The Pecan Park Eagle

Jose Altuve fell to 2nd place in the AL batting average race last night to Seattle’s Jean Segura.

As one who grew up playing and following baseball during the Holy Grail .300 batting average adoration era, Mickey Mantle’s sorrow over the slippage of his career BA at the the end to .298 was my shared, over-identified grief with his disappointment. “.300” always rode hard as the bottom line on greatness for hitters back in the day, especially for guys who received their first nose-sniffing taut for the Hall of Fame as an 18 year old first-time camper with the New York Yankees.

The baseball gods forgot to tell the irrigation system at Yankee Stadium that its nozzles should not be high-enough, quick-enough, or powerful-enough to bring down a comet from Commerce, Oklahoma on its first fly by a Yankee World Series game. The injury to Mantle on the famous “Pardon me, Mr. DiMaggio” play in the 1951 World Series undoubtedly stands as the major reason that Mickey missed out on .300 as a career batting average achievement. Playing too long did it, as did lifestyle probably contribute, but even those issues alone were not the real measurable BA stat killers. The assassins were the loss of running speed that would have turned so many close outs into hits over time.

Without the presence of those missing hits, Mantle wasn’t dropping to .300 when he played probably four seasons too many. He was dropping from too near .300 to escape its ultimate loss.

On the larger subject of the batting average and its value to building a great team, I still believe what I believed as a kid when my weekly copy of The Sporting News arrived in the mail.

Each week, for the longest time, I would use the weekly reported batting average stats to pick my favorite current All Star teams for the American and National Leagues. My base consideration was the .300 batting average. I looked at power hitting through doubles, triples, HR, and slugging average. I looked at stolen bases as an indicator of speed. I paid attention to runs and RBIs as indicators of production. I looked at BB/K ratios as indicators of the batter’s skill to work the strike zone. And, of course, I was most forgiving of big HR hitters with high K rates.

Want to have some fun, maybe? Below is the current list of Top Twenty Hitters in the American League, through all games of July 17, 2017. If you wish to try, see how deep you can go into an eight-man position and one DH lineup for the AL stars using the players and these stats as your first choices. You may have to drop below .300 to fill the club out in some cases, but that’s OK.

Just remember. It’s all in fun. As it always used to be, when we were kids. I’m betting we can still put together s club based on the fundamental baseball stats that will compete favorably with any of the new geek squad analytic offerings.

American League Top Twenty Batting Averages

Through Games of Monday, July 17, 2017:

PS: Marwin Gonzalez’s .308 BA (69 for 124) was not considered enough times at bat to qualify him. Otherwise, he would have ranked #11. Feel free to use Marwin on your picks, if you decide to build s team. And, if you do, please share your picks in the comment section. We always used Innings Pitched, Complete Games, 3.00 ERA or less, and strong SO/K ratios to pick starting pitchers. We simply did not research the Top 20 AL Pitchers for this little exercise.

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Tags: 0ld Fashioned Stats Still Shine

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