A really good hitter will get a hit 3/10 times. An amazing hitter will manage 4/10. In general, guys who stay in the lineup hit 2/10 times.
Why is it so hard to get a hit in more than 30% of the times you’re at bat and not walked? Why can’t averages get higher - into the 500’s and 600’s?
I realize that hitting 400 is an amazing feat…heck, hitting 300 is an amazing feat. But why those numbers and not higher? Does it have something to do with the fact that there is more than 2 things (get a hit or not) that can happen per at bat?
I also realize that there is a new book out about baseball by the numbers…unfortunately I am just too dense to read it - so if the answer to this question is in it, can someone dumb it down for me?
The answer is simple: First you have to actually hit the ball. Second, the batted ball has to travel fair. Third, it has to avoid the various fielders who are positioned around the field in a distribution that leaves mighty little of the field open for a hit to occur.
When you think about it, it’s surprising that hits occur as often as they do. And to keep them from being so frequent, all you have to do is add about 6" to the hight of the mound.
I think you’er on the right track here. There is an old sayng in football: “When you pass the ball, three things can happen, and two are bad”. The same goes for batting in baseball, but moreso.
First, you have to swing the bat and hit a moving target. One that is moving somewhere between 70 and 100 miles per hour, and often not in a straight line.
Assuming you do make contact, you need to hit it into fair territory. You’ve just eliminated 75% of the available real estate.
Then, you need to “hit it where they ain’t”. Hit it too high in the air, and you pop up. Hit it on the ground, and it’s probably going to be scooped up by an infielder (that’s why they have scouting reports). Most base hits come from hitting the ball just high enough that it clears the infield, but low enough that it doesn’t hang in the air long enough for an outfielder to catch up to it.
ZipperJJ, you do realize that a “hit” doesn’t mean the bat merely connects with the ball, don’t you? That a hit requires a fielder to not get to the ball in time, or not make the throw in time, but not drop the ball either (an error), and the batter/runner has to make it to base without being out?
I always wondered why a hit was defined such, since chance seems to be a large part of it, but that’s the way it is, right?
-a batter who who reaches base on a fielder’s error is not credited with a hit; thus, the batter’s batting average decreases (but on-base-percentage increases)when he reaches base by error since he likely would have been out had the error not occurred. Note: this is sometimes a judgment call on the part of the official scorekeeper.
-a batter who reaches base on a fielder’s choice is not credited with a hit. This happens when a runner is forced out or tagged out when trying to advance to the next base on a batted ball.
-a base on balls (walk), hit-by-pitch, or sacrifice play does not count as an official at bat, so these events have no effect on batting average.
-between 20% and ~35% hits on official at bats is the typical range for professional baseball players. It’s not uncommon to find players in youth leagues with .500+ batting averages.
-and trust me…it’s not easy to use a narrow wooden stack to hit a little white ball under 3 inches in diameter going 80-99 mph from 60’ 6" away.
I hope this isn’t considered a hijack, but those baseball hits remind me of another sport statistic that I find amazing because it is so constant.
In horseracing, the favorite wins about 33% of the time. That number may go up or down a bit depending on weather factors, the type of race, certain track trends etc. But it continually averages out to one third.
And the favorite is decided by the bettors, so that makes it even more odd to me. Racing secretaries do all they can to card competitive races, jockey and trainer winning %'s vary quite a bit. But when you average it out over the long hall, you are back to that constant, 33% of the favorites win. That hasn’t changed over the years, even with all the new handicapping tools available. Computers crunching numbers, being able to watch race replays, better past speed figures, none of that has made a difference.
And when after a bad day at the track, and I am convinced that horseracing is just animated roulette, I have to come back to the 33% of the favorites win, so there really must be more than blind luck to picking a winner.
Didn’t mean to hijack, just find these constant numbers interesting.
Because they:
1)Put the pitcher so damn close to the plate
2)put him on a hill so he throws downward
3)made the ball really small and dense
4)put stitches on the ball so it can curve
5)make batters hit with a wooden stick
6)give batters only 3 strikes vs. 4 balls
In essence, the rules conspire to make it fairly difficult to get through an at bat successfully. For the last 75+ years, the sport has been mature, so the relative skill of pitchers and batters hasn’t changed all that much, though they have tinkered with the mound to keep things somewhat even.
If they put the mound at 70ft 6in instead of 60ft 6in, batting averages would skyrocket. Change any of the other rules, and averages would change. There’s nothing inherent in hitting a ball with a bat that makes it difficult to do, it’s the situation the batters are faced with that makes it hard.
Putting a basketball through the hoop is easy in comparison. If they put the rim at 15 feet and reduced the diameter by 20%, suddenly shooting a basketball would be the hardest thing to do in sports.
Your question is kind of like asking why more people can’t win the lottery.
The physics, the geometry, the design of the ballparks, the rules and the ability of the athletes (fielders and pitchers against the hitters) have been found to work most competatively when the hitters are able to hit safely between 20 and 30% of the time. When the balance gets out of whack, something gets changed. When the pitchers seemed to start dominate the game the pitching mound was lowered. If the hitters are being too successful the strike zone gets modified. It’s the way the game works best.
Watch enough baseball and you begin to understand it.
If the batting average of every team is around .600 you are going to be watching (or choosing not to watch) a very uninteresting game.
Now tell my why the average soccer (futball) player score an at least 3 goals per game.
The cliche that hitting a baseball is the “hardest thing to do in sports” is of course silly; if that were true then I sure as hell couldn’t do it, but I can.
Baseball batting averages are a function of the dimensions of the field.
It just happens that if you set up the field such that the bases are 90 feet apart and the pitcher is 60’6" from the plate, then the frequency with which the batter will make solid contact combined with the time it takes a man to run to first base will generate batting averages around .230 to .330, depending on a myriad of other physical factors - the amount of foul ground, size of the outfield, condition of the grounds, etc.
Change the dimensions and you change batting averages. If you left the pitcher 60 feet away but reduced the basepaths to 75 feet, batting averages would jump a hundred points, since it would become incredibly hard to throw men out at first. If you moved the bases to 120 feet it would become extremely difficult to get hits and score runs. Increase foul ground and batting averages drop. Put the pitcher 48 feet away and they’d hit .150; put him 75 feet away and they’d bat .450.
There’s nothing about baseball that forces batting averages to .250; baseball could be a game where people batted .400 routinely if Alexander Cartwright had set the bases 75 feet apart instead of 90.
I think this probably answers my question the most directly.
Like I said, I realize that it is hard to get a hit. I also realize what constitutes as a hit (I’m actually a huge baseball fan - I am also bad at conceptual math).
**Spartydog’s ** answer made me realize another thing…PLENTY of guys can hit BELOW 200. Those guys do not make it anywhere. The top 1200 or so guys in the pro baseball system who can hit and field are the ones who end up in MLB and even for those guys, hitting around 33% of the time is a stretch.
I actually thought of this question while at an Indians game, looking at the scoreboard. Everyone in our lineup was hitting between 210 and 300. Seemed odd to me that the batting averages of everyone would be so close…and why don’t they go any higher.
But Spartydog makes an excellent point. If it were any higher, it would mean all pitchers across the board suck and pitching is a KEY part of the game.
I think I’m just frustrated having to realize that baseball is a game of numbers…and number comprehension eludes me.
RickJay thank you for your reply, that helped a lot. You posted it while I was posting my reply and I missed it. That really helps expound on Spartydog’s answer a lot.
Unless you have played baseball at a highly competative level then you can’t hit against a major league pitcher. Their knowledge of the game, speed of their pitches, movement of the ball when they pitch (ability to throw the curveball, slider and screwball) set-up of the batters, etc., makes it almost impossible for anybody other than a highly skilled athlete with baseball experience to hit their pitches (just ask Michael Jordan).
Look at major league pitchers. They spend their entire lives around baseball. They know more about pitching strategy than anyone. Yet, their batting averages are pathetic. Very few people can even get a bat around on an 80 mph pitch much less outthink a major league pitcher who is strategically setting them up. It ain’t like stading in a batting cage.
Fastball, inside fastball, curveball outside the zone for a swinging strike three, you’re out of there!
I think what RickJay is saying is that even the pitchers can hit the ball, though. They just hit for a shitty average. Compare that to, say, getting a sack or something in football, or playing quarterback, which is literally impossible for some schlub off the street to do.
Schlubs can’t play football against NFL players but they can throw the ball and get sacks against other schlubs. The physics of hitting a baseball are much more complex that anything else in sports. Golf demands the most unforgiving skill in sports but at least the ball is stationary allowing you to normally at least make some contact. Hitting major league pitching is nearly impossible for the average person. Just try getting the bat around on an baseball travelling 90 mph from 60 feet even if you know the path of the ball.
**Baseball: Why do hitters hit between 20% and 30% of the time? **
Because it is so. And I’m not being facetious about it. As others have pointed out, the effective batting averages are the result of the way the game is set up – the basic design of the field, the distance between the bases, the distance from the pitching mound to home plate, the height of the pitching mound, the number of players and where they are located defensively on the field, the size of the ball, the altitude of the ballpark, the average age of the players, the rules for determining what is a hit and what isn’t … you get the idea. If any of these things are different, such as the altitude of the ball park, then the batting average can change. Case in point: Coors Field in Denver. If the pitching mound were raised, batting averages will fall. That’s why pitching mounds were lowered by rule in 1969 – to give hitters a better shot at getting a hit, and it worked. If all teams can field 12 players instead of 9, you could be asking why are batting averages always between .100 and .200?
Are the physics of hitting a baseball more complex than the physics of, say, a triple-rounded-floppity-handspring toe slapper in the floor exercise in gymnastics, or the rings, or heavyweight boxing? If I stood in there against Francisco Liriano for 1,000 at-bats, I’d probably be lucky to get more than one infield single, but I’d pop up a few, and foul a bunch back. Eventually I’d ground one through the infield. Eventually, somebody a little better than me, but still an everyday schlub, could get into one a little bit. But no average person could successfully execute a real gymnastics routine, under any circumstance, ever. Which is, I think, why saying it’s the hardest thing to do in sports is ridiculous.
I mean, if the standard is just that an average person could only do it with a low rate of success, how about trying to pick up a blitz in the NFL, or playing goalie in the World Cup? I bet I’d look a lot worse trying those things than I would striking out against a major league pitcher.
