Melky Suspended

[yanksfan09]

Originally Posted by familytoad

Of course, the interesting part here is that he's actually hitting .346 and only needed ONE MORE plate appearance (to get to 502) to qualify for the league batting leader title...

Since he won't be playing the rest of the year, he cannot go down, and conceivably if Andrew McCutchen drops a little ( he's currently 12 pts higher at .358), Melky could have had the highest batting average in the NL.

That one plate appearance could avoid a *major controversy about having the season batting leader being suspended!!

Read this: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-bi...u0u2uNPFuFCLcF

I believe he just gets an 0-1 tacked on to his total and he still qualifies at .346. I heard conflicting views on this rule today on the radio and am not totally sure. Hopefully McCutchen beats him outright anyway...

[yanksfan09]

Another interesting thing is that there were rumors of a failed drug test before the All Star Game, but baseball had to wait for the process and any appeals to take place. So he was still eligible for All Star Game.

He went on to win MVP and no doubt had a huge role in determining home-field advantage in World Series this year! Also, Bud Selig probably knew about the failed test as he reluctantly presented the MVP award to Melky.....

There's a whole lot more to this story than the Giants down an outfielder this year. Controversial Batting Title story and home field for WS!

I absolutely hate the idea that an exhibition All Star game decides anything for the World Series, BTW!

Balco's Victor Conte's view (for what it's worth?):http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/82...-many-mlb-peds

[novakjr]

Originally Posted by yanksfan09

Read this: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-bi...u0u2uNPFuFCLcF

I believe he just gets an 0-1 tacked on to his total and he still qualifies at .346. I heard conflicting views on this rule today on the radio and am not totally sure. Hopefully McCutchen beats him outright anyway...

That is correct. They used this formula for Madlock in '81 and Gwynn in '96.

[familytoad]

Yep I actually knew about the minimum plate appearance rule but forgot about Gwynn in 96 and that it in came into play that year.

Madlock technically had 320 PA in his 1981 season in which his Pirates played 102 games, so I think he had met the 3.1 per game requirement. (strike year)
He did have a big lead in the race, so either way he would have been champ.

Gwynn fell 4 PA below the 502 minimum (3.1 * 162) with 498 and was way way ahead of others.

Agree with poster above, let's hope it doesn't come down to giving the batting championship to a suspended player nor that the WS ends up being won in the 9th inning of game 7 because of the silly home field rule!

[brob28]

A week ago he was heading for a huge payoff entering free agency after this season. I wonder how much cash this is going to cost him in his next contract.