Baseball Stadium

BOFH Baseball Batting Averages

...batter average up!

Ok, I'll be the first to admit I'm not the biggest baseball fan in the world. It feels like the World Series has just ended when catchers and pitchers report to spring training. It drives me batty. I just don't need that much baseball in a season. 162 games, plus playoffs is just too damn much.

With that being said, one thing that really irritates me is that everyone seems to want to explain their mediocrity or even down right incompetence by saying:

"If I was a baseball player I'd be batting .400. That's great"

No, it means you're a failure.

To combat this problem, I vote for adjusting baseball batting averages to be graded on the curve. The league leader in BA, automatically becomes a 1.000, and everyone else is from there.

To make your job a little easier, I'll even provide you the top 5 from 2000, 1999 and 1998. Enjoy. (Source: MLB. Calculation errors my own.)

YearPlayerBatting Average
2000N. Garciaparra1.000
T. Helton1.000
M. Alou.954
D. Erstad.954
M. Ramirez.943
1999L. Walker1.000
N. Garciaparra.942
D. Jeter.921
B. Williams.902
E. Martinez.889
1998L. Walker1.000
J. Olerud.975
B. Williams.934
M. Vaughn.928
D. Bichette.912
Now, don't those numbers look a lot better? Only once in the past 3 years has someone in the top 5 even gotten a B.