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

It was more important to outcome of the game.
Ichiro's 10th consecutive 200-hit season would be the more significant acheivement.

 

yeah, but what was the pythagorean theorem on Williams and DiMaggio achievements? That is what really counts.

 

I'm more impressed with his .553 that year than the .406.

 

Actually, the sabermetric "what might have happened but didn't" equivalent for batters and their batting average is to look at their BABIP and compare it to their normal years.

Williams had a .378 BABIP that year, the highest of his career, 50 points higher than his career average and about 30 points higher than the years before and after. So he was basically a .360 or .370 hitter who had a nice year for balls falling in and finding holes.

To which everyone else can reply, "no shit, that's how you hit .406."

 

How can you have a BABIP lower than overall BA?

You don't get a base hit by walking or striking out.

EDIT: Unless he hit into like 45 errors or something ridiculous.

 

More home runs than strikeouts.

 

Looked at in a "we've reached x percent of our goal" way:

George Brett was five hits from batting .400 in 1980, or, looked at from a percentage standpoint, he was 97.2 percent of the way to hitting .400 and 95.6 percent to .406. Tony Gwynn was three hits short in 1994, getting 98 percent of the way to .400 and 96.4 percent of the way to .406.

Of course, the waters here are muddied by the fact that Brett only played 117 games in 1980 and Gwynn's 1994 season was shortened by the strike. History tells us they both would have faded.

Need a full-season sample size? Rod Carew in 1977 was eight hits shy of .400. He was 96.7 percent of the way there and 95.6 percent of the way to .406. (He would have had to have 250 hits with the same number of at-bats to equal Williams, who, by the way had 185 hits in 1941, but drew 147 walks and had a .553 obp. Astounding.)

The closest anyone has come to a 56-game streak since DiMaggio was Rose, who was 78.5 percent of the way to equalling the feat. From that perspective, I'd submit that the hitting streak is harder to do and thus more impressive.

I'd discount the luck factor on either side. In either scenario, there's going to be a bad-hop single here or something else that happened that facilitated a hit here or hit there.

 

Home runs don't count as balls in play?
That makes BABIP another bogus saber stat. Any fair ball is a ball in play.

So you're saying Williams was "lucky" to hit 37 home runs and strike out only 27 times in '41.

 

BABIP isn't a value stat. It's not designed to tell you how good or bad a player was at something.

 

Then WTF is it?
More sabermasturbation!