Colorado Rockies: Charlie Blackmon says he’s “not expecting to hit .400 in a season”

Colorado Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon spoke with the media, including Rox Pile, on Tuesday and he spoke candidly about how valid he thinks his numbers in 2020 are.

Colorado Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon has had a great first quarter of the season in 2020. He’s hitting .500 with an OPS of 1.248 entering Wednesday, both of which are leading all of baseball by a wide margin.

He also is doing very well in some other advanced stats as well, according to StatCast.

• .505 wOBA (weighted On-Base Average, which is version of on-base percentage that accounts for how a player reached base, not just whether the player reached base or not): Top 1% in baseball.
• .560 wOBACON (weighted On-Base Average involving contact): Top 5% in baseball
• .447 xWOBA (expected weighted On-Base Average): Top 3% in baseball
• .394 xBA (expected Batting Average): Top 1% in baseball
• .635 XSLG (expected Slugging Percentage): Top 6% in baseball

Blackmon also has a hitting streak of 15 games entering Wednesday. However, when he spoke to the media, including Rox Pile, he apparently does not buy much into his streak because of the situation that the Rockies and the other teams are in.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to give (the streak) much credit, to be honest,” said Blackmon. “I think it will be too easy to say that weird things happen. The COVID got us. You’re playing in a bubble with no fans. It counts, certainly. This is Major League Baseball on major league fields and it counts. But, for right now, I feel like it’s different.”

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If you adjust for a full 162-game season, his streak is equivalent to a 42-game hitting streak, which is a much bigger feat than a 15-game hitting streak at any time.

He’s also hitting well over .400 for a batting average, which hasn’t been accomplished in a season since Ted Williams did it for the Boston Red Sox in 1941, nearly 80 years ago. But Blackmon doesn’t think that he will hit .400 this season and he doesn’t think anyone else will either.

“I don’t really think that .400 is a realistic mark for today’s game,” Blackmon said. “The pitching is too good … I don’t think it’s something that will happen. I think there’s maybe some scares, but I think .400 is just too far away from the average, right? I don’t think it’s something that will be done. I’m not expecting to hit .400 for a season.”

As the Rockies noted on Twitter last night, with Blackmon hitting .500 in the team’s first 17 games, he is only the fifth player in the last 50 seasons to accomplish that. Three of them are Hall of Famers, the other is on the Hall of Fame ballot currently (and getting a lot of traction) and one is a former Rockie (who won an MVP award).

If Blackmon can hit even somewhat close to what he has in the first few weeks of the 2020 season, he could hit .400. However, one has to wonder big the asterisk will be with it considering he would accomplish it in a 60-game season.

Regardless of the possible asterisk and the hitting streak, Blackmon is in, at the bare minimum, serious consideration for NL MVP as the halfway mark of the season will be reached for the Rockies two weeks from today. So maybe he can follow former Rockies right fielder Larry Walker in more ways than one.