Before last
night turned into the most exciting night in regular season baseball history,
the story of the day was Jose Reyes battling Ryan Braun for the National League
batting title. As you probably know, Reyes dropped down a bunt in the 1st
inning of his game against the Reds to raise his batting average to .337,
leaving him .003 points ahead of Braun, who had a .334 average going into his
game. Wanting to protect this lead, Reyes then checked himself out of the game.
Braun still had a chance to win the batting title if he had rattled off 3 or 4
hits in his game, but alas, he went 0-4, finishing the season with a .332
average and 2nd place to Reyes.
Now I’m not going to judge Reyes for
doing this. Whether or not you feel what he did was wrong and “disgraceful to
the game” is a matter of opinion and I personally don’t think it’s worth
debating the merits of it. For all I know he has an incentive in his contract
that guarantees him more money for winning a battle title. In which case more
power to him. But what I am here to argue is that making a big deal about
winning the batting title is completely pointless.
Batting
average is one of the three classic hitter’s baseball stats that people still
celebrate, along with home runs and RBIs. Over the last decade or so (the Moneyball era, if you will), a lot of
baseball fans (re: nerds) have enjoyed watching baseball stats evolve. Being a
baseball nerd and a Moneyball reader
(and A’s fan), I have loved this. Websites like Fangraphs.com and
BaseballReference.com have made these stats readily available for anyone to
see. No longer are they locked away in a spiral bound Bill James notebook
somewhere. Any national writer or everyday fan can look up and see what any
players OBP, wOBA, WAR, or WPA is at anytime. While no baseball stat is
perfect, using some of these advanced stats can help paint a better picture of
a player than using just batting average.
