Tuesday, September 20, 2011

New baseball stat - The Triple Threat

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted anything here.  Been a bit crazy with networking and such. 

So have you ever thought of something and just sent an email up the flagpole to see if anyone is paying attention?  Well I've had this idea for a while and thought I'd send a note to Major League Baseball and ESPN.  Here's the premise: It's been since 1967 that anyone has won the Triple Crown in baseball.  Carl Yastrzemski was the last one to do it.  The last National Leaguer to do it was Joe Medwick in 1937!  (Yes, there is a pitching triple crown but it's just not the same, sorry...) 

Well, I thought about running a little statistics using Batting Average, Home Runs and Runs Batted In.  I took the top ten in the National League in 2010 in each category, assigned a 1 to the player that led the category and then divided the others' results by the leader's total.  (And I used the National League only because I'm a purist when it comes to hitting - I just can't stand the designated hitter rule.)  St. Louis' Albert Pujols would have been last year's Triple Threat.  He led the league in Home Runs (give him a 1), RBI's (give him another 1) and his average at .312 was 92.8% of Carlos Gonzales' league leading batting average of .336.  With a total of 2.928, Pujols outranked Cincinnati's Joey Votto's total score of 2.803.

Wouldn't this be cool to give out a Triple Threat award every year instead of waiting for someone to achieve what hasn't been done in 44 years?  And isn't this what baseball is all about, lots of fun statistics.  When I did this a week ago for 2011 to date, Matt Kemp was ahead of Prince Fielder and Pujols.

If you think that this is a good idea, pass this on to the powers that be at MLB and ESPN