Batting Average- What’s That?
Posted by Raphy on September 18, 2008
Much has been made of the A's eschewing batting average for more meaningful statistics, but this year they have taken it to a new level.
Here are the 2008 leaders in lowest batting average among players with 470+ PA (players that will probably qualify for the batting title). The A's are in there at 1,2,5,7 and 12 (Number 3 is former Athletic NIck Swisher). In fact the 5 Oakland players hitting under .250 with 470+ PA represent 28% of all such players in baseball.
Cnt Player **BA** PA Year Age Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS OBP SLG OPS Positions ----+-----------------+---------+---+----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+--------- 1 Daric Barton .214 493 2008 22 OAK AL 132 421 52 90 13 5 9 46 60 4 94 3 6 3 6 1 1 .314 .333 .647 *3 2 Jack Hannahan .216 491 2008 28 OAK AL 140 426 48 92 27 0 9 47 55 4 128 2 3 5 4 2 0 .305 .343 .648 *53/D 3 Nick Swisher .219 568 2008 27 CHW AL 144 479 83 105 20 1 24 69 80 6 129 4 1 4 13 3 2 .333 .415 .748 8397/D 4 Michael Bourn .220 473 2008 25 HOU NL 129 427 53 94 8 4 5 25 36 0 103 2 7 1 3 38 8 .283 .293 .576 *8 5 Jack Cust .228 558 2008 29 OAK AL 138 452 69 103 18 0 29 69 100 2 185 2 0 4 7 0 0 .367 .460 .827 *7D/9 6 Rickie Weeks .233 536 2008 25 MIL NL 120 455 86 106 22 6 12 40 62 0 108 14 1 4 5 19 5 .340 .387 .727 *4 7 Mark Ellis .233 507 2008 31 OAK AL 117 442 55 103 20 3 12 41 53 2 65 5 5 2 11 14 2 .321 .373 .694 *4 8 Adam Dunn .235 605 2008 28 TOT NL 147 480 73 113 20 0 37 93 113 12 151 7 0 5 7 2 1 .385 .508 .893 *793/D 9 Jeff Francoeur .235 610 2008 24 ATL NL 145 558 64 131 29 2 11 67 38 5 99 10 0 4 18 0 1 .293 .353 .646 *9 10 Kevin Millar .236 588 2008 36 BAL AL 138 512 72 121 24 0 20 72 68 3 88 2 0 6 8 0 1 .325 .400 .725 *3D 11 Mark Reynolds .242 577 2008 24 ARI NL 143 509 84 123 27 3 27 92 59 0 191 3 1 5 9 11 2 .321 .466 .787 *5/3 12 Bobby Crosby .242 565 2008 28 OAK AL 135 520 59 126 37 1 7 60 43 0 90 0 0 2 18 6 3 .299 .358 .657 *6
Historically, this is also significant. With just a few more plate appearances the A's can become just the third team since 1901 to have 5 players who have batted below .250 with at least 502 plate appearances.
Year Lg Team Number Players Matching +----+--+---------------------------------+------+-----------------------------------------+ 1985 NL San Francisco Giants 5 Jose Uribe / Dan Gladden / Jeffrey Leonard / Bob Brenly / Manny Trillo 1967 AL Chicago White Sox 5 Tommie Agee / Ron Hansen / Don Buford / Ken Berry / Pete Ward
September 18th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
nice report raphy!
September 18th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Thank you kingturtle.
September 18th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
8 of those 12 guys have more SOs than hits. So they're not even connecting much!
September 18th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
jack cust isnt doing much connecting but when he does . . his career TTO (as of a couple of days ago when i added it up) was .570.
September 19th, 2008 at 1:11 am
Instead of 502 plate appearances, it may make more sense to ask for 3.1 per team game. I think that brings the 1907 Clevelanders up to 5 members.
September 19th, 2008 at 4:29 am
Gerry, I would have liked to, but I don't think that there is a way to do that with PI. (Batting title standards have changed significantly over the years.)
September 19th, 2008 at 7:19 am
PI has an option for looking only at players who qualified for the batting title, but either the batting title standards have changed even more than I thought they had, or else there's something odd about the implementation in PI. E.g., it shows Red Kleinow qualifying in 1908 with well short of 300 at-bats. In fact, it shows 71 players qualifying that season and batting .250 or less, which is an *average* of over 4 players per team.
September 19th, 2008 at 8:36 am
How in the world is Milwaukee in the playoff hunt when their leadoff hitter has the 2nd worst BA in the National League??? Wow.
September 19th, 2008 at 8:39 am
I think Mark Ellis is the most interesting on the list. Through 9/18 he has put the ball in play 267 times without getting a hit or a sacrifice (AB-H-K). That's about 20 more than anyone in the league. Striking out is bad. But it must be frustrating to put the ball in play so much and not get anything for it.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
gerry, here are the standards that are used:
* Prior to 1920, a player must have appeared in 60% of the team's games to qualify for a title. This number was rounded to the nearest integer.
* From 1920-1937 (unclear, and previously thought to be until 1944), a player must have appeared in 100 games.
* From 1938-1944, the AL used 400 at bats and the NL stayed with 100 games as found by Paul Rivard of SABR.
* From 1945-1956, a player must have 2.6 at bats per team game. Note however, that from 1951-1954 a player could lead if they still led after the necessary number of hitless at bats were added to their at bat total.
* From 1957 to the present, a player must have 3.1 plate appearances per team game. Note however, that from 1967 to the present a player could lead if they still led after the necessary number of hitless plate appearances were added to their at bat total.
September 19th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Interesting observation on Ellis.
I thought Weeks had been usurped by Durham. I didn't realize he was still playing (and leading off) so much. Despite the low BA he still has a decent OBP and is a great baserunner, so I don't think he's Milwaukee's problem.
I believe the 1957 rule change was due to Ted Williams. In 1954 he had 526 PA, but only 386 AB due to the huge # of walks he took. He had a higher BA than Bobby Avila but finished 2nd when the extra AB were added to his total. (Incidentally, I never noticed just how phenomenal Williams's BB/K ratios were. 147/27, 136/32. Does anyone still have that old Franklin calculator so we can see the best ratios ever?)
September 19th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Johnny- Here is your champion http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/seweljo01.shtml .
Sewell dominated in a time when the bb/k ratios were the highest ever.
Here are the leaders among players 1945 or later with at least 50 walks. I'm just copying from an excel file (lehman db) I don't have time to retype all the players names.
playerID yearID teamID BB SO bb/so
boudrlo01 1948 CLE 98 9 10.88888889
holmeto01 1945 BSN 70 9 7.777777778
boudrlo01 1949 CLE 70 10 7
boudrlo01 1947 CLE 67 10 6.7
valoel01 1952 PHA 101 16 6.3125
valoel01 1948 PHA 81 13 6.230769231
mitchda01 1952 CLE 52 9 5.777777778
foxne01 1957 CHA 75 13 5.769230769
bondsba01 2004 SFN 232 41 5.658536585
peskyjo01 1951 BOS 84 15 5.6
kellge01 1949 DET 71 13 5.461538462
foxne01 1959 CHA 71 13 5.461538462
peskyjo01 1949 BOS 100 19 5.263157895
goodmbi01 1953 BOS 57 11 5.181818182
fainfe01 1950 PHA 133 26 5.115384615
applilu01 1949 CHA 121 24 5.041666667
galanau01 1947 CIN 94 19 4.947368421
foxne01 1961 CHA 59 12 4.916666667
stanked01 1948 BSN 61 13 4.692307692
walkedi02 1945 BRO 75 16 4.6875
berrayo01 1950 NYA 55 12 4.583333333
fainfe01 1955 DET 52 12 4.333333333
foxne01 1954 CHA 51 12 4.25
willite01 1954 BOS 136 32 4.25
galanau01 1945 BRO 114 27 4.222222222
bondsba01 2002 SFN 198 47 4.212765957
cashda01 1976 PHI 54 13 4.153846154
holmeto01 1946 BSN 58 14 4.142857143
fainfe01 1952 PHA 105 26 4.038461538
fainfe01 1951 PHA 80 20 4
ettenni01 1945 NYA 90 23 3.913043478
willite01 1950 BOS 82 21 3.904761905