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Who’s the Hottest?

All the hype these days have been with second year player for the Texas Rangers, OF Josh Hamilton. Although his is a story that defies the odds, which makes his story the feel good story of the 2008 season so far, and in the NL you can look towards the current NL MVP candidate, Phillies 2B Chase Utley.

But, you’d still be wrong! According to my metrics, the hottest hitter in baseball right now is the Houston Astros 1b Lance Berkman. Berkman has been usually a streaky hitter that year in and year out puts up decent numbers for a corner position player (1B or corner OF position), but nothing that would necessarily stand out above and beyond the rest of the pack. This year, at least so far, that view of Berkman may be changing. Not only is he the best hitter in baseball right now, but unlike him in past years, he has already stolen 10 bases which is already the best total he has had in any given year in the majors (his former high mark was 9 in 2004).

The rest of his line is as follows .374/.459/62/19/56 BA/OBP/R/HR/RBI

Rounding out the MLB top 5 hitters through June 11^th, 2008 are Utley and Hamilton (mentioned above), along with the Pirate’s OF Nate McLouth, the White Sox young new OF Carlos Quentin.

The next 5, rounding out the top 10 are the Ranger’s 2B Ian Kinsler, Padre’s 1B (and probably the only hitting Padre at the moment) Adrian Gonzalez, 1B of the Phillies’ Ryan Howard, the 2B of the Marlin’s Dan Uggla, and the Cub’s 1B Derrek Lee.

You can see their numbers below along with the remaining top 25 hitters in MLB up to this point.

Who Will Remain Hot?

I feel almost sorry to say this, but I don’t see Berkman staying this hot. His history of being a streaky hitter seems like it will catch up to him and when it does, watch out! He might just hit a terrible slide. If Hamilton can stay healthy, he won’t remain at the top of this list, but should remain in the top 10-20. Utley, on the other hand, has the history to back a possible MVP year. Uggla, like Berkman, seems up for a hard fall from the top 5, but his is a smaller sample size so I admit that I may be wrong with Dan. We’ll just have to wait and see! I also don’t see Kinsler staying in the top 10 either, more like a 15-20 type of guy if you ask me.

Out of the current players currently sitting in the 6-10 slots, I only envision Howard as staying in the top 10 if not higher, but the other 4 may stay in the top 25, especially Gonzalez.

Chipper Jones of the Braves, if he can stay healthy will crack the top 15 and if Boston’s human sparkplug, Jacoby Ellsbury can hit closer to .300 he may move up too on account of his possible 50 SB season. I also expect Marlin SS Hanley Ramirez and Mets 3B David Wright to get into the top 10 if not the top 5. I’m actually surprised they’re not already there!

[table=49]

The rest can and should be debatable in the comments section below.

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