The Pecan Park Eagle

2018 American League Batting Average Leaders

Through Games of 6/29/2018:

• Astros Above shown in bold type.

The Run of Things Going Into the All Star Break. Jose Altuve has hit a cooler spot in the long season run. It’s not as bad as George Springer’s big chill at the plate, of course, but still close enough to AC room air temp to allow Mr. Altuve more company near the top view of the whole house than he might really desire to welcome.

Anyway, that’s baseball. And it’s all part of the long season.

A curiosity. The PP Eagle will continue to run these updates sporadically during the season – and more often come September as we continue to track Jose Altuve’s pursuit of a 4th American League batting average championship. In that light, we have elected to follow the bare statistical facts that are germaine to the competition – times at bat, hits, and batting average.

We do not, however, have a ready answer to the way Baseball Reference.Com chooses to handle players who qualify by their AL numbers, but would not count, if we took their other playing time with an NL club into consideration too prior to an earlier this same season trade or pick up.

So far, John Jay, the 10th ranked hitter today, forces these questions: Does John Jay really qualify? And, at season’s end, when all of his MLB stats are considered together, will his NL stats at San Diego in 2018 undermine his chances for the AL batting title?

John Jay is hitting .307 as a 2018 AL batter. Baseball Reference.Com does not hold the .244 that Jay batted for San Diego in the 21 games he played there before joining the Royals after the start of this season. If they did, his aggregate average for the whole season would be .291, to date, and he would not be listed among the AL leaders here.

My understanding is that a batter’s performance for a whole season, both leagues combined, would be considered in determining a batting championship.

But, what if a player hit .400 in the NL but got traded at the August 31st deadline to an AL club because he ran off with the NL club owner’s wife – and then hammered the AL pitchers with enough hits in September to qualify as the batting champion of both leagues? How does that work? Do you have to get most of your hits in one league to qualify as the BA champion? Or do you just treat whatever you did in the other league that season as a non-event?

It goes without saying, but leave it to me, I’ll say it anyway: If you are hitting .400 in August, but you get traded before the deadline because it’s learned that you’ve been stepping out with the club owner’s wife, don’t be surprised if the team’s marketing people come up with the world’s first triple person bobble-head giveaway figure – just in time for the first game of the playoffs. – It will feature the club owner getting ready to deliver a serious double-duty kick to the posteriors of both his former wife and former star slugger.

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle