Can I play in the American League as a Designated Hitter?
The .100 hitter sucks… but you will be remembered forever.
Nobody remembers some guy who stuck around for 5-7 years batting an empty .300. There have been dozens of guys like that. Hell, Bill Madlock won batting titles and he’s already forgotten. Everyone would remember a guy who hit 70 homers and did nothing else. That’s awesome.
People who think the .100 slugger is preferrable don’t understand the game. Consider: 9 out of 10 times this guy comes to bat, he’s an easy out. In other words, he only gets a homer once every two or three games, Hell, the majors have always had players like that, and while they’re good for ESPN clips, they really don’t help the team win that many games.
A guaranteed .300 hitter who can also draw walks is much preferable. Those are the guys pitchers are afraid of.
In baseball, a bird in the bush (i.e. on base) is better than one in the hand. A base runner can do a lot to distract a pitcher, plus the pitcher has to “pitch from the stretch” when there’s a base runner, which helps the batter. A guy who is that good at getting on base is much more useful for the team than the guy who is going to strike out 90% of the time.
Let’s run some numbers. The singles guy has a 65.7% chance of getting a single, or a 34.3% chance of striking out. The homer guy has a 27.1% chance of getting a homer, or a 72.9% chance of striking out. Now let’s consider some scenarios.
Scenario 1, the categorical imperative. Suppose we have a team where everyone is one of these. Which one does better? Homer guy is easy to calculate: With a 72.9% chance of striking out, and three strikeouts per inning, the average inning is going to be 4.115 at bats, or an average of 1.115 runs per inning. Off the top of my head, that already looks pretty good: How often do you see even a good team score ten times in a game?
The single guy is more complicated: We can’t just calculate the average number of hits per inning, since 0, 1, 2, or 3 hits are all equivalent (all of those mean zero runs), but every hit past that means an RBI (assuming no runners get out). What we really want is not the average number of hits, but the average of min((number of hits -3),0). And that’s without runners getting out: I don’t know the stats needed to calculate the effect of that.
One other important thing about the .300 hitter: he will never hit into a double play.
Not just that, but people will be writing “What could have been” stories on you forever. And you would be enough of a curiosity that I could see ESPN do a future 30 for 30 piece on you (if they still did it then).
And having 5 of the top HR seasons in history may make you a fan favorite even with the .100 BA. Some low end team may decide to keep you around for more then the 5 allotted years for attendance reasons - you may even cross 500 HRs (it’d take you 7 and a half seasons)!
Hm. Looking at the OP, I see that I missed the point that the singles guy doesn’t get walks either.
In that case, neither of these guys last long. They have an OBP of .100 for the slugger and .300 for the hitter. The .300 OBP guy would currently rank at 139 out of 160 players, which is pretty forgettable. If we look at slugging percentage, the slugger, with .400 is better than the hitter who is at .300. which would put him at 89 out of 160.
That being the case, the slugger is better, but certainly not Hall of Fame material. Either way, you’re going to be warming the benches or hanging out with the farm teams an awful lot.
The math is off somewhere. With only a 10% chance of avoiding an out, there’s no way the avg inning is going to be 4.115 ABs.
If a ‘team of HR guys’ has a 27.1% chance of hitting a HR per game the avg score should be 27.1% of 9 (9 players-2.43 runs) + 10% of runs per game (for the extra scoring chances)
If you’re getting 650-700 at bats per season, and hitting .100 with every hit being a home run, that’s 65-70 home runs every year. Hall of fame time!
Teach him to pitch. He’d have some value starting 36 games and getting 7 or 8 HRs.
But seriously, that guy would kill your team. 650-700 PA? That guy is playing 150-160 games right in the middle of the line-up. 580-630 strikeouts? He is KILLING the team.
Waitaminute. That can’t be right. there’s more than 160 position players in the majors. MLB.com must be lying to me. If I get a list by RBI’s there’s almost a 1000.
Geez. I don’t know.
Not counting pitchers, there’s at least 240 starting position players, plus 15 DHs in the AL, plus maybe a dozen or so guys on bench, give or take a couple, so I’m guessing there’s somewhere between 350 and 400 position players active at the MLB level at any given time. Does that sound about right?
Neither of these guys is helping their team much, but the singles hitter is hurting his team less.
Let’s go to Bill James’ basic Runs Created formula: (H+W)(TB)/(AB+W), which simplifies here to H*TB/AB, since there are no walks for these two guys.
Assuming 700 AB, the singles hitter has 210210/700 = 63 RC. The HR hitter has 70280/700 = 28 RC.
And of course, the singles hitter is creating those 63 runs while burning only 490 outs (.12857… RC/O), while the HR hitter is using up 630 outs (.04444… RC/O).
If I were the singles hitter, I might be able to eke out a Tom Brookens sort of career, although that would have been easier 40 years ago than today. As the HR hitter, I’d be a brief, spectacular flameout.
I’d say it depends on what sort of contract I could get - if I could get a huge bonus upfront on the false hope that eventually they could get me to hit more consistently, I’d be the HR guy.
70 home runs is 70 runs created. His formula is not accurate for someone that hits a homerun every time he gets a hit.
A lot of answers here are answering which player would be better for the team.
That’s great, but that’s not really what the OP is asking.
If I’m magically getting the chance to go to the Bigs, no way in hell am I going to sit it out hitting dinky little singles all day. I don’t care if the BA was .500.
I’m taking the slugger, because how many people get to hit a Home Run in a Major League Baseball game? How many get to hit 65 a season? Who cares if my team sucked those five years, I have a story to tell my grandkids.
Given 600 at bats, the power hitter will have 60 homers, or 240 total bases, and a minimum of 60 runs produced.
The .300 hitter will have 180 hits, and 180 total bases.
I’d rather be the home run hitter.
It’s possible that I’m misinterpreting baseball stats. I was assuming that batting average is hits per pitches, and that since it takes three strikes to get an out, the chance of an out would be (0.9)^3. Is it actually measured as hits per at-bat?
Exactly. I think the OP was aiming more for a psychological approach, not a statistical one.
Hits divided by at-bats.
I’m not sure how this works at all. After half a season at most I discover this guy only hits a home run or strikes out. I deduce despite all my experience something magic is going on. So when my team is up 5-0 and bases are empty, I groove one to the guy. It’s now 5-1, but I get nine K’s to work with. So when he’s at bat in a crucial situation, I call for just pitch-outs or heck rollers on the ground. He can’t possibly hit a home run, so me must swing and miss to strike out.
I don’t see it was stated that the .300 hitter only strikes out when not getting a hit, but something similar would work, but be a bit harder as I have to give up 3 singles to get my 7 outs.