Fun With Numbers - 2021 Season

[ashbury]

I didn't see a Fun With Numbers thread for the season yet, so I'm starting one. Maybe it should be in a different forum.

 

Our Luis Arraez currently has a .600 on base percentage. But that is built on top of a .500 batting average. Former Twin Robbie Grossman has a .615 OBP, and he has done it the hard way, by batting .000 but with 8 walks in 13 plate appearances!

 

_{^{/ That's gross, man - obligatory}}

[ashbury]

A few weeks ago the Tigers had a batting average of less than .200 as a team, and I thought I posted something about the early-season status but I can't find it.

Well, Detroit has bounced back a bit, but this morning I got alerted to the fact that Seattle has slipped below the Mendoza line, hitting .198.

The last time a major league team collectively hit below .200 was in 1884, in a season where the designation of "major league" was questionable in the respective cases of the Union Association and the American Association, which both were a bit unstable and had various teams that failed to field representative rosters and/or did not play an entire season. Before that, it was 1875, with the National Association also having similar troubles. Never has a National League team, and certainly not one of the new-fangled American League squads, finished a season below .200.

The modern-day record would be the 1910 White Sox who hit .211. But last year the Brewers hit .212, as did the Reds the year before that, and other recent teams have flirted with such low marks.

Could be history in the making in 2021. Our current era seems on a par with the Deadball era, and also the 1968 Year Of The Pitcher.