What's all this talk about .400??
 

UPDATED (trying to do it daily):


Here's a rundown of the most recent (since 1941) to 'flirt', even slightly, with that magical digit:


Listed are the last dates the hitter was at .400 or higher.


Tony Gwynn was at .408 thru May 15, 1994 playing in 30 of his team's 36 games (.394).

Larry Walker was at .400 thru May 26, 1999 playing in 33 of his team's 43 games (.376)

Ted Williams was at .401 thru June 5, 1957 playing in 41 of his team's 46 games (.388)

Chipper Jones was at .400 thru June 18, 2008 playing in 66 of his team's 73 games. (.364)


Luis Arraez is at .401 thru June 24, 2023 playing in 72 of his team's 78 games.


Tony Fernandez was at .400 thru June 28, 1999 playing in 71 of his team's 78 games. (.328)

Rod Carew was at .401 thru July 10, 1977 playing in 81 of his team's 85 games. (.388)

Stan Musial was at .403 thru July 11, 1948 playing in all of his team's 76 games. (.376)

Nomar Garciaparra was at .403 thru July 20 (1st game), 2000 playing in 75 of his team's 91 games (.372)

John Olerud was at .400 thru August 2, 1993 playing in 105 of his team's 107 games (.363)


THEN, it gets SERIOUS...hard to forget:


George Brett was at .400 thru September 19, 1980 playing 104 of his team's 148 games. (.390)


We should enjoy Arraez's attempt while it lasts.[/B][/SIZE]

oops! gotta go back and add Chipper

Its even more amazing in this era when power is the priority and average is not emphasized as much and not as many players even average over .300.
and Strike Outs are so high.

Makes me want to watch , enjoy and appreciate. Hope he keeps it going for a while. Such a great story

Ted Williams was at .399 with one doubleheader to play, although technically it would have rounded up to .400. It was suggested he sit out the doubleheader, which after all was meaningless. That was not Ted Williams' way. He played and went something like 6 for 8, and Connie Mack had ordered his pitchers not to groove any.

I wonder how close Babe Herman got to actually hitting 400 and when it slipped away. He hit a forgotten 393 in 1930.

I always liked Umpire Bill McGowan's actions in Teds first at-bat of the double header.

"Williams was batting cleanup, and Fowler retired the side in the first, so Ted led off the top of the second. “Bill McGowan was the plate umpire, and I’ll never forget it,” Ted recalled. “Just as I stepped in, he called time and slowly walked around the plate, bent over and began dusting it off. Without looking up, he said, ‘To hit .400 a batter has got to be loose. He has got to be loose.’”[fn]My Turn At Bat, 90.[/fn]
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whoa!
 

He was at .398 on Sept 15th!

its amazing that that was a forgotten number. :):)

And he's 24th in WAR according to Fangraphs lol.

The power of the WAR!!!


????!?!

WAR does not like singles hitters, that's for sure. Especially Fangraphs' version.

I remember John Olerud was batting .400 on August 2nd 1993.

I genuinely believe had the strike not occurred in 1994, that Tony Gwynn would've hit .400.

That being said, Arraez is putting on quite the display, even though it's early in the season.

And Fred McGriff, who hit 34 home runs in that shortened season, would easily have hit 7+ more, and would be in the Hall as an automatic choice, with his 500 clean career homers.

Those are the 2 things that bothered me most about that strike, besides it killing my baseball card business for a few years.

Cancelling the World Series is what I'll ALWAYS remember! Shameful!!


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Cancelling the World Series is what I'll ALWAYS remember! Shameful!!



Randall- I'll check up on Olerud and add him to the list...thanks
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He's 2nd among second basemen to Semien.

Baseball Reference and ESPN, have him tied for 7th among position players, which seems about right to me, without delving into all the various statistics.

Well, no surprise...already down to .382


fun while it lasted...





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5 for 5 game on Friday got him back up to .390. Hitting .400 for the season seems unlikely, but it would be fun to see him make a run at it.

Is Joe Jackson the only 400 hitter since 1900 not in the Hall?

If you don't include the Negro Leagues, it looks like it.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/l...g_season.shtml

I believe so and that prior link provided seems to say the same info

On the opposing end, we have Kyle Schwarber who is hitting a crisp .177 with 19 home runs. I'd call him a modern day Dave Kingman, but I think that's insulting to Dave because not even he in all his glory, had an average that low!

Somehow Schwarber has a career BA of .228 but the way he's going, it will be dropping. At least he does walk a fair amount so his career OBP is .338. (Kingman was .236 BA and .302 OBP).

I thought he would be helped by shifts being banned, but apparently not. He currently has 19 home runs and only 18 singles and seems to either strike out of fly out so not hitting many ground balls that have a chance to get through the bigger holes on the left side.

Scary when the comparison is to King Kong Kingman. I guess the bar is lowered. Lol

Can't help but compare it to Madison Bumgarners (a pitcher) stats for the 2015 season with the Giants. 19 hits, 5 hr, .247 BA, .275 OBP. Oh, and 18 wins.

Back to .400 with another 5 hit game. Wow.

I love having a player like Luis Arraez around - a player who goes completely against the game's trend - Rod Carew in 2023.

How rare is it to have two five-hit games in three games?

I got him in the 23rd round for one of my fantasy baseball teams. I'm hoping I can have the NL batting champ on this particular team for the second straight year - I picked up Jeff McNeil last year as a free agent at the start of the season. I guess batting champions are not in particularly high demand anymore.

You beat me to posting about it. 2 5 for 5 games with a 1 for 4 in between. What's hard to believe from today's game is that he went 5-5 and the Marlins scored 11 runs but he only scored once.

The game is so different, even from 15 years ago. It warms my heart to see a guy like Arraez, I think we were spoiled with so many high average hitters for so long! I even remember, what seems like not too long ago, Chipper Jones flirting with .400 at his age 36 season. Hard to not look at the past and long for yesteryear when we see some of these pitiful batting averages of today.

I feel like one of my roles in collecting circles is to give y'all some time context... I was one year old when Chipper hit .364.

That kid is amazing 5 for 5 and back to .400 and he was 5 for 5 like 2 games ago

Wow

And he was 5 for 5 on June 3rd.

So that is 3 5 hit games in 1 month.

And he has only struck out 15 times on the season which is amazing in this era

just saw a post that says only 4 times in the History of Baseball has a player had 5+ hit games in a calendar month

George Sisler August 1921
Ty Cobb July 1922
Dave Winfield June 1984
Luis Arraez June 2023

That puts Arraez in some really good and historical company

He's got 10 more games in June to be the first player to have 4 5 hit games in a month.

And to think that he could have had 6 in that June 3rd game. He was 5 for 5 with 5 RBI and they pinch hit for him!! Thanks coach.

+1. I know that batting average is not a key indicator of winning games, but it’s the classic measure and a lot more impressive to me than a lot of things we do value now. It rewards consistent success by the batter. I doubt he hits .400 for the year, but I hope he keeps it up and comes close. I’m rooting for him, it would be a great throwback and historical event if he actually did manage to do it. 67 games, 102 hits, wow.

Nomar was at .403 on July 3, 2000.

It's fun to follow. I'm glad they banned the shift.

Agreed it is fun to watch

But I do not like the banning of the shift.

To me professional hitters should no how to hit. So if the other team puts a shift the batter should adjust and hit it elsewhere and next at bat they will not shift

I've added Nomar...thanks for the catch!


Arraez got back up to .403 Friday, 6/23.
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Adam Dunn.

Singles hitters get no respect.

Chris Davis, too.

Chris Davis had a very strange career from an analytics perspective. His career WAR is less then his two best years combined.

Meaning, for two years he was a Superstar....and the rest of his career he was less then a replacement level player. Way less.

Good enough to earn him 187+ Million bucks over the course of his career though.

Adam Dunn at least walked a lot and had a very respectable OBP for most of his career. He's Lou Gehrig compared to some of the other names that have been bandied about.

Dunn's overall analytics are mostly killed by his apparently horrible defensive prowess. I never saw him play enough to be able to corroborate how bad he was from an eye test, or whether he got trashed just because he was a 1st baseman and a corner outfielder.

Dunn's offensive skill set would be absolutely perfect for this era. Had he played in the AL during his tenure in the league, he would've been a DH. While his strikeout numbers were certainly gaudy, no one could deny his power production.

I was always disappointed that he flamed out so early. Was really hoping he would put up power numbers, long enough to hit 600 Homers, despite having a batting average lower than .240

I started a separate 'air-cooled' thread for those who swish for pay.



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Yesterday Trout, Renfroe and Moniak went 13 for 13 in a 28 hit nail-biter.

Trout, Drury and Thais also hit three consecutive home runs on three consecutive pitches.

I keep seeing more high-average hitters I'm having to add to my '.400 attempt list'.

Gonna confirm Tony Fernandez's 1999 season.


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