Worst Career Batting Average Before Winning a Batting Title

[EvanJ]

The White Sox's Tim Anderson leads the AL at .334, and LeMahieu is second at .328. Anderson debuted on June 10, 2016, and he started the year with a .258 career average.

[hardrain]

The White Sox's Tim Anderson leads the AL at .334, and LeMahieu is second at .328. Anderson debuted on June 10, 2016, and he started the year with a .258 career average.

What did he do differently this year?

[JL25and3]

What did he do differently this year?

Got more hits.

[HelloNewman]

Lowest I've found so far is Michael Cuddyer's .271 before his 2013 NL batting crown.

I won't go into the whole Taffy Wright mess.

[hardrain]

Lowest I've found so far is Michael Cuddyer's .271 before his 2013 NL batting crown.

I won't go into the whole Taffy Wright mess.

na...c'mon...tell us about Taffy Wright!

[ojo]

In 1943 Mickey Vernon hit .268. The next two years found him enlisted in the military and then he came back and led the AL with a .353 batting average.

Fast forward a decade, and in 1952 Mickey Vernon hit .251, and then in 1953 led the AL in batting with a .337 batting average.

[JL25and3]

From 1958 (his rookie year) through 1960, Norm Cash hit .275.
From 1962 through 1974, he hit .263.

In 1961, he won the batting title with a .361 average.

[HelloNewman]

na...c'mon...tell us about Taffy Wright!

You asked for it.

He never played in the majors before 1938, so his career average was either .000 or infinity or nil or whatever you want to call it. In 1938 he hit .350 in 282 plate appearances for the Washington Senators, best batting average in either league. The general rule of thumb that had been applied to batting titles up to that point was that a player needed to appear in 100 games to qualify, and Wright appeared in exactly 100 games in 1938, often as a pinch hitter. But it occurred to people that giving the title to a guy with 282 PAs was somehow ridiculous, so the title was awarded to Jimmie Foxx, who hit .349 in 685 PAs. Pretty much since then the standard has been 3.1 PAs per scheduled team game.

If you look at Taffy Wright's player page on B-Ref and look at his 1938 batting average, you'll see it's italicized as they do when a player leads the majors in a category, but there's no "black ink."

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...righta01.shtml

[JL25and3]

You asked for it.

He never played in the majors before 1938, so his career average was either .000 or infinity or nil or whatever you want to call it. In 1938 he hit .350 in 282 plate appearances for the Washington Senators, best batting average in either league. The general rule of thumb that had been applied to batting titles up to that point was that a player needed to appear in 100 games to qualify, and Wright appeared in exactly 100 games in 1938, often as a pinch hitter. But it occurred to people that giving the title to a guy with 282 PAs was somehow ridiculous, so the title was awarded to Jimmie Foxx, who hit .349 in 685 PAs. Pretty much since then the standard has been 3.1 PAs per scheduled team game.

If you look at Taffy Wright's player page on B-Ref and look at his 1938 batting average, you'll see it's italicized as they do when a player leads the majors in a category, but there's no "black ink."

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...righta01.shtml

Division by zero yields "undefined," or "not a number."

It didn't help that Wright spent most of the season as a pinch-hitter or platoon lefty - not even taken seriously by his own team until September, when they put him in as a regular and he tore up the league.

There was no rule about qualifying for the batting title, only a sort of gentleman's agreement. Honestly, I think they got it right in this case. There may also have been a sense that Foxx had already been robbed once, in 1932, though Dale Alexander had a considerably stronger case than Wright did. Still, had Foxx won that year, he would have had two consecutive Triple Crowns.

[hardrain]

You asked for it.

He never played in the majors before 1938, so his career average was either .000 or infinity or nil or whatever you want to call it. In 1938 he hit .350 in 282 plate appearances for the Washington Senators, best batting average in either league. The general rule of thumb that had been applied to batting titles up to that point was that a player needed to appear in 100 games to qualify, and Wright appeared in exactly 100 games in 1938, often as a pinch hitter. But it occurred to people that giving the title to a guy with 282 PAs was somehow ridiculous, so the title was awarded to Jimmie Foxx, who hit .349 in 685 PAs. Pretty much since then the standard has been 3.1 PAs per scheduled team game.

If you look at Taffy Wright's player page on B-Ref and look at his 1938 batting average, you'll see it's italicized as they do when a player leads the majors in a category, but there's no "black ink."

https://www.baseball-reference.com/p...righta01.shtml

ok, thanks, but this makes my head hurt