply be on a loopy, unsustainable scorching streak that bears little relation to your common season efficiency. The place to be is towards the the underside proper. If you happen to’re down there, you’re placing up the most effective postseason numbers, however you’re not all that totally different out of your common season numbers. You’re performing properly not due to an unsustainable streak, however since you’re simply that good.
Now have a look at the 2 purple dots. The one towards the very backside is Decide in 2025, and the upper one is Decide in 2018. He’s proper the place you wish to be. Few gamers have ever put up such a terrific postseason, and few gamers have ever regarded extra like themselves whereas they did it. If there’s such a factor as a plausible 253 wRC+, Decide is one in every of only a few gamers ever to tug it off.
Earlier than we end right here, I’d prefer to get away from wRC+, as a result of as nice as Decide was as an total hitter, his batting common was most likely probably the most spectacular factor about this postseason. If you happen to drop the plate appearances minimal to twenty, he nonetheless simply ran the Fifteenth-best batting common in postseason historical past. If you happen to drop all of it the best way to fifteen PAs – that’s simply three video games for a participant on the prime of the lineup – he’s nonetheless tied for twenty fourth. If this had been 30 or 40 years in the past, when batting common was nonetheless the be-all, end-all, we actually would have thought-about this one of many best postseason performances of all time.