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BA More Than OBP

Posted by Raphy on November 11, 2009

In 2009 Dane Sardinha had a short, but freaky season. Sardinha played 12 games for the Tigers and barely hit, batting a whopping .097  in 31 AB. However, Sardinha did hit a couple of sacrifice flies. Combine that with the fact that he never walked and Sardinha posted an On Base Percentage that was actually lower than his batting average.  Sardinha's season was freaky, but hardly unique. In fact since 1901 (although for many of those years there were no SF recorded), 27 position players have had more PA in a season while posting a higher BA than OBP. Here are the top 10:

Rk Player PA OBP BA Year Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB HBP SH SF GDP SLG OPS Pos
1 Ernie Bowman 131 .181 .184 1963 SFG NL 81 125 10 23 3 0 0 4 0 0 0 4 2 2 .208 .389 645
2 Rob Picciolo 128 .200 .202 1984 CAL AL 87 119 18 24 6 0 1 9 0 0 0 8 1 2 .277 .477 *65/49
3 Jim Adduci 97 .258 .266 1988 MIL AL 44 94 8 25 6 1 1 15 0 0 0 0 3 1 .383 .641 7D/93
4 Bobby Clark 93 .209 .211 1982 CAL AL 102 90 11 19 1 0 2 8 0 0 0 2 1 1 .289 .498 *978
5 Midre Cummings 87 .221 .224 1996 PIT NL 24 85 11 19 3 1 3 7 0 0 0 1 1 0 .388 .609 89
6 Billy Beane 82 .238 .241 1989 OAK AL 37 79 8 19 5 0 0 11 0 0 0 2 1 2 .304 .541 *9/37D25
7 Mickey Rivers 69 .232 .235 1982 TEX AL 19 68 6 16 1 1 1 4 0 0 0 0 1 1 .324 .555 *D
8 Danny Sheaffer 68 .119 .121 1987 BOS AL 25 66 5 8 1 0 1 5 0 0 0 1 1 2 .182 .301 *2
9 Bill Fahey 68 .147 .149 1982 DET AL 28 67 7 10 2 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 1 0 .179 .326 *2
10 Ron Cash 63 .222 .226 1974 DET AL 20 62 6 14 2 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 1 2 .258 .480 *3/5
11 Doug Flynn 61 .241 .246 1985 TOT ML 41 57 2 14 2 1 0 2 0 0 0 3 1 1 .316 .557 *4/65
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/11/2009.

If you include pitchers the list becomes much longer, although Bowman is still on top:

Rk Player PA OBP BA Year Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SLG OPS Pos
1 Ernie Bowman 131 .181 .184 1963 SFG NL 81 125 10 23 3 0 0 4 0 0 15 0 4 2 2 .208 .389 645
2 Rob Picciolo 128 .200 .202 1984 CAL AL 87 119 18 24 6 0 1 9 0 0 21 0 8 1 2 .277 .477 *65/49
3 Fernando Valenzue 116 .218 .220 1986 LAD NL 39 109 5 24 4 0 0 7 0 0 11 0 6 1 1 .257 .475 *1
4 Catfish Hunter 116 .215 .219 1972 OAK AL 39 105 5 23 0 0 0 5 0 0 16 0 9 2 0 .219 .434 *1
5 Tony Cloninger 114 .159 .162 1965 MLN NL 41 105 12 17 3 2 1 8 0 0 25 0 7 2 1 .257 .416 *1
6 Mike Cuellar 113 .114 .117 1969 BAL AL 39 103 6 12 1 2 0 5 0 0 43 0 8 2 0 .165 .279 *1
7 Steve Carlton 112 .238 .245 1974 PHI NL 39 102 7 25 3 0 0 9 0 0 16 0 7 3 1 .275 .513 *1
8 Jim Bunning 109 .120 .121 1964 PHI NL 41 99 4 12 2 0 0 8 0 0 29 0 9 1 2 .141 .261 *1
9 Sam McDowell 104 .172 .174 1969 CLE AL 39 92 3 16 3 0 0 6 0 0 31 0 11 1 2 .207 .379 *1
10 Fernando Valenzue 103 .214 .216 1985 LAD NL 35 97 7 21 2 0 1 7 0 0 9 0 5 1 3 .268 .482 *1
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/11/2009.

Incidentally, only one player has ever accomplished this feat after taking a walk:

Rk Player HR BB BA OBP Year Age Tm Lg G PA AB R H 2B 3B RBI IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS SLG OPS Pos
1 Jerry Martin 2 1 .318 .313 1983 34 KCR AL 13 48 44 4 14 2 0 13 0 7 0 0 3 0 1 0 .500 .813 *9
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 11/11/2009.






This list was complied with the Baseball Reference Play Index Batting Season Finder. 
Sort by PA and search for BA>1*OBP

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 6:39 pm and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “BA More Than OBP”

  1. tmckelv Says:
    November 12th, 2009 at 12:43 pm

    I find it very interesting that Billy Beane is on the list of players with lower OBP then Batting Average (#6 on Position-player only list). I guess he didn't need to go far for his Moneyball research of what type of player a team does NOT want.

  2. Andy Says:
    November 13th, 2009 at 9:46 pm

    I'm amazed that it hasn't happened with more PAs. I seem to recall some player in the last few years making it pretty far into the season--maybe August--as a full time player but with OBP and BA that were nearly identical.

  3. Andy Says:
    November 13th, 2009 at 9:50 pm

    I'm probably thinking of I-Rod in 2007. Here:

    http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/rKjJ4

    are players who qualified for the batting title but finished with an OBP that was at most 5% greater than their BA. (So, for example, a .300 BA and no more than a .315 OBP.)

    Looks like in June of that year, his OBP got as low as just 7 points above his BA.

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