Vegas Watch

There is no such thing as a .400 hitter. Well, at least there never has been. People have hit .400, of course, but that's always been something of a fluke. This is evident in the fact that Ty Cobb has the highest career BA ever, at "just" .366.

In 1994, Tony Gwynn was hitting .394 when the season was cut short by the strike. He hit .358 in '93, and .368 in '95, so in reality he was about a .372 hitter over that three year period. If he had gotten 170 more ABs in '94, there's about a 14% chance he would have bumped his average up to .400.

Since Williams hit .406 in 1941, five guys have had 500+ plate appearances and hit over .375:

It's no coincidence that Brett, Williams and Walker barely had 50o plate appearances- it's a lot easier to hit .375+ over 450 plate appearances than 600. If Carew had had as many ABs in '77 as Brett had in '80, there's a 30% chance he would have gotten lucky and ended up above .400.

The ability to hit .400 is a very different "skill" than the ability to put together a long hit streak. For hitting streaks, you want as many at bats as possible, since going 1/5 is just as good as going 1/2. For this list, it's an advantage to have fewer at bats, as that increases the chances that you can get lucky and hit for a higher average than your actual level of ability would normally indicate (for example, almost anyone can hit .400 over the course of 20 at bats). Because of this, hitting lower in the order, and drawing a lot of walks, increase your chances of hitting for an unusually high average.

Taking these factors into account, as well as age, here are the 10 guys that are most likely to hit .400.

1. Miguel Cabrera (24 years old, .327 BA in 05-07).
Career odds: 1 in 429
2008 odds: 1 in 6859

The concerns about his weight have not effected Miggy's batting average, as he's hit at least .323 each of the last three years. A couple weeks ago he became the third fastest to 500 RBIs, reminding the world that he doesn't turn 25 until April of 2008. It's possible that he has room to grow as a hitter, which is a scary thought- he has to be #1 on this list.

2. Albert Pujols (27 years old, .327 BA in 05-07)
Career odds: 1 in 473
2008 odds: 1 in 6146

This was the first guy that came to mind for me. Over the last three years he has walked in almost 16% of his plate appearances- that kills him in terms of hit streaks (he wasn't even in the top 10), but really helps him here- he's never had more than 592 ABs in a season.

3. Matt Holliday (27 years old, .323 BA in 05-07)
Career odds: 1 in 1167
2008 odds: 1 in 15170

How much of an effect does Coors Field have on this? In his career, he's hit .358 at home, but just .273 on the road. If he were to plan an entire season at home, he'd have about a 2% chance of hitting .400. On the other hand, if he played a full year on the road, he wouldn't be anywhere near this list.

4. Vladimir Guerrero (31 years old, .325 BA in 05-07)
Career odds: 1 in 1802
2008 odds: 1 in 16214

Doesn't it seem like a long more than four years ago that Vlad was playing in Montreal? This is completely unrelated, but with the Expos he averaged 17.5 stolen bases per year but was thrown out 37% of the time. In Anaheim, he has averaged just 11.3 SB/yr, but has only been thrown out on 21% of his attempts.

5. Placido Polanco (31 years old, .325 BA in 05-07) Career odds: 1 in 3032
2008 odds: 1 in 27281

After the 2004 season, Polanco's career average stood at .295. How has he hit 30 points higher than that over the last three seasons? Well, for one thing he stopped striking out- his K% has gone from 10.9% in 1999 to 4.9% this year. He's also increased his BABiP by hitting more line drives- his LD% for 02-04 was 22.5%, over the last three years it's 24.6%.

6. Derrek Lee (31 years old, .319 BA in 05-07)
Career odds: 1 in 3612
2008 odds: 1 in 32500

Lee is on this list only because he hit .335 in 2005; since then, he's hit .305 in 695 ABs. It has been speculated that this is an effect of injuring his wrist last April. That may have something to do with it, but I would guess 2005 was the exception here- his previous career high was .282.

7. Derek Jeter (33 years old, .322 BA in 05-07)
Career odds: 1 in 4216
2008 odds: 1 in 29511

If this were to happen, I think it's entirely reasonable to think he could be on the front page of both the Post and Daily News every day for two months.

8. Magglio Ordonez (33 years old, .322 BA in 05-07)
Career odds: 1 in 5165
2008 odds: 1 in 36154

Before this year, Magglio had never hit above .320; right now, he's at .357. If he went 42/45 down the stretch, he'd be at .401; I tried to run the odds on that, but it just says 0.

9. Ichiro Suzuki (33 years old, .324 BA in 05-07)
Career odds: 1 in 5287
2008 odds: 1 in 37007

Ichiro averaged 683 ABs over his first six seasons, because he bats leadoff and rarely walks. In 2004 he hit .372 in 704 ABs; if he had had 200 fewer at bats, there's about a 1 in 10 chance that he would have hit .400.

10: Robinson Cano (24 years old, .313 BA in 05-07)
Career odds: 1 in 8496
2008 odds: 1 in 135924

Cano was third on the hit streak list because he never walks, and he's only 10th on this list for that same reason. It should be noted that he's at least walking more than he used to- his BB% has doubled from 3.0% in 2005 to 6.0% this season.

Photos: Ted, Miggy, Vlad, Jeter. Stats taken from B-R, the B-R Play Index, and FanGraphs.

Previously: What Are The Odds: DiMaggio's Streak
What Are The Odds archive