Quiz: Free Swingers (stumped) |

2015 NL RoY Kris Bryant makes this list of modern batters who were not shy about taking their cuts. What is the unusual seasonal batting feat that only these players have achieved since 1901?

Rk	Player
1	Jose Hernandez
2	Austin Jackson
3	Kris Bryant
4	Rick Monday
5	Mike Napoli
6	Mark Bellhorn
7	Jack Cust
8	Gary Pettis
9	Ben Grieve
10	Anthony Gose

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 2/6/2016.

Our readers zeroed in on BABIP as part of the quiz answer, but didn’t get that only these players had a qualified season since 1901 with a .350 BABIP that was one-third higher than their overall batting average. Those seasons are after the jump.

Here are those uncommon seasons (that have become increasingly more common recently).

Rk	Player	Year	BAbip	BA	Age	Tm	G	PA	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	OBP	SLG	OPS	Pos
1	Anthony Gose	2015	.352	.254	24	DET	140	535	73	123	24	8	5	26	45	145	.321	.367	.688	*8/H
2	Kris Bryant	2015	.378	.275	23	CHC	151	650	87	154	31	5	26	99	77	199	.369	.488	.858	*5/789HD3
3	Mike Napoli	2013	.367	.259	31	BOS	139	578	79	129	38	2	23	92	73	187	.360	.482	.842	*3/DH
4	Austin Jackson	2010	.396	.293	23	DET	151	675	103	181	34	10	4	41	47	170	.345	.400	.745	*8/H
5	Jack Cust	2007	.355	.256	28	OAK	124	507	61	101	18	1	26	82	105	164	.408	.504	.912	D97/H
6	Mark Bellhorn	2004	.364	.264	29	BOS	138	620	93	138	37	3	17	82	88	177	.373	.444	.817	*45/H6D
7	Jose Hernandez	2002	.404	.288	32	MIL	152	582	72	151	24	2	24	73	52	188	.356	.478	.834	*6/H
8	Ben Grieve	2001	.353	.264	25	TBD	154	639	72	143	30	2	11	72	87	159	.372	.387	.760	97D/H
9	Gary Pettis	1985	.354	.257	27	CAL	125	516	67	114	10	8	1	32	62	125	.347	.323	.670	*8/H
10	Rick Monday	1968	.371	.274	22	OAK	148	563	56	132	24	7	8	49	72	143	.371	.402	.773	*8/H

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 2/13/2016.

The abundance of strikeouts in today’s game enhances the opportunity for a wide spread between a player’s BA and BABIP. And, those strikeouts are happening because players are not cutting down on their swings with two strikes. Thus, if they do make contact, they’re more likely to hit the ball harder than if they were just trying to put the ball in play. The result: fewer outs on balls in play and higher BABIP scores.

Hernandez’s .404 BABIP from a .288 BA is particularly noteworthy. The next lowest BA in a qualified .400 BABIP season is a .351 mark by Manny Ramirez in 2000.

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Dr. Doom

8 years ago

Well, I don’t know about the rest of them. But I do know that Jose Hernandez got booed at home at the end of the 2001 AND 2002 seasons for failing to strike out. Those were sad, sad times as Brewers fans, and we wanted to have something to cheer about – even if it was breaking Bobby Bonds’ single-season K record. Jose Hernandez, for his part, did NOT enjoy the fans’ (intended-as-fun-but-in-retrospect-super-disrespectful) treatment of his flailing.

Doug

Reply to Dr. Doom

One of those seasons put Hernandez on this list.

Hernandez, incidentally, played fewer than 100 games for 6 franchises, second only to Kenny Lofton’s 7 franchises, among those with 1500 game careers (Hernandez and Lofton were teammates once, and were once traded for each other). For bonus points, which two players played for the most franchises, with at least 100 games played for all of them (Hint: they were contemporaries, who both played over 1500 NL games, but were never teammates and were never traded for each other.)

Reply to Doug

Is Rusty Staub one of the players? Or has someone played for more than 5 franchises with at least 100 G for each?

It’s not Staub.

The number of franchises is eight, all with 100+ games played.

Richard Chester

Gary Sheffield and Reggie Sanders

Reply to Richard Chester

Those are the two. Dave Collins is next with 100+ games for 7 teams, and 99 games with an eighth. A quick glance at Collins’ player page shows his only black ink for his 15 triples in 1984. His next highest total is 6 (in the strike-shortened 1981 season) making him the only expansion era player with one 15 triple season and no others of 7 or more. For his career, he had 52 triples and 395 stolen bases, one of 17 players with 350 steals and fewer than 60 triples (Otis Nixon is the most extreme example with 620… Read more »

CursedClevelander

One of them is Gary Sheffield. Just cleared the bar with 100 games for the Mets in his final season.

Joseph

I’ve been revisiting this over the last two days and can’t even formulate a guess.

Although you’d think it would be easy because Kris Bryant has only one season, so it has to be something about that season.

Reply to Joseph

It’s related, indirectly, to the category in which Bryant led the NL.

John

Could it be they each had at least one season with more strike outs than games played?

Reply to John

They probably do have such seasons, but so do a lot of other players (there were 16 players with such a qualified season in both 2014 and 2015).

oneblankspace

Only these players… so the likes of Barry Bonds and Rob Deer do not make this list.

Also, Pettis never led his league in strikeouts, and did have some seasons with more hits than K. (Monday never led the league either.)

Reply to oneblankspace

Yes, it’s only these players.

It’s only indirectly related to strikeouts, so it’s not about leading the league or reaching a given number of K’s. It’s just that making this list will require a season with a goodly number of whiffs.

bstar

Is BABIP involved, Doug? I got 6 or 7 of the names out of 9 in a PI search for player seasons with a high BABIP and high strikeout totals, but I forget the exact parameters.

Author

Reply to bstar

BABIP is one of the metrics involved. You need a high BABIP that is also high relative to the other metric.

Daniel Longmire

Doug, does it have something to do with a K rate over 25%, plus a BAbip that is more than 50 points above the strikeout metric? Ex. Anthony Gose in 2015 with a K rate of 27.1% and a BAbip of .352, or 35.2%

Reply to Daniel Longmire

Strikeouts or strikeout rate are not part of the answer.

They all appear on a list of 105 players with 120 SO,.350 BAbip and SO greater than 0.200 PA. The names on Doug’s list above are listed in descending order of BAbip and they all have relatively low BA, OBP, SLG and OPS if that’s any help to anybody.

The answer lies in Richard’s observation that “they all have relatively low BA, OBP, SLG and OPS”

A low OPS follows low OBP and SLG–so that’s not a ton of help. And Bryant’s OBP was .368, which was significantly higher than league average, so that’s not really low.

So, the one that’s left over is …

I ran BAbip greater than .350, BA less than .300, SLG less than .510 and qualified. They are all on the list but so are 49 others.

So, coincidentally, there are the same number of players (not these players), who have had seasons with BA at least .275, and SO of at least 175–which seems quite a remarkable feat to have a batting average that high while striking out so much. But there is at least one player on the list with that feat–but it’s not that.