If MLB player hits .400*, it still counts
Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon will tell you there is no possible way it can happen.
It doesn’t matter if Ted Williams is unfrozen and comes back to life – it just can’t happen.
The game has been played through wars, labor-shortened seasons and now a pandemic, and no MLB player has hit .400 in a season since Williams in 1941. Oh, sure, guys have flirted with .400. Hall of Fame outfielder Tony Gwynn was hitting .394 when the season ended with the players’ strike in 1994.
Hall of Fame infielder George Brett was hitting .400 as late as Sept. 19 in 1980, only for the season to last two more weeks, and ended up at .390.
Home run king Barry Bonds and Hall of Famers Larry Walker, Tony Perez and Stan Musial hit at least .500 through their team’s first 17 games and never came close to hitting .400 for the year.
Hall of Famer Chipper Jones hit .409 for the first 60 games of the 2008 season for Atlanta, only to finish at .364.
Now, here is Blackmon, flirting with our imagination.
You know life is good when you can go 0-for-4 Wednesday against the Diamondbacks and your batting average still is sitting at .472.
And, yes, he still plays his home games at Coors Field, where he has a lifetime .352 batting average.
“You know, I have nightmares about him,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said, “there’s no doubt about it. It’s now my fourth year of him being unbelievably consistent. He has a simplistic swing where there is limited movement. His foot is always down. His hands are always back. And then he fires forward as good as anybody in baseball. When he gets hot, you just have got to get out of his way because he can hit any pitch at any time.”
These days, he’s proving it for all the baseball world to see and making a run at the record books, no matter how much he tries to dismiss it.
“I don’t really think .400 is a realistic mark for today’s game,” said Blackmon. “The pitching is too good. The stuff is too good. There’s more specialization. I don’t think it’s something that will happen. I’m not like, expecting to hit .400 for a season. I don’t really think that’s a realistic goal.”
Well that might be true if you’re talking about a 162-game season.
Gwynn, the eight-time batting champion, was repeatedly asked about the chances of hitting .400, and he always thought it was impossible if a full season was played.
But in a short season, hey, why not? So, why can’t Blackmon work his magic for another five weeks?
And if he pulls it off, there might be an asterisk in everyone’s mind, but not in the record books, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
“I know what an exceptional player he is,” Lovullo said, “and if anybody hits .400 over 60 games, you’re doing something that’s pretty remarkable. … He might try and break every record he possibly can.”
The stunning aspect of Blackmon’s feat is he’s hitting in a season when most everyone else is struggling at the plate. Through Wednesday the leaguewide batting average was .238, the second lowest in history. Only two players in all of baseball were within 100 points of his batting average: the Giants’ Donovan Solano (.458) and Yankees infielder DJ LeMahieu (.431), Blackmon’s former teammate in Colorado.
“You’re just not beating him with velo,” Lovullo said. “You’re not beating him with secondary stuff. And he has an unbelievable two-strike approach.”
Several advance scouts who have studied Blackmon this season insist they don’t notice any major changes in his approach but rave about his uncanny balance at the plate. His two-strike approach might be the best in the game. There are no holes in his swing. He has pulled only 12.5% of the outside pitches he put in play, the third lowest in baseball, according to Inside Edge.
“I don’t think anybody has seen anything like this,” Rockies starter Kyle Freeland said. “This is madness. It’s one of the most impressive things I’ve seen. He’s hitting for power, average, with two outs, runners on, bases empty. Everyone is on the top step watching when Charlie is up.”
Remember that Blackmon contracted COVID-19 before the season started, delaying his preparation.
So if a man hits .400 in a year that has been as grueling mentally as any since World War II – spring training starting, stopping, not knowing when it will start again, and wondering if it will abruptly end – a .400 season might have legitimate credibility.
“I think there is some legitimacy to this, I really do,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “There is competition from Game 1 until Game 60.”
Certainly, Blackmon, a four-time AllStar who hit an NL-leading .331 in 2017, is capable of achieving the unthinkable. Why, Ichiro Suzuki of the Mariners hit .458 during a 60-game stretch in 2004. Josh Hamilton of the Rangers hit .427 during 60 games in 2010.
It will count, just like that World Series trophy going to the last team standing, but its significance will depend on your view, accepted by some, distorted by others.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to give it much credit, to be honest,” Blackmon said. “I think it will be too easy to say that weird things happen. The COVID got us. You’re playing in a bubble with no fans.
“It counts, certainly. This is Major League Baseball, on major league fields, and it counts.
“But, for right now, I feel like it’s different.”
That’s perfectly OK, too.