Williams hitting .400 or Dimaggio's 56-game hitting streak?

If I'm not mistaken, Williams had pretty much the same average for the season as Joe D did during the streak.

Huge advantage, Teddy Ballgame.

 

I've always thought how impressive it was that DiMaggio, after his streak got stopped, ended up going on another 16-game hitting streak right after that. If the Indians don't stop him that one night, we'd be talking about a 73-game hitting streak.

 

I'd learn towards the streak for the simple reason that an 0-1 game with a walk and sac fly means you have to start over. Whereas if you go 0-1 and your goal is .400, that's barely a dent you can make up in any other game.

 

I know the story's been repeated endlessly, but reports are that without a friendly home scorer, it would have been a 29-game hitting streak.

 

Agreed, and he didn't take the easy way out there either. He was an active pilot in both WWII and Korea and flew combat missions in the latter war. Of course, he lost three full seasons and most of two other seasons due to the military, which of course prevented him from reaching 3,000 hits.

 

George Brett was 5 hits from .400 back in 1980.

The media attention would be insane, but I still think someone will hit .400 again.

 

I don't know about that: the media attention, I mean. There will be some, but people get more geeked up over home runs than base hits.

Look at what Ichiro did yesterday. No other major leaguer has ever gotten 200 hits in 10 consecutive seasons. Yet the lead story was Bautista's 50th HR in the same game.

 

I'm going to come down against anyone ever hitting .400 again. Defenses have gotten too good at positioning themselves to a hitter's tendencies.

 

Wasn't Gwynn at .394 in the strike-shortened season?

I don't see anyone hitting .400 anytime soon and I don't see someone approaching a 56-game hit streak anytime soon. But people have gotten a hell of a lot close to .400 than they have Dimaggio's streak.

It should also be noted that in 1941, Dimaggio won the MVP, but that might have had more to do with Williams being a miserable bastard than anything else.

 

I like Ruth's '23 because it was a great defensive season as well as a huge offensive one. On paper Ruth might be 1, 2, 3 and maybe even 4 and 5 for best seasons: '23, '21, '20, '27, '24.

However, I really feel that through '23 or '23 the league the league had not adjusted to him. You had pitchers who pitched to contact, and leagues full of guys who hit for average, but didn't draw walks or hit for any power so his OPS+ had a change to skyrocket.

By '27 the league had caught up a little in power, but really from about '26-'50 you still had the average player not taking advantage of walks or power, and that's why you get huge OPS+ scores in the AL from '20-the early 50s. It went away with integration when the average player suddenly had a proportional share of walks and isolated power.

That's on top of there being few real strikeout pitchers when Ruth first emerged. I think his OPS+ of 207 is AT LEAST 15 points above what it would have been if the average player was drawing his share of walks and hitting for his share of power-in which case the few K pitchers would not really affect relative rates.

I'd put Ruth's 239 OPS+'s in '21 and '23 at more like 220 against a balanced live-ball league. And I'm not talking about league quality, just the fact that early live ball power hitters got a much greater share of walks and extra bases because the average guy was still hitting deadball style, and the average pitcher was still trying to force weak contact rather than strike people out.

Bonds '92 and '93 OPS+'s are pretty close to what I'd expect from Ruth. In fact you can see Bonds drop into the 180 range from '94-'98 when the league experienced a 10% offensive "injection". Bonds fielded at least very well and stole bases too. So I might say Bonds '93.

Mays had 6 170+ OPS+ seasons: '54, '55, '57, '63, '64 and '65. '55 and '57 were not his best defensive seasons but he was at a gold glove level for sure in the other 4 and a fantastic baserunner.

What still gives Ruth the edge is that he was a very good outfielder through '27. If he had been an average corner outfielder then Mays defense and baserunning probably could make up for the batting value, or Bonds steals and defense. Personally I think Bonds was a little overrated defensively though.

 

Consecutive plate appearances with a hit

12 (2 tied)
Johnny Kling, Chicago Cubs - August 24 through 28, 1902
Walt Dropo, Detroit Tigers - July 14 and 15, 1952

 

As it should have been. [/jaysfan] ;D

Seriously, you're right about people still getting more excited about home runs but my impression was that the two achievements got fairly equal play or close to it everywhere but in Toronto, where they still at least highlighted it.

And if Bautista's home run did get more play elsewhere, perhaps it was because it accounted for the only run of the game by either team. So, technically, it was a more important achievement than Ichiro's single, after which he was stranded at first base.