Has Mariners’ Luis Torrens Been the Best Slugger Since His Call-up?

Ever since Luis Torrens has made his way back up to the Mariners it seems as though he has found his power swing, hitting 5 home runs in his first 7 games back. However, in his stint for the Rainiers this season he has shown similar power capabilities. In those 19 games, he hit 6 home runs (good for a pace of 51 HR over 162 games).

With this recent surge of power coming from Torrens, I was left questioning if he has been one of the best power hitters in the MLB since his call-up.

I used ISO, or isolated power, to investigate. ISO is a sabermetric stat that looks to break down a player’s power as raw as possible by only considering extra bases. For example, an ISO of .333 (Which is incredible over an extended amount of time) would literally mean that for each at-bat we can expect .333 extra bases, or around 1 extra-base every 3 at-bats.

This differs from your normal slugging percentage because it tells you how many total bases you can expect each at-bat. Meaning a single contributes to a player’s slugging percentage but not their ISO.

A player’s ISO is calculated by their slugging percentage and subtracting their batting average. If we go back to 2015, the top 3 sluggers according to ISO are Mike trout (.301 ISO), David Ortiz (.293 ISO), and Joey Gallo (.289 ISO).

This is where it gets a little crazy. According to FanGraphs, with a minimum of 50 PA, Since Luis Torrens’ call-up on June 15th, the top 4 hitters in ISO are Shohei Ohtani (.643 ISO), Kyle Schwarber (.578 ISO), Joey Gallo (.563 ISO), and Brandon Lowe (.484 ISO). All names that you would expect/would not be surprised to see.

Mariners C/DH Luis Torrens has an ISO of .407. Good for 5th in the MLB since his call-up.

Even Fernando Tatis Jr’s ISO of .378 trails Torrens. Although Torren’s power stroke has really been on display since his call-up, his season ISO sits at .241 which sandwiches him between Nolan Arenado and Mike Yastrzemski for 38th in the league.

Although Torrens has hit 7 of his 10 career home runs since his return to the Mariners, I cannot say I’m shocked. I work as a member of the grounds crew for the Tacoma Rainiers and one of our jobs is to set up early batting practice. This is optional, so not every player chooses to do this daily. There was one player who was consistently taking early batting practice though, and that happens to be the man that sits 5th in the MLB in ISO since June 15th.