“There is a loophole, though. Usually it's a small loophole. But this year it's a loophole big enough for Omar Infante to drive a truck through it.Here’s where it gets confusing to TCM:
If a player doesn't finish with 502 plate appearances, you can the add necessary hitless (and imaginary) plate appearances to get him there. If his new (imaginary) batting average is still good enough to lead the league, he gets his batting title.”
If Infante finishes the year with fewer than 502 plate appearances and still wins the batting title, what’s his batting average? Does he get to keep his, say, .340 mark, or will he go down in the record book as .335 or whatever after those extra at bats are added in? Will we say he beat Votto or Pujols by 10 points, or 5 points? Look, the usual caveats about batting titles being not very important certainly apply here, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t inherently interesting.
For what it’s worth, the system currently in place, in which we’re allowed to add at bats to a hitter’s total to get him to the qualifying limit hearkens back to 1951 and was in place until the 1955 season. Then it disappeared until 1967, when it was brought back. In that time, the closest anyone’s come to the threshold while winning a title was Bill Madlock in 1981, when he needed 317 plate appearances, and he got 320. He’s followed closely by Andres Galarraga, who needed 502 in 1993, and got 506.
Update: Intrepid reader James Niemeyer points out that Tony Gwynn won the '96 batting title with just 498 plate appearances. His .353 average is listed 1st on BR.com's leader board, but his adjusted average would have been .349, five points better than Ellis Burks' .344. Looks like we have our answer.
7 comments:
I'm pretty sure it's recorded as the real number (not the tacked-on-calculated number). Check out Braun's league-leading SLG from his rookie year... pretty certain he won the title with this caveat.
I need to look into it, but I remember reading a little while ago about some older ballplayer complaining about this kind of rule (might not have been for AVG, though). He said something about having won it but then people came in and gave it to someone else "by giving him ghost hits... I never heard of such a thin" or something stupid phrase like that. I have no idea where to begin finding that again, though...
Yeah, the only place the "adjusted" number will be relevant will be in a BA leaderboard.
Try again...
Well, there ya go. It was the Ellis Burks/Tony Gwynn year. Here's Burks complaining about adding at-bats to Tony. Clearly he isn't one to think too deeply about math because this rule isn't all that complicated...
More interesting [to me] question: What if Infante's actual average is higher than Votto's, but his adjusted average is lower. Obviously Votto wins the batting title under the rules, but how do you list a leaderboard for the season? Do you list the adjusted average for second place, or does your second-place finisher end up with a higher average than first place, and probably a footnote?
@HH: Infante shouldn't even be listed at all if he doesn't win, since he's a non-qualifier.
Otherwise, we'd be compiling everyone's "adjusted" number; it has to stop somewhere. It's only a relevant exercise if he'd be the winner.
Steve: Well, I'd think that the place it would stop would be the leaderboard, wouldn't it? Baseball Reference does this on a regular basis. See, for example, Shane Mack on the slugging list here. Actual number would've been 7th best, but adding the hitless AB dropped him to 8th. No idea if that's official or just BBREF's preference, but either way, it's not that hard to do, and it's not some slippery slope, since it realistically only matters for guys that have very good numbers and are very close to 502 PA. For instance, Tony Gwynn, Jr. hit .270 in 451 PA with the Padres last year; it's not like adjusting Infante's batting average to see whether he would've finished second or fifth means we suddenly have to care that Gwynn would be adjusted down to .239 by adding an 0-for-51.
It's certainly not true that "it's only a relevant exercise if he'd be the winner"--obviously somebody thinks the whole leaderboard is relevant, or it wouldn't be there, and a lot of people would be interested to know that Infante finished second (or whatever) in batting average. So I guess what I'm saying is I don't get your point at all.
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