Hitting .300 Is Still Something

Batting average was rightly criticized as a measure for player performance when better stats arrived. Batting average only measures a part of hitting skill (getting hits), and not other crucial things like walks and power. Because of that, better statistics like OBP and OPS and finally wRC+ were used to evaluate players.

Over the years, Ks went up, but also contact quality increased, so batting average did not change that much, but about 20 years ago BABIP maxed out and has stayed at .300 ever since while Ks continued to climb. Still, the number of .300 hitters isn’t down that much; in 1997 it was 35 and last year it was 25. Hitting .300 always was a tough thing to do, and still is.

Hitting .300 is not productive by itself of course, but if you look at the .300 hitters last year it seems like the “empty .3o0 hitter” that was often used as an example of why BA is bad to judge hitters is basically not existing anymore. Last year only five of the 25 .300 hitters hit single-digit homers and none of the 25 had a below-average wRC+. It seems like slapping the ball in play is not enough to hit .300 anymore with today’s defenses. Basically the modern .300 hitter is a powerful hitter in most cases. The .300 hitters of last year averaged a mightily impressive 132 wRC+ and a whopping 4.7 WAR so it was truly an elite group (seven out of the top 10 in WAR hit .300).

You can illustrate the value of hitting .300 pretty well when you look at the dated stat of OPS. Its components are OBP and SLG. OBP is hits+walks+HP/PA and last year 71% of all on-base events were hits. And even slugging is heavily influenced by BA as it is BA+ISO. The importance of ISO has grown over the years but still SLG is about 60% driven by BA and only 40% by ISO. That means that BA still has a huge influence on batting production.

What we do see is that the .300 hitters are good contact hitters. On average they have a 15% K%, which is way better than the league average (around 22%). No .300 hitter had a K% of above 25% and only two were even above 20%. Still, K% does not have a big correlation with batting performance since there are still the weak slap hitters and productive TTO, but the below-15% K hitters as a group have a respectable 109 wRC+.

Again it looks like the weak slap hitters are a dying breed. We all have noted that the league is getting closer together in power and this could actually mean a comeback for contact and batting average. it doesn’t mean that slap hitters will come back, but since power seems to be about maxed out (still increasing but more because the bottom guys now also hit bombs), now players can get more productive by adding contact without sacrificing power; with the new ball or whatever, you don’t need to hit the ball that hard, just at the right angle, and that can be done without striking out more.

Now we all read the stories about players who got more productive by swinging harder and striking out more, increasing their power (Alonso, Freeman), and we all notice the huge power hitters with a ton of Ks being quite productive (Sano, Judge, Gallo, Stanton, Bellinger), and that is true, but those guys are all huge power guys (and still won’t be .300 hitters at least when you think that last year’s correlation of Ks and hitting 300 is still true).

The more desirable thing for the average player is probably to be like Murphy or Altuve, who don’t strike out and still hit 25 bombs. Those guys don’t hit the ball super hard (around average EV) but they make a ton of solid contact at good launch angles.

It is a bold statement, but I think the batter of the future would be a guy who hits the ball reasonably hard but makes good contact and hits the ball in the air. Hitting the ball in the air like Billy Hamilton won’t get it done, but once you are past a certain threshold, there are no extra points for more EV. A 120 MPH homer doesn’t plate more runs than a 100 MPH homer.

Now, of course, the extra power still has a value. Last year everyone hit 30 HR and still the leaders were only mid 40s, but this year we actually might get 50-bomb guys again. But still, I think that we won’t see a proliferation of Judge or Sano types. I think the new conditions actually hurt those guys a little because a team now can find a 25-HR guy who makes contact and defense more easily, making it harder for the big slugger to separate himself from the pack.

The Astros actually already incorporated that successfully. They improved their contact without really giving up power and they now really do well.

Low Ks don’t have an intrinsic value, but if power is already maxed out and the league is striking out so much, it is pretty easy to separate yourself from the pack. The low-K thing already was en vogue after the Royals won, but they still did it at a cost of low power. The Astros are basically the Royals 2.0 because they also have power.