Can Joe Mauer Bat .400?

by Cloud City Twinkies on Jun 17, 2009 10:18 AM EDT Comment 52 comments

It’s been nearly 68 years since the Splendid Splinter batted .406, but despite a hot start and two batting titles, Joe Mauer has more than history working against him.

The position that he plays.

Even with watered down pitching, a strike zone designed to protect hitters and all the battle gear this side of the Stanley Cup finals, no one has been able to bat .400 in nearly seven decades. With all of those advantages, not one player has pulled it off, and no catcher has ever batted better than .362 (Mike Piazza in 1997 and Bill Dickey in 1936). And when one considers what receivers go through, that shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Catchers have to call games, handle pitchers, squat hundreds of times and withstand foul tips that ravage their shoulders, knees, hands, feet and arms – every night. Having to endure all of that abuse, how could anyone possibly withstand that beating and still bat .400?

Rod Carew batted .388 in 1977, then George Brett finished with a .390 mark in 1980, and there have been a smattering of .360’s over the years. The closest anyone has come, though, has been Tony Gwynn’s .394 average in the strike-shortened 1994 season. Even during Ichiro’s record-breaking 262-hit campaign of 2004, he only managed to bat .372. Unlike Suzuki, however, Mauer takes a lot of pitches, has an almost inhuman ability to work the count into his favor, and draws walks.

Mauer walked 84 times last season...CONTINUE.

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They couldn't. There's really no way

I’d be excited if he can beat that .362 number.

I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime, though conditions in baseball do change, so who knows. Not right now, though. The reason is that as play improves overall, as it does in all sports, it’s more difficult to have extreme performances—Ruth could dominate a game where the average player wasn’t nearly as good as the best player. Now, that gap has closed—the average player is much closer to the best players than they were then.

When Williams did it, he had a couple of things in his arsenal that Mauer has too, but not as much: he hit 37 homers, which I doubt Mauer gets to. This is important because homers can’t become outs. He also walked 147 times. Mauer walks, but not like that.

Mauer has been great this year, but there’s been good fortune too. His line drive % is an excellent 22%, which is not really out of line with his career, but to really challenge .400 you’d have to be up closer to 28%, which is unprecedented.

Look at it this way: if Mauer goes 0 for his next 12, he’s under .400. That’s not to say I think he’ll go 0-12, but to show how precarious .400 really is. 0-12! That’s hardly a slump, and that would do it. He has a month where he hits .300? That probably kills his chances. He goes 30 for his next 100, which is pretty damn good, and he’s hitting .378 at the end of it. It’s just too much to expect.

by Eric in Madison on Jun 17, 2009 10:57 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I agree...

Its a LOT of fun to speculate, but he needs to bat .389 the rest of the way (3.5 months) to finish over .400. His career batting average is .325.

There was an analysis site that was tracking Chipper Jone’s chances a year or two ago which also compared it to the running odds of Carew, Brett and Olerud. He needed a log scale to track the percentages because they were so low. The chances don’t get “realistic” until a player is near .400 and its after Labor Day.

I wish I could find that Jones site. Whoever did that might be tracking Mauer the same way.

by DavidRF on Jun 17, 2009 12:26 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

One quibble

His career average is not an accurate way to judge how he will hit in his prime, which is what he’s just now entering. I’m not saying he’s a .400 hitter, but he’s not a .325 hitter either.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Jun 17, 2009 1:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

He's probably not a .325 hitter

on talent—he’s probably lower. You have to regress to the mean. he’s a great hitter, but his “true talent level” is something it’s very hard to determine. But without regressing to the mean, you are going to wind up with extreme assumptions on both ends that probably aren’t accurate.

by Eric in Madison on Jun 17, 2009 1:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

What mean?

What’s his mean? The notion that a 26 year old who just stopped growing and is still learning will regress to some artificial mean is the height of folly.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Jun 17, 2009 2:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Whatever the mean is, its well below .400

Carew hit .358 from 1973-77
Boggs hit .364 from 1985-88
Gwynn hit .368 from 1993-97

So even if you assume Mauer is in that class (not completely unfounded, but still far from a given) Its still hard to project him to hit 20-25 points above that for the rest of the season. I mean, I hope he does, but batting .400 is an outlying data point by any definition and there’s just a lot of season left to go.

by DavidRF on Jun 17, 2009 2:19 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Found the Chipper site...

Here was the Chipper Jones site comparing Chipper to Brett, Carew and Williams:

http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/JonesChart.py

(Not sure why he stopped in late July. The odds were remote by then sure, but would have been nice to follow it down to zero like Brett and Carew).

Turns out this guy has run a chart for Mauer… two actually.

http://baseballmusings.com/?p=35980

One chart assumes he’ll keep playing at his current healthy rate and the other assumes he’ll miss time relative to the percentage he’s missed so far (easier to hit .400 in fewer at bats).

Easy to cherry-pick the details of his talent-level assumptions, but this early in the season that just shifts the curve a small amount. Either way, it looks like his odds are no better than 1 in 50.

by DavidRF on Jun 17, 2009 2:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

This I agree with

I just think it’s overly pessimistic to say he will regress below his career average given the standard age/performance bell curve and all of his career plate apearnances have come on the upswing of his career.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Jun 17, 2009 2:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think you're right here.

He seems to be hitting the ball harder this year, and he is definitely hitting the ball in the air more often. His Flyball% is at 33% which is about 4.5 points higher than his career number. This has come at a direct cost to his Ground ball%, which is 5 points lower than his career rate, at 45% on the year vs. 50% career. Finally his HR/Flyball% sits at a mammoth 28.3% (His career rate was 8.9% coming in to the year, he’s already dragged it up to 10.6% after the 13 bombs he’s hit this year.). A 28.3% is on par with hitters like Jim Thome or Ryan Howard. Not saying he can keep that up, just that this season has been like any other for him so far, so I don’t think using a straight career average thing is appropriate.

by JopeX37 on Jun 17, 2009 2:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Regression nitpick...

A little stats-geekdom here…

You regress towards a mean… never below. Nobody should be predicting a slump to offset the hot start, that’s the gamblers fallacy. This hot start is “in the bank” so to speak. We can expect him to hit at his “current talent level” from now until the rest of the season (whatever that level is) but because the hot start to the season will be added to the expected rest of the season, his expected season totals are now higher than his “current talent level” (whatever that is).

Slumps are still possible of course, but they are no more or less possible now than they were before he hit .429 over a six week period.

by DavidRF on Jun 17, 2009 3:23 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yes, this is correct

what I was talking about was a regression to the (league) mean analysis, nothing really to do with what he might do as a result of his hot start.

Of course what he’s done to this point is “in the bank,” and further, it is some evidence of a higher talent level than he had before. But only slight evidence. Had we thought he was a .310 hitter before the season, we might conclude that we were wrong, and he’s actually a .315 hitter. Thus we would expect him to hit .315 for the rest of the season, and wind up at wherever that would put him—.340 or so without doing the math?

by Eric in Madison on Jun 17, 2009 3:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I still don't understand why you would expect him to be a .310 hitter

When his career average is .326 and he put up those numbers at an age when most players are in the minors.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Jun 17, 2009 3:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You're right

.310 is too low. Career average going into this season was .317 (raised 8 points so far this year). Drop the first two years and his average for 2006-2008 (including both batting titles) is .325. Include only his two batting title seasons and his average is .338.

Still more extrapolation going on if we “expect” him to be much better than that, though. Its a fun quandary to be in, but I’d guess the over-under on Joes batting average starting today until the end of the season to be around .340 or so.

by DavidRF on Jun 17, 2009 4:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I buy

I buy that, i was about to estimate the same thing actually. It’s in line with his development curve too.

"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
~ Earl Weaver
"In God we trust. All others must provide evidence."
~ Billy Beane

by AdamOnFirst on Jun 17, 2009 5:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

As much as it pains me

I’d take the under. Under .340 the remainder of the year. Not that I’m willing to put my (meager) money where my mouth is.

by Eric in Madison on Jun 17, 2009 5:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

under

I’d bet under, but obviously i’m rooting for over.

by snolls on Jun 18, 2009 11:53 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'll take the over

But y’all expected me too anyway, so why am I writing this?

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Jun 18, 2009 11:57 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Cmath

You and I seem to be butting heads quite a bit recently (see the minor league thread). Not that I mind, I like it, and you’re respectful and I try to be too. Just wanted to say that before I tell you once again that I disagree with you.

You are way more of an optimist than I am. I think, frankly, you are wildly OVERoptimisitc in a lot of ways. You assert that he’s still learning. Learning what? The guy has 2 batting titles already. Maybe his power is coming, which should help both his production and his average, since homers can’t be caught, but his essential nature is the same.

As for regression to the mean, I fear I won’t be able to explain it in a way that will be convincing, but the general idea is that, in order to make accurate predictions for a player, you have to combine past performance with league average, higher or lower. As you get more data on a player—as his career progresses, his own performance takes on more weight, but you generally still have to regress. It’s the nature of performance—forces in the game tend to push toward the mean.

I tend to think that Mauer is, on true talent, an over .300 hitter. Maybe .310 or so. But frankly, this is not a proposition I want to go to the mat for.

However….he’s played 42 games this season. I was reading an article about Raul Ibanez the other day, and the writer noted that he had a stretch in 2004 where he hit .365 for 55 games. And had other, similar stretches in other years. He’s a .287 career BA guy. My point is, over 42 games, it isn’t so shocking that a guy might hit 120 points higher than his actual talent would dictate. He’s having a monster year for which he deserves credit. He’s a great player who should have an MVP award already. He’ll hit what he hits. But I don’t think we are about to see a 5 year run of batting averages over .350. He might get there this year, with the monster start. I hope so.

by Eric in Madison on Jun 17, 2009 2:32 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

He's learning pitchers, learning when to swing hard, learning lots of things

Every player is learning. If you’re not learning, you’re getting worse. But guys typically regress after age 30 because their bodies don’t allow them to put their learning into practice. He’s 26. He got a head start. He’s able to put his learning into practice with the strongest body he’s ever had. I could see him regressing in three or four years. But I would not predict regression right now.

His performance so far this year is a testament to two things: He’s learned how to drive the ball a lot more, and he’s physically stronger now that he’s stopped growing.

Mauer is the best player I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen Killebrew, Oliva , Carew, and Puckett. They all were good, but none were this good. There really is not a player in history who compares to him, so to create an artificial comp based on a nonexisting player is almost by definition not going to be true. The closest player I’ve seen (from a far) is Tony Gwynn and he didn’t play a premium defensive position at a high level.

To say that Mauer is a .310 lifetime hitter is pessimistic in the extreme. He’d have to hit .280 from now until he’s 30 to do that. He’s more likely to average .380 over the next four years than .280.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Jun 17, 2009 2:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Regression to the mean vs scouting

This comes down to the question of scouting vs statistics.

For instance, lets say we only looked at data. We took all players who had hit signficantly above league average through age 26. The question is, over the next 5-10 years, how did they fare? I don’t know the answer to this, but I’d guess they where close to the mean after that. This is the idea of regression to the mean. If you take a random process, you will see regression to the mean. The analogy is this: Suppose you have a large number of dice, and the dice with different numbers of sides. Some have 6, some have 10, some have 15, etc. Now, roll all of the dice 10 times. Take the 10% of the dice that have the highest average roll thus far, and roll them another 10 times. They will have a lower average roll in the second 10 than the first 10, assuming you are using a large enough set of dice to start. This is because some dice with a low number of sides “got luck” and snuck into the high scores list. This is the same as an ok hitter having a great year, or couple of years, by luck.

On the other hand, lets say that you can tell from watching a player that they have true talent (you are a scout). You watch a guy hit, and you say that you have never seen a better hitter (more talented), and that because of his talent, you expect him to learn and get better, and put up higher numbers than he has in the past. This might be true, and I’m sure that some scouts are very good at telling the difference, but scouts clearly get it wrong a lot too. Look at all of the prospects that go bust (matt moses?). So, CMath, with all due respect, how can you tell when you watch Mauer hit that he is a great hitter, OTHER than the fact that you have watched him get a lot more hits than most people get (the statistics issue mentioned above)? I’m not saying he isn’t better, but how do you know, other than seeing him get hits? Secondly, how can you tell that he will improve more than other people? Everyone is constantly learning (possible exceptions: Gomez, Young). How can you tell, from watching, that Mauer is learning faster than others, and not just getting better results from a random process?

by snolls on Jun 17, 2009 3:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

To expect Mauer to regress to league average mean is wildly pessimistic

Even PECOTA, which is known as the most pessimistic projection system, normalizes regression based on other comparable players, not just some vague league average across players and positions. That’s like trying to cut a watermelon with a club.

Even if you do take the rough average, in fact, players tend to improve from age 26 to age 8, regress back to their age 26 level by age 30 and regress from there. That is the Bill James performance/age bell curve. If that’s your rough league average, you would not expect Mauer to regress much. Certainly he would regress from .429. But he would regress to some improvement from his .326, say, .333.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Jun 17, 2009 4:03 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

To clarify then

He would regress to the mean between .333 and .429, which is .381. How many at bats would he need to be limited to to hit .400 in that case?

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Jun 17, 2009 4:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Furthermore

In addition to learning, he’s entering his peak physical maturity. he could have no different approach and still hit balls harder. That’s where a lot of those home runs have probably come from. A lot have JuUUUUUUUST snuck out over the left field wall, in years past they probably would have been doubles or deep fly ball outs. Also, some of his grounder sneaking up the middle would probably have been scooped by a defender in year’s past.

Also, agreed, regression to the mean doesn’t mean he’s going to somehow magically hit worse that he did before his physical prime, especially when we’re talking about a player with a large track record to work with. He’s been hitting at a very high level for his entire career, majors and minors, it’s ridiculous to expect him to suddenly fall off for no good reason.

by AdamOnFirst on Jun 17, 2009 5:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Keep dreaming...

Regress to .381? C’mon. That level has been reached in a single season only three times since WWII. You can’t set that as someone’s baseline. The highest baseline I’d ever set for someone is .350… maybe .360. Joe’s best two full seasons are .347 and .328. I’d like to say he’s improved and is up in the .350+ club now, but statistically its a reach even with the amazing 185 PA so far this year.

I’d stand by .340 that I picked out of thin air above. That projects him to a season total of .367. That’s not saying he won’t outperform that, but .367 is still a really high number.

by DavidRF on Jun 17, 2009 5:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I've utterly failed to explain what I mean by regressing

someone’s numbers toward the league mean…mostly because I’m not good enough with this stuff to explain it clearly.

I’ll try once more: let’s say someone shows up in the major leagues and hits .350. The league average is .260. Do we assume he’s really a .350 hitter? In my view, no. We assume he’s somewhere between the league average and .350—we regress that number because we think that’s an outlier, and there are forces that push people toward average. The next year, he hits .340, which is still better than we would have anticipated. Do we assume he’s a .345 hitter, or a .340 hitter? Still, no. We weigh the 2 years of performance more heavily than the 1 year, but we still regress toward the league average.

What I’m saying is, we keep doing that, almost no matter how long the career is. As we get more data, we weigh it more heavily, but we still use the league average in a regression analysis to try to figure his true talent level.

That’s as good as I can explain it. You may not buy it, but I’m sure it’s true.

by Eric in Madison on Jun 17, 2009 5:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

sounds reasonably conservative, but

… league average is a bit too far. No one would regress Pujols back to the league average. Even conservative estimates would peg his expected performance at .320/.400/.600 which would be one of his worst seasons.

Mauer has four full seasons under his belt. He hits .293/.294 in his off years and .328/.347 in his good seasons. That’s plenty enough time and range to make a conservative guesstimate. The league average of ~.260 shouldn’t factor into the equation for Mauer. Maybe if he was older and you wanted to work in an aging factor, but he’s not on that side of the curve yet.

The trouble of course with talent estimates is that they are moving targets based on noisy data. Guesstimating, I’d accept anything between .320 and .340 for Mauer. With the .340 number, I was trying to be as optimistic as I could be to show how much negative pressure there still would be on “.400”.

by DavidRF on Jun 17, 2009 5:53 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

No worries...

Anyhow, all this guesstimating is indeed very inexact. Its quite fun that Joe is playing well enough to warrant our speculation! :-) I hope he continues and as the season goes on more stuff will be “in the bank” and less will be open for projecting.

by DavidRF on Jun 17, 2009 5:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'm still not sure you're getting my point

It isn’t that we assume Pujols is league average, that would be absurd. But we USE league average as part of our calculation. It waters down our expectations, less and less as we get more and more data. Your conservative estimate for Pujols—.320/.400/.600, is EXACTLY the point. How do we get that “conservative” estimate. But taking his actual performance, and saying, well, he’s still probably not THAT good, not THAT much better than the league—we’ll bring it down a bit.

by Eric in Madison on Jun 17, 2009 6:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Pujols...

I just took his last six seasons 2003-2008. Lowest batting average is .327. Lowest OBP is .415. Lowest SLG is .568… dropped that because second lowest is .609 and most others are much higher. Are you saying undercutting the lowest (or second lowest) is “using the league average”? Hmmm…

OK. I just checked to see the most conservative estimator out there — “Marcel the Monkey” — and see what he says. Marcel pegs Mauer at a .319 batting average level going into this season. Behind only Pujols (.328) and Chipper (.320).

by DavidRF on Jun 17, 2009 6:24 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, PECOTA pegs him for a .307

average for their weighted mean projection for him.

To answer your question, here’s what it means, but don’t take these numbers literally; this isn’t the actual way to calculate this, I’m just trying to show how you might get to a conservative estimate and what I’ve been trying to explain:.

After season 1; you might predict based on 1part results, 1 part league average.

After season 2, you might predict based on 2 parts season 2, 1.5 parts season 1, and 1 part league average.

And so on. Of course there might be age adjustments and other things, but that’s what I;ve been trying to get to.

That essentially pushes everyone somewhat toward average, whether they are above or below.

by Eric in Madison on Jun 17, 2009 7:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

PECOTA

Huh… Marcel has a league average number mixed in there too. .318 is its highest AL player projection. Low for individual projections because they can’t guess who have the big year and lead the league. Though, PECOTA projects Pujols at .337 which is quite a bit higher than Marcel. I think PECOTA’s got some catcher-penalties in there for Mauer either directly or indirectly (through the comps)… Marcel is intentionally naive about stuff like that — hence “the monkey”.

by DavidRF on Jun 17, 2009 8:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well he could have

but now you went and jinxed him, it’s going to be all your fault when he falls below .400

Peyton's good but have you ever heard of Jeff George?

by halfchest on Jun 17, 2009 1:20 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

ESPN SportCenter

just put the chances at 31%. I don’t know how they got that number. I would love to see him do it obviously. He would probably have to double the amount of games he DH’s though to save wear and tear (and then that starts messing too much with Kubel)

by ajmargarine on Jun 17, 2009 1:55 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Maybe they meant .31%

that’s a lot closer to his real chances to do it. That’s an absurd number.

by Eric in Madison on Jun 17, 2009 2:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Odds

Where do I bet against with those odds (I’ll bet $2 against $1 that he doesn’t). The best part of this bet is that I win either way (hedging my bet).

by snolls on Jun 17, 2009 3:25 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Probably a Sports Nation poll...

by Adam Peterson on Jun 17, 2009 7:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It's like asking if a pitcher is going to throw a perfect game

In the third inning.

"I don't care about feelings." - Lou Piniella

by natetheskate on Jun 17, 2009 2:21 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

No Offense Cloud City Twinkees,

but you really need to do a better job of citing your source than a hidden link at the end. The selection you have provided is a cut and paste from

http://www.bugsandcranks.com/landonevanson/can-joe-mauer-bat-400/

Mr. Evanson deserves his name mentioned at least.

by montanatwinsfan on Jun 17, 2009 2:47 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Agreed

I didn’t even notice the link until montana pointed it out.

by JopeX37 on Jun 17, 2009 2:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Mr. Evanson = Cloud City Twinkies

At least his profile email address would seem to point to that…

by GACTwinFan on Jun 18, 2009 10:51 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Oops!

There’s a “duh” moment for me. slaps forehead with open palm

by montanatwinsfan on Jun 18, 2009 12:28 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Doubt it, and here's why

His BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is an astoundingly high .443. It is almost impossible to keep it that high. League average is generally around .300 and a good number is .350(his career number is .348.) To give an example of how hard it will be to keep up the .443 BABIP, Ichiro in 2004 managed a .401 BABIP. And his career rate stands out at a fantastic .357. So while he IS absolutely scalding the baseball right now, he is also getting pretty lucky at the same time.

In addition I’d definitely second the points that he plays catcher, which is a demanding position and will wear him down over the course of a season, and that the average player now is a lot better than the average player in 1941.

Of course it is certainly not impossible, and there are a few peripheral numbers that could help him in a possible quest for .400. The most important is that he really only has to bat .400 over the course of 5 months, not an entire season. This may seem unimportant but it is in fact, very important. Two of the most famous recent attempts at .400, George Brett’s .390 1980 season and Tony Gwynn’s .394 1994 season, came with both of those players missing significant time, due respectively to injury and the strike. The general point being the smaller the sample size, the greater chance for variance.

by JopeX37 on Jun 17, 2009 2:52 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Yes

It makes Carew’s .388 in 1977 all the more amazing. He did it with 694 plate appearances over 155 games. He also had 14 HRs 16 3Bs, 38 2Bs and 26 SBs that year. He played hard for a whole season and he hit .388. That’s whay I say this feels like 1977 to me.

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Jun 17, 2009 3:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

What's amazing about that season

is that he only had 69 walks. And 14 homers. To hit for that average in over 600 at bats is phenomenal. Any idea how many bunt hits he had that year? he was a tremendous bunter.

He struck out 55 times that year. Mauer is on a higher K pace than that. I’m amazed that Mauer isn’t walking more. I know he’s hitting in front of a guy who has also been great, but he’s been getting more pitches than I expect.

by Eric in Madison on Jun 17, 2009 3:47 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

bunts

I did a quick once-through of Carew’s gamelogs on baseball-reference. While not complete (sometimes it just said ‘single’ sometimes, but most of the time it said where the ball was hit like ‘triple (rf)’) I did find 19 instances where it said ‘single-bunt’ and 3 times where it might of been a bunt (one game had a ‘single-c’ (Im thinking it was a bunt, or a swinging bunt) and twice it said ‘single-reached third e-1’, and I took that as a bunt attempt to the pitcher and he threw it away, but I didn’t included those with the 19

so 19 or 22. I dont know how many infield singles he had because, again, the game logs where not the specific . Hope that hopes

by DedicatedFollowerOfFashion on Jun 18, 2009 12:14 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

So You're Saying There's a Chance...

I’ve been doing some back of the envelope math on this one (like everybody else, probably). The way I see it, he needs to hit about .386 the rest of the way. Please let me know if my math (or assumptions) are particularly egregious, as I’m just hoping this is a reasonable way to figure out how he needs to hit and countdown how many hits he needs to finish at .400.

So far, he has 185 PA and 156 AB in 42 games (4.04 PA/G, 3.71 AB/G). There are 96 games left. The years he’s been healthy (2005, 2006, 2008), he’s averaged about 139 games a year, or about 86% of the possible games. So, assuming he plays about that often the rest of the year (which I’ll admit, is probably lowballing it, but Gardy does like to give him days off), that means he’ll play about 83 more games and get about 308 more at bats, for a season total of 464 at bats. With that many at bats, he’d need 186 hits to finish at .400 (more accurately, .4008), or 119 more than his current total of 67.

To get 119 hits over 308 at bats is a .386 average. And in case you’re wondering, only Tony Gwynn (‘94), George Brett (’80), Rod Carew (‘77) and Ted Williams (’57) have hit that well over the course of a season since WWII. Luckily Mauer only needs to do it over the course of 3.5 months.

The Ragnarok

by TBird41 on Jun 17, 2009 5:01 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Enjoy the ride!

Enough with the UZR and BABIP stuff. I never saw that on the back of a Topps card anyway. Mauer’s got a hot bat right now so just enjoy the ride and stop overanalyzing things to death.

by lesscowbell,morneau on Jun 17, 2009 9:55 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Oh, don't think that just because I posted

all the BABIP/Sabermetric stuff, I’m not enjoying the ride. Sometimes baseball just makes you shrug your shoulders Michael-Jordan-after-his-sixth-three-pointer-style. I don’t know how he does it, but I’ll take it.

by JopeX37 on Jun 18, 2009 1:23 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Its hard without getting cheap hits...

while someone like Ichiro gets so many cheap hits because of his speed. If Mauer goes into a mini-slump even for a week, he’ll have a very tough time pushing his average back above .400.

"I don't think it's nice, you laughin'. See, my mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you're laughing at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you're going to, I might convince him that you really didn't mean it . . ."

by Skippy tastes better than Jiff on Jun 17, 2009 11:46 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Cheap hits

Ichiro will get extra infield hits because of his speed. The way Mauer’s going, he’s getting extra hits by hitting the ball over the fence (where I hear it is quite difficult for fielders to convert into outs).

Over the past three years, Ichiro has averaged 41.7 infield hits per year. Mauer has averaged 7.7 infield hits. Ichiro’s got a distinct advantage there, but I bet Mauer out-homers Ichiro by at least 20 this season, cancelling out much of his advantage.

by Adam Peterson on Jun 20, 2009 11:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs