All time batting average
Posted by Andy on September 24, 2007
In 1961, MLB switched from 154-game schedule to a 162-game schedule. I started this post because I was curious to see whether it was easier to get 200 hits with the longer schedule.
For starters, I wanted to calculate the cumulative batting averages for all of MLB for those two eras. To distinguish, I'm calling 1901-1961 the "154 era" meaning 154-game seasons (although I don't think they played 154 in the very early 1900s) and 1961-present the "162 era." From the season-to-season totals pages, we can get all the data and then use Excel to calculate totals.
Ok, so hold your breath for some big numbers. In the 154 era (1901 to 1950) there were a total of 1,336,891 hits in 5,037,614 at-bats, for a cumulative batting average of .265. In the 162 era (1961 to present) there were a total of 1,694,459 hits in 6,530,478 at-bats, for a cumulative batting average of .259.
Now, 6 points of batting average isn't much difference, although with more than 5 million at-bats in each era, it's certainly a real and statistically significant difference. Still, over the course of 600 at bats, a 6 point difference is only a matter of 3 more hits.
As far as players getting at least 200 hits in a season, it's been done 266 times in the 154 era but just 197 times in the 162 era.
It's pretty clear, then, that getting 200 hits was more common in the 154-era than in the present era. Sure, the 154 era covers 60 seasons while the 162 era covers just 47 seasons. But, there are so many more teams and players now that the percentage of players getting 200-hit seasons was significantly higher in the 154 era.
By the way, adding up the numbers for all the 200+ hit seasons yields cumulative batting averages of .349 (56487 for 161770) for the 154 era and .326 (41195 for 126087) for the 162 era.
September 24th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Do you see any reasons why those 200 hit in 154-game seasons would be different than those in 162 games?
September 24th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Not sure what you're asking. It follows that 8 extra games gives players more plate appearances and therefore better chance to amass 200 hits. But it appears than in the earlier era, there was a wider variation in batting averages. More guys hit .350, I suspect.
It does follow that batting averages for 200-hit seasons would be higher in the shorter season, obviously. If a guy plays a full 162-game season, gets 600 ABs and finishes with exactly 200 hits, he batted .333. In a 154-game season, that same player would get only 570 ABs and if he got exactly 200 hits would have batted .351.
In the real data from above, players with 200+ hit seasons hit .326 in the 162-game era and .349 in the older era...pretty similar.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:28 am
I should have said 200+ hits. But yeah you're right, it is intuitive that the averages would be higher in 200+ hit seasons that occured in less games.
But why would there be so many less occurences in the last 50 years, despite there being a few more games and a lot more players playing? Is there some way to explain that?
September 24th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Like I said above, I think a higher fraction of players hit for a higher average. I also think that players played more games on average (i.e. sat out due to injury or platooning far less.)
September 24th, 2007 at 10:56 am
I think whats makes that stat so impressive is that for almost two decades of the 154 game schedule they were playing in a Dead-Ball era. The National League produced only three players between 1906-19 to amass 200 hits in a season (Honus Wagner 201 in 1912, Heinie Zimmerman 207 in 1912 & Bill Sweeny 204 in 1912). In fact, Charlie Hollocher of the Chicago Cubs led the N.L. in 1918 with only 161 hits.
Jack
September 24th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
jack: that's very interesting that all three player-seasons over 200 from 1906-19 were in the same season. Not sure what it means, but I suspect it isn't coincidence.
One thing I wonder about, reading this, is what are the relative number of player-seasons for the 154-era vs the 162-era.
September 24th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
1912 was by far the best dead-ball season for offense. Home runs started trending upward (slightly) even before 1920, starting in 1910, but I'm not sure why that happened.
September 24th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Alright, I went back and calculated the total number of team-years since 1901. What I mean is this: I figured out how many teams were in each league in each year, and then I summed all of those up.
NL 1901-1960: 480 team-years
AL 1901-1960: 480 team-years
total for the 154-era: 960 team years
NL 1961-2007: 596 team-years
AL 1961-2007: 610 team-years (since the AL went to 14 teams earlier)
total for the 162-era: 1206 team years
So, if there were the same number of players per team (but rosters are a little bigger these days), and everything else were equal, we should expect 200+ hit seasons in the 162-era to outnumber such seasons in the 154-era by a ratio of about 4-to-3. But in actuality, 200+ hit seasons from the 154-era outnumber their counterparts by almost exactly the same ratio of 4-to-3 (266 to 197, or 4.05-to-3), meaning it was really quite more prevalent in the earlier era.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Speaking of battings stats from the "154 era"...why the totally oddball drop in HRs in the NL in 1902? Doesn't seem to be league-raiding from the AL, because the names on the leader boards were pretty similar from 1901 to 1902 to 1903 in the NL. Any clues?
September 24th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
In 1911 (I think) a live ball was introduced, which increased offense for a few years, and probably accounts for the 1912 season.
September 25th, 2007 at 7:06 am
I think the number of hits is realted to number of times the ball is put in play. If stike outs go up then hits will go down. The average Ks before 1960 were 3-4 per game. After 1960 it is over 5 per game, and after 1994 it is over 6 per game.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:20 am
I think I like that answer. But it won't help convince my dad that hitters today are better even though their batting averages aren't as high.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:29 am
So we blame it all on the almighty home run, and the players swinging for the fences. I actually was thinking that was probably the case, but couldn't figure out the exact causality.
September 25th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Why do you think hitters are better today? I am not really sure. Hitters & pitchers are clearly more athletic today, and clearly also stronger (even without the aid of PEDs.) But I also think that a larger fraction of hitters today are less disciplined and less focused on using any given at-bat to the greatest advantage of his own team, whether it means getting only a single if that's what's needed, or advancing a runner, etc. In part, that's because single runs mean less today, in an era of higher scoring, such that going for 1 run rather than hoping for a bigger inning might not be a winning strategy. This lessened focus on playing for one run makes batters less well-rounded, such as with bunting etc. It used to be common for players to beat balls into the ground, intentionally getting a very high bounce and making it easy for an infield single. Now, the last time I recall a player doing that was Alvaro Espinoza in 1990 or 1991 for the Yankees.
September 25th, 2007 at 11:00 am
I see all of your points. They're totally sound. I don't necessarily think that today's hitters are better just because they hit the ball harder and longer. I'm just trying to figure out better things to say to my old school friends and family.
My dad'll say something like, "Well no one hits .385 anymore!" and I try to tell him that the league is just very normalized nowadays - for an array of reasons, there is less difference between the best and worst players in the league, and statistically there will be very rare instances of an extreme type season (.390 BA, .500 OBP, .800 SLG - though that has always been rare because it's nearly impossible), because the competition is so stiff across the board. Does that make sense?
September 25th, 2007 at 11:08 am
I don't ever recall anyone specific doing that chopper deal but I've seen it. Who else might have done that in the '80s?
September 25th, 2007 at 11:16 am
I do agree, as I stated above in this same post, that batting averages have tended to regress toward the mean more and more over the last 100 years. Bill James has written a lot about this, although it's been a while since I read his work on it, so don't assume that he would agree with what I'm writing here.
In general, though, it goes like this. Back in, say, 1910, there were a bunch of players who were simply better players than league average and could routinely hit .350 or better. The reasons why varied--perhaps they were better athletes, perhaps they had better vision, perhaps they remember specific pitchers and their tendencies better, perhaps they were better contact hitters, or perhaps a million other things. Over the last 100 years, though, many of those differences among players have been ameliorated, and some have completely disappeared. For example, there are probably zero baseball players today with worse than 20-20 vision, but that might not have been the case in 1910. Also, all teams and players have access to volumes and volumes (or hard drives and hard drives) full of data on pitchers' past performance, whereas back in 1910 a lot of it probably relied in good memory, written records, and largely on word-of-mouth. It was probably routine in those days for a batter to face a pitcher he had heard a lot about but had never seen. These days, no batter (even a fresh minor leaguer) ever faces a pitcher he hasn't at least seen on video.
Overall, today I think we see a much more even field of players, for both the hitters and the pitchers, and the difference between the best major leaguer and the worst major leaguer is much smaller than it used to be.