In the last few weeks, the prospect of hitting .400 has come up with regards to the amazing hot streak of Chipper Jones. Now that Lance Berkman, sitting at .399, has decided he wants in on the fun, I think I’ll join in as well.
Since 1901, only eight players have ever accomplished this feat. Only one has accomplished it since 1930, and that was of course Ted Williams in 1941. What you may find more interesting is that there have been very few .400 seasons of 100 or more at bats in addition to the ones that qualified for the batting title.
Bob Hurricane Hazle, 1957 - .403: The answer to the trivia question, “who was the last player to hit .400 in a season of 100 or more at bats?” Hazle hit a remarkable .403 in 134 at bats in Milwaukee in 1957. Hazle would hit .213 in his other 127 big league at bats, but 1957 will keep him as statistical footnote for years to come. For the record, Chipper Jones is currently hitting .410 in 156 at bats.
Don Padgett, 1939 - .399: Don Padgett won a batting title the year he hit .399. He didn’t actually qualify for the title that year with only 233 at bats, but due to an obscure rule (you can add however many hitless at bats it would take to qualify to your total, and if you still would have led the league, you win the batting crown) won the batting title anyway. Hall of Famer Johnny Mize was the victim of this rule in 1939 (Mize also led the league in Home Runs that year) and the title helps commemorate the lifetime .288 hitter’s flirtation with .400.
Repoz
Posted: May 21, 2008 at 12:28 PM |
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1. Kiko SakataWhat was the requirement for qualifying for a batting title that year, because, by my calculation, if you add 34 hitless at-bats to his record that'd push him below Mize's .349. Would 267 at-bats have really qualified you for a batting title? (by the way, BB-Ref lists Mize as the league leader in batting average that year)
I don't get this either. In the BJNHBA, James covered a bunch of controversial batting titles from the era: Dale Alexander, Taffy Wright, Ernie Lombardi, Debs Garms, but he never mentioned Padgett. I think he would have.
Anyway, from the James piece, he reports that the requirement at the time was 100 games played, not a specific number of ABs. Padgett had 92
Maybe the thinking is, if you gave him 8 full games of, say, 4 at-bats per game, that'd be an extra 32 at bats, which I think would keep him just above Mize (.351 - .349)?
Possibly, but I've never heard of that possibility, and never heard of Padgett as a controversial batting champion. And disputed batting titles and ERA titles is a bit of a hobby of mine.
edit: To clarify, I don't think there was any possibility of adjustment at the time. Either you qualified, or you didn't. Unless the commish intervened and took away the title from a marginal qualifier, as he did with Tiny Bonham, or ruled an almost qualifier the champion, as he did with Ernie Lombardi in 1942.
What was the requirement for qualifying for a batting title that year, because, by my calculation, if you add 34 hitless at-bats to his record that'd push him below Mize's .349. Would 267 at-bats have really qualified you for a batting title? (by the way, BB-Ref lists Mize as the league leader in batting average that year)
Voros has this wrong.
While there may well have been different authorities crowning "batting champions," the "official" qualification in 1939 was 100 games played. It was that qualification that gave the official NL crown to Debs Garms in 1940, despite just 385 PAs. And it would have given it to Taffy Wright in the AL in 1938, despite just 281 PAs, but the league decided to impose the "add hitless at-bats" thing to Garms (which I'm pretty sure they made up on the spot) and instead awarded the batting crown to Jimmie Foxx.
No publication from that time of which I'm aware has Padgett as the batting champ, as he played in only 92 games.
Anyway, it was controversies such as the Wright-Foxx thing that subsequently led to the leagues first choosing 400 at-bats (100 games x 4 ABs) as the qualifier. That worked until 1954, when Bobby Avila's .341 beat Ted Williams' .345 because Williams had just 386 ABs, but over 500 PAs. So then they changed it to 3.1 PAs per scheduled game (or 477 PAs in a 154-game schedule, or 502 PAs in a 162-game schedule), which is what it's been ever since.
The leaderboards in bb-ref.com employ the 3.1-PA qualifier for all rate stats, regardless of whether it was in effect at the time.
Luis Tiant?
Bizarre.
Is that even legal?
*sigh* Yet another blogger just making stuff up.
But yeah, it's good to know that this one did apparently come straight out of never-never land ... simply because otherwise, it would mean I'd never heard of a guy who was a batting champion. I'm not sure my ego could take that.
Another note. After the Garms title (he beat out Ernie Lombardi), the rule was modified to say 100 games in the field. Garms had only 83 (or possibly fewer) in the field. The rest of his 103 games were PH appearances, so he was perceived, much like Taffy Wright, to be illegitimate. So, 2 years later, Ernie Lombardi hit .330 in 105 games (but only 85 in the field) to Enos Slaughter's .318. The rule change which came about because Lombardi was screwed in 1940 was about to screw him. The commish overruled and awarded the 1942 title to Lombardi.
I'm pretty sure they use the number of games a team is actually credited with playing.
Usenet
But re-reading I see that I misinterpreted what he was saying, my apologies.
Looking at that page, the great thing is that his 1998 was so good in such a short time that his career OPS+ (79) is actually HIGHER than what's listed as his career high (60).
And, if you move the standard used in reply #2 back one year to 1941, you have Musial in the top 10 at .426 in 47 AB/49 PA.
Man, I remember that. I thought, holy, we need to have this guy for a whole season.
Goes back to '71.
Depends what you're looking for, though.
Reed has always been an enigma to me. His minor league numbers were/are (he's hitting .350 this year in Tacoma with a 985 OPS) impeccable. In fact, he's a career .321 minor league hitter. But this somehow didn't translate to the majors ( only .253 with a 680 OPS - which looks even worse when one considers he hit .397 in his 2004 audition with the Mariners). He's not yet 27, so there's still part of me that thinks some team should take a flier on him.
Todd Haney
1995: 411/463/603 in 72 ABs
1996: 134/200/146 in 83 ABs
wonder if there's ever been a greater season-to-next discrepancy
(with virtually the same number of PAs, I mean)
Anything that reminds me of Terrell Lowery makes me smile. Thanks.
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