Comments on: August 22, 2002

By: OscarAzocar

OscarAzocar — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 21:24:19 +0000

http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/leader_glossary.shtml#min_req
What are the minimum requirements to lead a Rate Stat?

This is a bit of a dicey proposition as the standards have changed quite a bit throughout time. Here are how I computed them for the website. Thanks to Bill Deane, Gerry Myerson and Total Baseball for clarifying some of these issues.

Batting Average, OBP, Slugging Percentage, OPS

Prior to 1920, a player must have appeared in 60% of the team's games to qualify for a title. This number was rounded to the nearest integer.
From 1920-1937 (unclear, and previously thought to be until 1944), a player must have appeared in 100 games.
From 1938-1944, the AL used 400 at bats and the NL stayed with 100 games as found by Paul Rivard of SABR.
From 1945-1956, a player must have 2.6 at bats per team game. Note however, that from 1951-1954 a player could lead if they still led after the necessary number of hitless at bats were added to their at bat total.
From 1957 to the present, a player must have 3.1 plate appearances per team game. Note however, that from 1967 to the present a player could lead if they still led after the necessary number of hitless plate appearances were added to their at bat total.

By: BunnyWrangler

BunnyWrangler — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:50:39 +0000

The qualifications have changed a lot. 100 games sounds familiar, and I remember that some controversy was resolved when a league president or commissioner determined that "100 games" meant 100 games in the field. By 1954, batting title eligibility was based on at-bats, not plate appearances, and Ted Williams lost a batting title because of the many walks that he took.

By: Johnny Twisto

Johnny Twisto — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 03:10:37 +0000

Keep in mind that batting title qualifications has not always been 3.1 PA per game. I didn't check, but in 1923, it may have been playing 100 games.

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:46:01 +0000

Good job figuring that out, at least.

By: OscarAzocar

OscarAzocar — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:40:28 +0000

I realized that I goofed and only used the teams since 1957.
If you use 1901 as the starting year the list of teams with 1 stays the same and no still no team of 2182 has ever had 0.

The record is 11 by the 1923 Tigers.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/YkKM

By: OscarAzocar

OscarAzocar — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:27:53 +0000

In this case all teams (1270) are accounted for. No team has ever gone without a player qualifying for the batting title.

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:17:34 +0000

I believe that search would NOT tell you if there were zero qualifiers, unless Sean happened to code it very intelligently (which is certainly possible.) If you were searching for, say, teams with players having at least 50 SB, then it would certainly not display teams with 0 such qualifiers. So I expect this one to behave the same way.

By: OscarAzocar

OscarAzocar — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:05:18 +0000

Here's the breakdown for Tampa Bay:
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/EPwN

In 2006 Tampa joined a small but quickly growing list of teams with only 1 batting title qualifier.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/NEY9

(BTW- if there was a team with 0 would this PI search have told me as much? Does it only include teams with at least 1?)

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:52:56 +0000

Oh yeah...I always forget that. You're right about 10 seasons, not 11.

By: BunnyWrangler

BunnyWrangler — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:41:07 +0000

Tampa Bay's first season was 1998.