Craziest Stat ever

[Remember The Alomar]

The article itself is pretty good, but I loved this bit.

Players hitting .300 walked 14.5 percent of the time and players hitting .298 walked 5.8 percent of the time, but in their final plate appearance of the season, players hitting .299 have never walked. In the last quarter century, no player hitting .299 has ever drawn a base on balls in his final plate appearance of the season.

Link

[BaltimoreTerp]

I just started that book yesterday. Good stuff so far.

[DrungoHazewood]

Interesting to think about, but I don't think it's terribly surprising. You'd expect someone who's hitting .299 to swing at everything rather than walk.

One thing they didn't mention was the sample size. From 1975-2009 there were only 49 players who hit exactly .299 and 149 players who hit exactly .300 (if you limit to 200+ PAs). Limiting to players who qualified for the batting title it's only 25 and 89. That's out of 10,965 players who had 200+ PAs, and 4999 players who qualified for the batting title. They're drawing conclusions based on 1.8% of the population.

Another thing they didn't mention was the fact that .299/.300 hitters are almost all better-than-average hitters, while the pitchers pitching the last inning of the last game of the season are mostly not very good. The last game of the season (for the vast majority of teams) rarely has an impact on the playoffs, and rosters have expanded, so I'd assume the last pitcher of the year is often the organization's 15th best pitcher.

(Veering off track, my nomination for craziest stat ever might be Lyman Lamb's 100 doubles for Tulsa in the Western League in 1924. If memory serves me, that's about 25 more doubles than any other player has ever hit in any professional season.)

[Frobby]

If Nick Markakis was batting .299 on the last AB of the season, and saw ball four coming his way, I have very little doubt that he'd take the walk. And that scenario may actually arise some time in his career, the way he always hovers right around .300.

Drungo, can you give us the number of players who hit .298 or .301? I think any of those guys could have been hitting .299 going into their last AB. At the end of the season with 500-600 PA, an out is going to drop your BA by .0005 to .0006, whereas a hit is going to increase your average by -0011 to .0014.

[scOtt]

It makes sense. Who ever got deadly serious on the 18th hole if you had a chance to shoot 79 instead of 80? :raises hand: