While JJ Wetherholt and Jordan Walker (and even Joshua Baez) stole some of the spotlight, and rightly so, Alec Burleson had a very successful year at the plate, and he made it a lot of fun to watch.
Y’see, Alec “Burly” Burleson is not your every day hitter. His Chase percentage was 10th decile. He swings at just about everything, in the zone or not. If he thinks he can hit it, he will chase.
Chasing isn’t bad for Burly, however. All year his plate coverage extended the zone into something that would not work well for many hitters.
Statcast has some nice tools where you can download images to illustrate some of these ideas. Look at Burly cover that zone! He hits the 4-seam fastball exceptionally well. And he can hit pitches way outside the zone for home runs, it don’t matter!
The above shows Burly’s hard hit percentage improvement! He showed up with more power and it’s because more of his swings are generating power, not just a singles hitter! Which was how I viewed him at first a few years ago.
The above shows what types of pitches Burly feasts on: 4 seamers, changeups, sinkers… he wasn’t good at the slider this year, but was good at it the year before. I think he can hammer just about any pitch type!
The percentile rankings again shows him improving year to year. Good job, Burleson.
And in case you were curious to see how many home runs he would’ve hit if he had a different ballpark… he would easily be a 30 home run guy in many stadiums!
Burly, if given a neutral ballpark, would hit about 31 HR.
Year to year improvement for Burly! Lots of positivity!
Lots of up arrows! Burleson keeps improving. His move to first base went exceptionally well too, Alec ended up the best receiver at first base in the game of baseball.
Burly’s main improvement from 2025 was a shot of power to up his game, with the downside of striking out more. Since he still only Ks 18.1% of the time, the tradeoff was most welcome. It’s not easy to strike out the hacktastic and more powerful Burly. He did lead all of MLB in RBI, after all!
But wait, we had another 100+ RBI guy: Jordan Walker made the most improvement in MLB when it comes to Isolated Power! Walker’s home run powers have been let loose! Below, see how he is also close to the top in improvements regarding Home Run to Fly Ball ratio!
Well that’s about all I have for you this week, I was in the mood for more positivity and lots of visuals and NUMBERS. Numbers and statistics are cool.
This week is a bit of an open discussion, let’s talk baseball, music, food, whatever! Just don’t break the community rules and insult people, etc.
1998 in HEAVY METAL: 11 Albums to die for
Closing out my 1998 music coverage here. And with Halloween coming up, these will sure to be some good listening material!
- Gorguts – ‘Obscura’ my favorite metal album from 1998, and one of the best all time, Obscura by Gorguts changed the game forever, inventing a new type of dissonant, ultra dark, heavy, avant garde style of death metal. Hauntingly memorable, perfect album. Thinking man’s metal. (Quebec)
- Clutch – ‘Elephant Riders’ probably the most “normal” album on this list, I have always been a fan of this album, which so happens to be my favorite Clutch album. Super heavy, super catchy, thought provoking, well written lyrics. Another perfect album. (Maryland)
- Morbid Angel – ‘Formulas Fatal To The Flesh’ not one of the obvious Morbid Angel favorites, but still one of their best releases, nonetheless! Some people say this is their sleeper good album. You can’t really go wrong with 1990s Morbid Angel! So fast, so heavy, so unique! (Tampa Bay)
- Death – ‘The Sound of Perseverance’ the godfathers of death metal reach creative peaks here, refining their sound into an all out progressive metal onslaught and showing why they are true masters! (Tampa Bay)
- Meshuggah – ‘Chaosphere’ another progressive metal powerhouse invents its own genre here! Some call it djent, but whatever it is, it’s mad genius! A concept album about a sphere of chaos! Super technical, weird heaviness. Very metal sounding. This album put Meshuggah on the map for many metalheads, including msyelf. So wild hearing this in 1998. (Sweden)
- Dehumanized – ‘Prophecies Foretold’ Absolutely brutal! New find for me. Hidden… atrocity. I feel more dehumanized every day, so this was a timely discovery. (Long Island, NY)
- Sacred Remnants – ‘Destined To Fail’ Another gem uncovered. More brutal death metal, but with maybe a little less of the brutal and more of the spooky here. You’ll get a little more variety of sounds on this one, still pretty heavy but not super extreme. Definitely a good Halloween listen, replete with keyboards and atmosphere along with the brutal death. (Massachusetts)
- Opeth – ‘My Arms, Your Hearse’ Opeth started out around this time, more as a death metal band. They would go on to become one of the most popular prog metal bands on earth after this, but it’s cool hearing their roots here! Some of you may actually know Opeth. (Sweden)
- NILE – ‘Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka’ if you ever wanted to hear Egyptian themed brutal death metal, these are your guys! I would also recommend the band Melechesh if you want ancient themes from the middle east. Nile has always been known as super technical too, so if that’s your thing, check it out. (Egypt by way of South Carolina)
- His Hero Is Gone – ‘The Plot Sickens…’ revolutionary grindcore! (Memphis)
- Nifelheim – ‘Devil’s Force’ sort of an 80s old school metal sound updated for the surge of black metal in the late 90s. This is a band that doesn’t take itself too seriously, just some dark fun times to be heard with some fantastical dungeons and dragons -ish cover art! (Sweden)
- Arcane Sun – ‘self-titled’ throwing this on here as another new find, and the sole DOOM metal album on the list. It also has some clean singing, so if you are not into the guttural vocals thing, this is your pick! I love finding obscurities that are actually really good! And worth hearing. That’s why I do this. (Ireland)
Well there you have it. I have some podcasts I have to listen to before I write next week, there’s a lot to digest from yesterday! Be sure to check those out. Thanks for reading!