Over the last few years there has been a debate of who is the best Latino hitter in Major League Baseball, Juan Soto and Yordan Álvarez have been the main candidates for this title in this heated argument amongst Cubans and Dominicans.
Although Soto has about 2,000 more at-bats than Soto, metrics and splits are a better way to make the determination between the two combatants in this battle. For example in conventional statistics, such as their splits Soto bests Álvarez in on base percentage .417 to .392.
The power-hitting Cuban has the upper hand against Soto in batting average .298 to .282, in slugging percentage. 580 to .531 in OPS .972 to .948 and in OPS+ 166 to 158. Now Soto obviously has more hits, homeruns and runs batted in, but that is due to his surplus in trips to the plate as stated before.
When it comes to advanced metrics the numbers are unanimously in the favor of Álvarez. For example when it comes to ISO, which measures measures raw power by calculating how many extra-base hits a batter averages per at-bat The Cuban dwarfs Soto .282 to .249.
In BABIP that measures a players batting average when a hitter puts the ball in play Álvarez is superior to Soto by 18 points .319 to .301. In wRC+, a comprehensive, park-adjusted baseball statistic measuring a hitter’s total offensive value relative to the league average, Soto is inferior to Álvarez by 7 (158 to 165).
In another critical stat such as wOBA, which is another comprehensive sabermetric statistic that measures a hitter’s total offensive value by assigning weights to each scoring event (walks, hits, homers) based on its run-producing value, Álvarez once again comes out ahead by 5 points .406 to .401.
Soto does come out ahead in WAR per 162 games by three tenths of a point 6.3 to 6.0. Soto also is the higher paid player by more than 30 million dollars, which makes Álvarez a bigger bargain. In a comparison of two future Hall of Famers Álvarez is the best of the two as per now.