In 1967, Carl Yastrzemski hit .326 with 44 home runs and 121 RBIs, leading the American League in all three categories. You might not be able to quote these numbers off the top of your head, but if you’re a hardcore baseball fan, you likely know that Yaz’s 1967 numbers represented baseball’s 16th and most recent Triple Crown season. Given that the median age of Americans is 37 and Canadians is 41, the majority of North American baseball fans (myself included) weren’t yet born the last time someone pulled off baseball’s Triple Crown.
One aspect that makes the Triple Crown so tantalizing a record is that it’s hard to do—12 of the 14 players who have done it are in the Hall of Fame—and since it requires leading the league rather than hitting a particular number, it can be done in any scoring environment. An increase in the level of play can make it more difficult, but not to the extent hitting 50 homers would be in the dead-ball era or hitting .400 today.
In 2010, we had an intriguing Triple Crown race in that at various points well into the season, four players (Miguel Cabrera, Joey Votto, Albert Pujols, and Carlos Gonzalez) all had legitimate shots at pulling it off. Nobody managed it in the end—not surprising, as it’s a difficult feat—so the dry spell continued for another year.
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1. The Clarence Thomas of BBTF (scott) Posted: May 16, 2012 at 08:08 AM (#4132601)Without checking, I'd bet that if you changed it to OPS/HR/RBI there would be a lot more hitting triple crown winners.
AL
Alex Rodriguez, 2007: 1.067-54-156
Jim Rice, 1978: .970-46-139
Reggie Jackson, 1973: .914-32-117
Dick Allen, 1972: 1.023-44-121
NL
Barry Bonds, 1993: 1.136-46-123
Kevin Mitchell, 1989: 1.023-47-125
Mike Schmidt, 1986: .937-37-119
Mike Schmidt, 1984: .919-36-106 (tied for first in all three categories)
Mike Schmidt, 1981: 1.080-31-91
Mike Schmidt, 1980: 1.004-48-121
George Foster, 1977: 1.013-52-149
Willie Stargell, 1973: 1.038-54-119
Willie McCovey, 1969: 1.108-45-126
Willie McCovey, 1968: .923-36-105
In 2010, we had an intriguing Triple Crown race in that at various points well into the season, four players (Miguel Cabrera, Joey Votto, Albert Pujols, and Carlos Gonzalez) all had legitimate shots at pulling it off.
Matt Kemp came within 8 hits of winning the Triple Crown last year. He led the league in HR and RBI.
I did factor that in, though I didn't go too into detail in the explanation. What I did was create kind of a rough model of his playing time (his simulated seasons average 132 total games and usually between 110 and 140) relative to that of other full-time starters.
HR/RBI correlate, but for the purposes of leading the league, the interaction with BA kind of makes it a problem. For leading the league in counting stats, the optimal place is as many PAs as you can put up. For leading the league in a rate state, the optimal place is as near to (but above) the threshold for qualification as possible).
And I did simulate entire season lines rather than being so statistically gauche as to simply simulate HR/RBI/BA and multiply the 3 as if they were independent of each other.
Not really. He's only won 2 batting titles. Since Yaz's Triple Crown, Gwynn, Carew, and Boggs are the 3 hitters that made it toughest for a power hitter to win the batting title.
Pre-humidifier Coors Field made it tough for any of the great NL sillyball sluggers to win the Crown, since it was pretty much 50/50 every year that someone hitting in the middle of the Rockies lineup was going to lead the league in ribbies.
6 hitters have led the league in all 3 categories over the last 20 years - Bonds, Pujols, A-Rod, Manny, Miggy C...and Andres Galarraga (singing: *one of these things is not like the others!*).
Bonds isn't of latin ancestry?
Hmmm....
Pedro
Peavy
Clemens
Big Unit probably did it
Fernando?
Not to mention BA. Holliday, Helton, Walker (3), and Galarraga all won batting titles in COL.
Trivia time. Which active MLB player won a batting title longest ago?
And which retired player won most recently?
A-Rod in 1996?
Yeah, that too. :)
The other 5 are guys that would've come to mind immediately if someone asked me that as a trivia question. Galarraga would've taken me awhile to think of. He's not exactly in the others league.
Unit did do it. And Johan Santana for sure. And Clemens did it twice. Who else? Gooden? Guidry?
(trying to resist the urge to cheat and look it up...)
Is Magglio Ordonez retired?
It's weird, I can rattle off all the batting champions of the 90's easily, but I have a hard time remembering most the ones from the 2000's.
I just looked it up - Gooden yes, Guidry no. Fernando no.
That leaves one more.
edit: nope (2nd in Ks and Ws, 1st in ERA)
Steve Carlton?
Don't quote me on this, but I believe that Bill James has said that the shift to aluminum bats for amateur players played its part in this, because it took away the skills that BA-and doubles specialists like Gwynn and Madlock cultivated.
Nolan Ryan made it pretty tough for any AL pitcher to win a triple crown in the 1970s.
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