We’ve all heard the saying that the best hitters in baseball fail seven out of ten times. I’d like to take a moment to discuss failure.
That 30% success ratio is wrong. Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves has a .365 batting average. Rounding properly, he’d be closer to four out of ten than three out of ten. And when you consider the number of walks (and hit-by-pitches), that number–the on-base percentage (OBP)–is up to .467–closer to five out of ten than four out of ten. And when you consider that OBP includes sacrifice flies (but not sacrifice bunts) as a valid plate appearance where the player doesn’t get on base–thus fails–and that Chipper Jones has four sacrifice flies. Well, he’s closer to succeeding 50% of the time than 30% of the time. (The American league leader is Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer at .413.)
Also, there are “sacrifice plays” that aren’t officially sacrifices. If your team has a guy on second base, and you’re at the plate, you want to hit the ball to the first base side of the field–the runner has a better chance of advancing than if you hit it between second base and third base. If you ground out to second (a 4-3 play), the runner usually advances. Technically, the result is the same as the guy who lays a bunt down the third base line–you’re out, but the runner is on third base. However, the guy that laid down the bunt doesn’t get charged with an at-bat–either for batting average or on-base percentage. It seems unfair, but the guy laying down a sacrifice bunt is only hoping he’ll reach base, but accepts the fact that he’ll probably be out. The guy grounding out to second had no intention of being out; he was just insisting that his hit was towards right field. (I really can’t comprehend how guys can choose where to hit. Then again, I can’t comprehend how they can hit the ball three out of ten times. I consider myself lucky if I get a hit three out of one thousand times…)
Hitters are allowed to fail. That doesn’t mean that we’re all okay if we only do well 40% of the time–or are average if we do well 30% of the time. The “three out of ten” only applies to one position in the American League: the DH. If a team had an outfielder that only caught three out of ten fly balls, well, you’d have a problem. Imagine if a shortstop only fielded three out of ten ground balls that came his way. If a guy on a team has a fielding percentage under .900, it probably means he’s had limited opportunities, and made an error. Most people would be happy with a success rate in life of over 90%.
Moving along, pitchers aren’t happy if they’re only succeeding 60% of the time–that is, allowing 40% of their base-runners on base. Of course, they usually hover around allowing 35% of base runners to reach base, so about a 65% rate of success. Also, it’s considered ideal to throw two strikes to every ball, or a 67% rate. Those numbers might not scream success in the real world, but still better than the old adage of 30%.
The reality is, succeeding 30% of the time depends on what you’re doing. If you’re hitting home runs in 30% of your at-bats…feel free to play for my teams! But in general, 30% isn’t good enough.
<a href="http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Ed-Hochuli-is-very-frowny-after-the-disaster-in-?urn=nfl,108018
” target=”_blank”>Wow. This guy clearly blew a call–like Jeff Kellogg did last night calling Twins third baseman Brendan Harris out at second base–but owned up to it. Of course, the NFL actually punished him for his poor call, which really did cost his team the game. Did Kellogg’s call cost the Twins the game? There’s no way of knowing.
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