The Nationwide League Has Simply One .300 Hitter — and Now He’s Injured

Does anyone need to win the Nationwide League batting title? Granted, with all these statheads devaluing batting common and as a substitute providing fancier stats that establish extra productive hitters, batting titles ain’t what they was once. Nonetheless, with lower than three weeks to go within the common season, it bears noting that only one NL qualifier has a batting common of .300 or higher, particularly Trea Turner — and he simply landed on the injured checklist.

The 32-year-old Turner left Sunday’s recreation in opposition to the Marlins within the prime of the seventh inning after working to first base, the place he was protected on a throwing error by shortstop Otto Lopez. He felt his proper hamstring “grabbing on me,” as he described it afterwards, and was changed by a pinch-runner. An MRI on Monday confirmed that he’d suffered a Grade 1 hamstring pressure — fortunately not as severe because the Grade 2 left hamstring pressure that knocked him out of motion for six weeks final season; the Phillies assume he might be again after only a 10-day IL stint. Even so, the transfer got here on the identical day that the workforce additionally positioned third baseman Alec Bohm on the IL on account of a cyst in his left shoulder; all of a sudden the Phillies are down half an infield. Fortunately for them, they now personal an nine-game lead within the NL East.

Thanks largely to a 4-for-5 night time on Friday, Turner is at the moment hitting .305/.356/.458 (125 wRC+). That’s the very best his batting common has been since June 17 (.308); he was as little as .281 as lately as August 13 however had been on hearth over the previous 4 weeks, batting .420/.448/.620 (197 wRC+) since then to overhaul Will Smith (who on the time led the NL at .312), Xavier Edwards (.308), Freddie Freeman (.300) and everybody else vying for the title. Turner already has a batting title, having led the NL with a .328 mark in 2021.

Admittedly, this doesn’t matter all that a lot, however then, what statistic does? Statheads going again to F.C. Lane, who proposed slugging proportion as a greater measure of offensive prowess in 1915, and Department Rickey, who kind of invented on-base proportion in 1954, have supplied us with higher statistics by which we are able to measure particular person offense, statistics that correlate extra intently with run scoring. However as I wrote again in February, I don’t assume meaning we have to let go of batting common, which serves as an entry level to caring about baseball stats and offers historic continuity that goes again over a century and a half. I gained’t rehash that piece right here, however I do really feel that maintaining a tally of the league-wide common is an efficient solution to take the game’s temperature, as a result of it mainly measures leisure worth in quantity. Base hits create the motion that finest captures followers’ attentions.

In that regard, we all know the majors have been within the doldrums lately, with annual batting averages decrease than any we’ve seen for the reason that late Sixties and early ’70s:

Together with the pandemic-shortened 2020 season — offered right here for the sake of continuity, although you’re free to toss it out — every of the previous six seasons ranks among the many 21 lowest in batting common over the previous 125 years. As a result of residence run charges are nearer to their historic excessive (1.39 per recreation, set in 2019), with the 2021, ’23, and ’25 charges respectively rating fourth, fifth, and seventh in that span, scoring charges haven’t actually suffered. This 12 months’s scoring fee is inside 0.01 runs per recreation of seasons as disparate as 1955, ’62, ’77, ’79, and 2016.

We’ve been over the tendencies numerous occasions. House run charges are excessive and batting averages low due to the best way the sport has developed, with beginning pitcher workloads lowering due to the benefits produced by brisker arms throwing at increased velocities in shorter stints. Batters are hanging out extra usually, so as a substitute of offenses attempting to string collectively a number of hits to eke out runs, they’re more and more swinging for the fences, with uppercuts that produce extra homers but in addition extra simply caught fly balls, therefore the decrease league-wide batting averages. It’s price noting moreover that MLB, which now owns about a 25% share of Rawlings, has altered the composition of the baseball in ways in which have affected each its consistency from ball to ball and extra usually how far fly balls carry, which has had an impression on these tendencies.

I’ve been speaking in regards to the mixed statistics of the AL and NL, and within the age of interleague play, that is smart, however for the reason that two leagues are thought of individually when it comes to awards and honors, it’s price noting that at occasions there’s some separation. Right here’s a graph of the annual AL and NL batting averages relationship again to 1961, the beginning of the enlargement period:

The gaps are exaggerated by the dimensions of the graph, which is helpful provided that we’re speaking a couple of comparatively slender vary. The AL, which by means of September 8 — the cutoff for all of those statistics — had a .245 batting common, hasn’t hit .250 or increased since 2019 (.253), whereas the NL (.248 as of Tuesday) reached the .250 threshold in each ’19 (.251) and ’23 (.250). Once more, we haven’t seen ranges so low for the reason that late Sixties and early ’70s. The AL hit .230 in 1968, down from .236 in ’67 and .240 in ’66; although it improved to .246 in ’69 and went even increased within the subsequent couple of years, the .239 common in ’72 was a significant factor within the league adopting the designated hitter the following season. The NL was usually increased in these days till the DH got here alongside, and it constantly lagged behind till the previous decade; within the days of the common DH, it’s overtaken the AL.

However regardless of the AL at the moment having the decrease league-wide batting common than the NL, the Junior Circuit has half a dozen .300 certified hitters, led by Aaron Choose (.321), with two different hitters posting increased averages than Turner:

Eagle-eyed readers will notice the presence of Smith within the NL rankings, albeit with a batting common that doesn’t fall neatly in keeping with these above and under him. Based on a rule launched in 1967, a participant who falls in need of formally qualifying for the batting title (since 1957, based mostly on 3.1 plate appearances per workforce recreation) is ranked based mostly on “if he had been charged with the required variety of plate appearances or official at bats” to achieve the qualification threshold. Smith, whose Dodgers had performed 144 video games although Monday, requiring 446.4 PA (which rounds as much as 447 for these functions), was 15 shy of qualifying, so his rating relies on the batting common he would have if he went 0-for-15 (.283), although he’s not really charged with these phantom at-bats. For the ninth-ranked hitter within the league, that is trivial, however as I famous, there have been factors in August the place Smith was the official chief even with the additional at-bats; a 2-for-26 skid late within the month took care of that concern. Tony Gwynn gained the 1996 NL batting title (.353) whereas falling 4 in need of the 502 PA wanted to qualify; even with an additional 0-for-4 tacked on, he outdistanced Ellis Burks’ .344.

Anyway, whereas the NL has only one certified .300 hitter — Turner is the one one with greater than Andrew Vaughn’s 209 PA with the Brewers — the AL entered Tuesday with six such gamers. The mixed whole of seven qualifiers with a .300 common matches that of final 12 months; the one season with a decrease mixed whole was in 1968, when there have been six, together with only one within the AL (Carl Yastrzemski at .301).

Qualification thresholds have modified over time. Previous to 1920, a batter needed to have appeared in 60% of a workforce’s scheduled video games, whereas from 1920–37 a 100-game threshold was used. From 1938–44, the AL used a 400-at-bat threshold, whereas the NL caught with 100 video games, and from 1945–56, the quantity was based mostly on 2.6 at-bats (not plate appearances) per recreation. Contemplating these shifting requirements, and counting such hitters within the AL and NL individually, listed below are the leagues with the fewest .300-hitting qualifiers:

As you may see from the yellow highlighting, this isn’t a completely new story, as each the AL and NL made the checklist final 12 months, and every made it as soon as within the earlier two seasons. All of this connects to the bigger tendencies mentioned above.

It’s price contemplating the annual fluctuations and longer-term tendencies when taking inventory of the present state of affairs because it pertains to the leaderboards. The extra old-fashioned manner is to calculate what number of factors every annual league chief is above that 12 months’s league common. After we do, we discover that Turner particularly stands out:

The hole between Turner’s league-leading mark and that of the NL on the whole is the second-smallest, whereas final 12 months’s winner, Luis Arraez, is in a digital tie for the Tenth-smallest. Even so, at this finish of the desk we’ve bought gamers from the tail finish of World Conflict II, from the high-scoring 2000s, the Eighties, the Deadball Period… you title it. In the meantime, Choose’s AL-leading .321 is 76 factors above the league, which is in a digital tie for forty fourth out of 250 (the 248 batting title winners and two present leaders); amongst these he’s tied with are Frank Robinson (.316 within the 1966 AL, which hit .240) and Frank Thomas (.347 within the 1997 AL, which hit .271). It’s all around the map.

The opposite finish of the rankings make extra sense, as eight of the 12 largest gaps between the chief and the league aren’t simply from the 1901–20 span, however from the AL in that interval:

Bear in mind, the AL was a model new main league then, and whereas it included its share of gamers from the NL, the unfold in expertise between the easiest gamers — Ty Cobb, Nap Lajoie, Tris Speaker — and the typical or replacement-level ones was increased than it might ever be. The one comparatively latest seasons at this finish of the rankings are shortened ones, particularly Gwynn from the 1994 strike season and DJ LeMahieu from the 2020 AL (.364 in a .240 league), although within the vary from 104 to 111 factors above the league we discover another twenty first century hitters, resembling Todd Helton from 2000, Barry Bonds from 2002, Chipper Jones from 2008, Juan Soto from 2020, and Arraez from 2023 (.354 in a .250 league).

One other solution to measure batting common leaders relative to the league is utilizing our plus stats. Like wRC+ or OPS+, the + is shorthand for an index stat with a baseline of 100, the place 120 represents a efficiency 20% higher than common and 80 a efficiency 20% worse than common. By this measure, Turner isn’t fairly as a lot of an outlier, however he’s in a digital tie for thirteenth out of 250:

The names are fairly related as within the first desk, simply in a distinct order. Even with league averages various by 33 factors from lowest (this 12 months’s NL at .248) to highest (the 1938 AL at .281) inside that desk, there’s not a lot differentiation within the plus stats. The identical is generally true on the different finish, with 5 Cobb seasons and three Lajoie ones within the prime 10, all starting from an AVG+ of 154 (Lajoie’s 1901) to 148, with LeMahieu (150) in a digital tie for third.

By both methodology, Turner being the one .300 hitter, even in a low-average league, stands out. I do assume it’s a little bit of a bummer that such hitters have change into so uncommon, as a result of it carries a value when it comes to connections to historical past and to informal fandom. Undeniably, baseball’s viewers has shrunk in latest a long time, and anybody who nonetheless loves the sport as deeply as the typical FanGraphs reader is little doubt uncovered to an growing quantity of cranky-pants complaints a couple of much less watchable product with traditionally worse gamers, even when these complaints are off base.

Even setting that apart, the lower-average leagues depart much less room for variation from participant to participant, and fewer routes to success. Even a pair years in the past, watching Arraez — who’s nowhere near being the sport’s most efficient hitter general — put up a .354 batting common was enjoyable, and as a bonus his performances helped illuminate Statcast’s comparatively new bat-tracking information to grasp his proficiency at squaring up the ball, albeit at a decrease swing velocity than an all-or-nothing hitter like Giancarlo Stanton. Watching Choose chase .400 for the primary two months of the season, combining the superior energy of a Stanton with the knack of an Arraez to seek out grass, was even higher.

We all know the tendencies that bought us thus far, and we all know there’s nonetheless some variation throughout the recreation, some flukiness. Turner being the NL’s solely .300 hitter is on the identical time simply a kind of issues and a bigger symptom. Baseball will survive, however I do assume we might be having extra enjoyable.