Whicker: NL batting leader Lopez proving line drives still worth something
Canadian national team member and Miami Marlins shortstop Otto Lopez, who spent part of his youth in Montreal, is leading MLB with 107 hits.
June 26, 2026
By Mark Whicker
Canadian Baseball Network
Who is Otto Lopez and why hasn’t anyone told him that you can’t hit .300 anymore?
Researchers for the All-Star Game telecast should be scrambling for those answers.
Lopez is the Miami Marlins’ shortstop. Through June 26, he had 107 hits, 10 more than any other hitter in the majors. His average of .337 was the best in baseball by .001 over Tampa Bay’s Yandy Diaz. Only two players have more doubles than his 21, and he has 16 steals and has struck out only 48 times. Those who watch the Marlins – yes, we’ve contacted all six of them – say that Lopez and second baseman Xavier Edwards, who used to be the shortstop, form the best keystone combination in the game right now.
Being the batting champion isn’t what it was when Tony Gwynn did it seven times. These days it’s like being the best DVD-player repairman. But the rules haven’t changed. Batting average is still a measure of how frequently you get hits, which tend to drive in more runs than walks. Put another way, it judges how infrequently you make outs. Of all the wonders that Aaron Judge wrought last year, his batting championship was the most ignored, even though his .331 average was 20 points better than anyone else’s. There were seven .300 hitters in the major leagues. Trea Turner hit .304 and was the National League’s batting champ by seven points over Nico Hoerner.
The pitcher-hitter continuum is a strange one these days. The major league batting average is .243, the fifth-worst in MLB history. Yet the cumulative ERA is 4.18, highest since 2023 and pretty much in line with ERAs over the past decade. Walks are higher than they’ve been since 2000, and the only change has been the automated ball-strike system. Runs are up slightly but within recent range.
Last year the Blue Jays topped baseball with a .265 batting average and also came within a couple of bizarre events of winning the World Series. This year the Dodgers lead MLB with a .261 average and also have the best record at this writing. But batters are still striking out at the eighth-highest rate in history.
The 100 mph fastball, which used to be a cataclysmic event, is now commonplace, which explains the decline in contact. It is counterbalanced by disastrous relief pitching, and a perceived decline in the actual art of thinking one’s way through a batter order, rather than pumping up the readings on a printout.
Otto Lopez apparently isn’t bogged down by all the information. He has had only four hitless games in June so far, and he recently got nine hits in a seven-game span. There are concerns about sample size, because Lopez was only a .246 hitter last season, with a .672 OPS. Now the OPS is .848. But if the scouts and computer jockeys around baseball were to find a flaw in Lopez, they probably would have found it.
Then again, Lopez was a moving target. He played nine games in two seasons for Toronto, then spent 2023 in the minors. The Blue Jays designated him for assignment before the 2024 season. The Giants signed him and let him slip through their fingers, and the Marlins picked him up on waivers in April of that year. With the lowest payroll in the big leagues but with currently the 11th best record, they are the first customer at every yard sale. Last year they came within four games of .500 by refinishing damaged goods.
Lopez did hit 15 home runs last year, which meant he became the cleanup hitter in this year’s season opener, but wanted more consistency. He worked on his stance and began bringing his legs into his swing. It hasn’t increased his power but he’s certainly hitting the ball harder.
Edwards, a former first-round pick of the Padres who was traded to Miami for Jake Cronenworth, is hitting .293. He’s 26 and Lopez is 27. Whether they’ll be Marlins three years from now is a familiar question, and weary South Floridians think they know the answer. But this particular Marlins team is only one game out of the N.L. wild card scrum.
Lopez grew up in the Dominican Republic. He used whatever he could to play baseball in the streets, sometimes swatting at bottle caps. Then his dad, a truck driver, moved the family to Montreal when Otto was nine. Otto got familiar with all sports in the cold months, even playing badminton. But when he attended a Little League tournament in Toronto, it warmed his baseball heart.
Otto convinced his dad to send him back to the Dominican, where his uncle Urbano coached baseball. He attended the same Niche Baseball Academy that Juan Soto had, and he signed with the Blue Jays for $60,000.
Maybe if there’s a salary cap and a salary floor in baseball’s future, a team like Miami will become something more than a feeder system, and a player like Lopez can become a familiar face that fans will pay to see. Until then, maybe Lopez will help a new generation of fans realize that line drives are still worth something.
When you hear NFL offensive coordinators implore their quarterbacks to “just hit singles,” and throw first-down passes to their tight ends instead of going for spectacular plays, you realize irony is not dead.