Bill Terry (.401) and Carl Yastrzemski (.301) led their respective leagues in Batting Average (BA) but they were 100 points apart. They did have some similarities:
Both played for only one team in their entire MLB careers.
Both were elected to the Hall of Fame.
Terry had the highest BA only that one year (1930), while Yastrzemski had the highest BA three times: 1963, 1967 and 1968. Yaz did the triple crown in 1967, leading the AL in BA, HR, RBI.
In recent posts I've been giving more context to simple BA by comparing it to the league BA and figuring the percent that the batters exceeded the league. I also used way more than the three digits that have been the display norm so long that using more decimal places seldom occurs.
Several years ago I had noticed that the league BA of Terry and Yastrzemski were far apart too and eventually wrote a couple of posts on what I had found:
The batting average example to demonstrate context. Tuesday, February 8, 2011
In 1930 NL BA was .303. In 1968 AL BA was .230.
Terry: (.401 - .303) / .303 = 0.323432343 - 32% above NL BA
Yastrzemski: (.301 - .230) / .230 = 0.308695652 - 31% above AL BA
Terry but not by nearly as much as you might expect.
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Comparing BA leaders Bill Terry (.401 in 1930) and Carl Yastrzemski (.301 in 1968). Monday, December 27, 2021
The 1930 NL BA are extraordinary. But looking at %Dif, the percent above the league BA, the differences are not nearly so great.
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OK, let's get to it. Look at %Dif.
The 2011 calculation was simply 32% to 31%. The current one is more accurate. The difference is 1.606%. That's 1.6%.
Batting Average (BA) >= .360 since 1939: percent above league. And, how many decimal places does BA need? Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Stop staring at Batting Average and Home Runs. Look at their percentage above the league. Sunday, January 30, 2022
We baseball fans are simple. That's a euphemism for stupid. We stare at numbers and marvel at them even when they are completely lacking context. The two traditional stats stared at the most are:
Batting Average: Hits divided by At Bats (AB).
Home Runs: uh, that's it. Just a total. Not even a simple average or rate like AB divided by HR to get the common sense stat of the average number of AB to hit a homer. Some may prefer using Plate Appearances (PA), which is mostly AB + Bases on Balls (BB) also known as Walks. The idea is the same.
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Yeah, but Bill Terry hit .400. Argh.
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