The national media are all of a sudden obsessed with the idea that Pujols or Votto is going to win the triple crown this year. It's not going to happen. Pujols (who hit his 400th tonight) leads the league in homers with 34 and rbi's with 92. Votto is tied for second in homers (with Adam Dunn) at 31 and is second with 90 rbi's. Votto also "leads the league" in hitting at .326, and Pujols is 3rd at .319. Carlos Gonzalez is second at .320.
But All-star Omar Infante is hitting .347. You'll recall Infante made the All-star team (over Votto among others) even though he wasn't even an everyday player. But now with Chipper Jones injured, he is playing everyday. To qualify for the batting title, you have to have 3.1 plate appearances for every game your team plays. Right now, Infante has 347 PA's. If his team plays 162 games, he'll need 502. That's 155 plate appearances over the last 35 Braves games, or 4.8 per game. Since playing everyday (or at least in August) he's averaging about 4.6 per game. But here's the rub; even if he doesn't reach the total he can still win it. Rather than not qualify, they give him an o'fer for every plate appearance he missed. If he gets close, a few o'fers (say 10) won't kill his average. By the way, he's hitting .362 in August.
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1 comment:
Good post. I think Tony Gwynn won a batting title this way once. He got a ton of ofers, but he was so far ahead it didn't matter.
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