Jason Kipnis and Michael Brantley are in the midst of two great seasons and because of them, the Indians are in a position to make things interesting in this final month of play. Playoffs aside, Kipnis and Brantley are also in the midst of batting title battle that could see an Indians bring home the crown for the first time in 61 years. Standing in the way is their familiar foe, Miguel Cabrera. The Indians have passed up the Tigers in the AL Central standings, can one of these two Tribesmen pass up the ultimate Indian killer to take home the batting crown?
The batting title has been an elusive accomplishment for the Indians over the past 60 years, despite having a number of worthy hitters since an Indians last won the award. In the team’s history, an Indians player has won the batting title 9 times. As mentioned earlier, Bobby Avila was the last player to bring home the award in 1954. Lou Boudreau won the crown in 1948, Lew Fonseca in 1929, Tris Speaker in 1916, Elmer Flick in 1905, and the most prolific hitter in team history, Nap Lajoie won the title 4 times with the Indians (or Naps as they were known then), first in 1902, then again in 1903 and 1904 and his final title in 1910.
Since the season began Kipnis has been at or near the top of the batting average list. Through the first half of the season Kipnis was batting .323. He’s slowed down in the second half hitting just .299, bring his season average to .317, well off Cabrera’s pace. Brantley got off to a bit of a slow start in the first half. That is if you consider batting just .292 to be a slow start. In the second half Brantley has made up for it by being one of the best hitters in baseball, hitting .378, for a season average of .321. Unfortunately for both of them, the man they are chasing is also having a great season and has a 40-50 point lead with his .359 average. That great a lead with just one month left is nearly insurmountable no matter who is ahead, but giving Miguel Cabrera that lead and expecting anyone to surpass him is grounds for commitment to a mental hospital.
But all hope is not yet lost, there is a caveat involved in this scenario, Miguel Cabrera does not yet qualify for the title because he does not yet have the requisite number of plate appearances. Since 1957, a player needed to have 3.1 plate appearances per team game to meet the minimum requirements to lead a rate state such as batting average. This means that a player must have 502.2 plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. But this rule comes with an exception of its own. A player may still qualify despite not having the requisite number of plate appearances if the necessary number of hitless plate appearances were added to their at bat total.
Going into September, Kipnis had 527 plate appearances, Brantley 521, and Cabrera 411. If Cabrera’s season were to end today and Kipnis and Brantley held steady with their batting averages, Cabrera would not take home the title when taking into account the exception to the plate appearances rule. Adding 94 hitless at bats to Cabrera’s season would drop his batting average to .282, far below Kipnis and Brantley. So it’s incumbent upon Cabrera to play the majority of the remainder of the season in order to qualify.
The Tigers have 31 games left on their schedule, if he were to average 3.1 plate appearances throughout those games he would qualify for the title with 502.3 plate appearances. However, it is far more likely that he will exceed this number by a substantial sum. Through 94 games this year, Cabrera has 409 plate appearances which means he is averaging 4.3 plate appearances per game, at that rate he would finish with 541.9 plate appearances.
With Cabrera’s qualification for rate stats a virtual lock, that leaves just two possible scenarios for Kipnis or Brantley to win the batting title. First, and most unlikely, Miguel Cabrera needs to experience a slump unlike any he’s ever experienced thus far in his career. As Indians fans we are all to aware of how unlikely such a possibility is. The most likely version of this scenario is a slump by Miguel Cabrera and a major hot streak by either Brantley or Kipnis. Whether that will be enough for either of them to catch up to Cabrera remains to be seen.
The second scenario is out of Kipnis and Brantley’s hands altogether, and that’s a Cabrera injury*. For his career Cabrera has been remarkably healthy, averaging 147 games played in each of his 13 seasons. That number rises substantially to 157 when you exclude the injury that has plagued him this season and his partial 2003 season. This is all a way of saying that an injury is not likely to happen to Cabrera. But if ever there were a time for an injury to occur it is now since he is just coming off the disable list with a calf injury and the chance of re-injury is higher at this point.
(*This is not to say I wish Cabrera to be injured, wishing physical harm to any athlete is in bad taste and I won’t endorse such tactics).
With all this taken into account it seems highly unlikely that an Indian will win the batting title this season. But, if the Tribe can keep their recent streak of great playing going, and if Kipnis or Brantley lead the charge with their own great play, like the Indians, these two may be able to make things interesting and give the mighty Miguel Cabrera a run for his money. Either way, this will be a very interesting final month to the season.
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