Sports Reference Blog
Were Giancarlo Stanton & Joey Votto the NL Slugging and On-base champs this year?
Posted by sean on October 4, 2012
Stanton slugged .608 in 501 PA's (sound familar?). With a hitless AB, he drops to .607 still well ahead of Ryan Braun's .595.
Joey Votto reached base 225 times in 475 PA for a .474 OBP. With 27 hitless AB's added, he drops to .448, still ahead of Buster Posey at .408.
Given MLB suspended the rule for Melky, was it also suspended for Giancarlo and Joey?
Note that rule 10.22 and 10.23 both mention the "Individual Batting and Slugging Champion" And 10.22 lists how to compute percentage records for OBP.
So I ask you, was Giancarlo the NL Slugging Champion for 2012? Should he or Braun get the black ink?
UPDATE: I was wrong as the rule was tweaked only for those suspended due to drug suspensions.
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120921&content_id=38781290&vkey=pr_mlb&c_id=mlb
Apologies for my incorrect reading of the story I saw.
Melky fell short because of PED suspension, so 10.22(a) was suspended for him only. Stanton and Votto were injured, so 10.22(a) still applies.
From Elias: Buster Posey led the National League with a .336 batting average, and Posey alone prevented Miguel Cabrera from winning the major league Triple Crown (leading all players in both leagues in batting average, home runs and RBI). Posey won the title after a recent rule change making the final sentence of Rule 10.22(a) inapplicable to Melky Cabrera, who finished one plate appearance shy of qualifying due to his suspension. (The stricken sentence would have allowed Cabrera, because of the size of his lead over his nearest competitor, to win the title though finishing with fewer than the requisite 502 plate appearances.)
But as the old expression goes, Rule 10.22(a) giveth, and Rule 10.22(a) taketh away. Ironically, the application of that very sentence to Joey Votto allowed the Cincinnati first baseman to finish as the National League leader in on-base percentage, ahead of Posey, who had the highest on-base percentage among players with 502 plate appearances. Votto's on-base percentage of .474 in 475 plate appearances was so far ahead of Posey's .408 that Votto was still ahead, by a wide margin, even were the shortfall of 27 at-bats added to his total.
Similarly, through yet another application of that final sentence in 10.22(a), Giancarlo Stanton led the National League in slugging average, with a .608 mark over his 501 plate appearances. Ryan Braun, the leader among players who had at least 502 trips to the plate, finished with a .595 slugging average.
what is "the final sentence"?
Sean, if you had read my blog, you wouldn't have made the exact same mistake I made! :)
http://www.highheatstats.com/2012/09/mlb-and-players-union-reach-agreement-to-screw-joey-votto/
Doug B @2 -- The final sentence of Rule 10.22(a) is the provision for adding hitless ABs to the PA total of a player who lacks the qualifying number of PAs. It reads:
"Notwithstanding the foregoing requirement of minimum appearances at the plate, any player with fewer than the required number of plate appearances whose average would be the highest, if he were charged with the required number of plate appearances shall be awarded the batting, slugging or on-base percentage championship, as the case may be."
what is the rule minus the added atbats
Who cares? The umpires can make whatever decisions they feel like.
Congrats to all the umpire worshippers here. Now they can go and prey for their half-blind gods.
It is time to gouge out their eyes in cold blood.
Look out--here come the beer bottles...
What's interesting is that the phantom-AB rule was changed in 2006 after the season. At that time, it only included AVG (and maybe SLG, but I don't think it did).
Bonds had a large lead in OBP but fell short of 502 PA. I don't know if it had any impact, but I asked Elias about it right after the season endd and about a week later, a decision was made to change the rule to include OBP, too. Of course, that's a little bit ex post facto, but that's how these things get changed.
So should we apply the phantom-AB rule to pre-2006 OBP titles?
I'm strongly inclined to say yes, since (a) there weren't any 'titles' awarded for OBP, like there were for AVG, so we don't have to worry about 'overruling' previous winners; and (b) the spirit of the rule applies with equal weight for OBP as it does for AVG.
...that is, I'd apply the phantom-AB rule to OBP winners for those years where it applied for AVG winners. For the yrs before we had the phantom-AB rule, I figure we'd have to just use whatever definition was used for AVG.
>Look out--here come the beer bottles...
Except the throwers didn't have a good time. If one of them had a good aim like a good pitcher, at least MLB would have one less half-blind umpire on that night.
I advocate to send the eyes of umpires who made crucial bad calls to Cooperstown within 24 hours of their calls.
Well, at least part of their bodies are going to the hall of Fame. I think it is a great 'honor' for them to be there.
even if batteor pitcher were injured thet shouldnt get phantomabs or inns
@3: Everyone should read your blog(s)!!!! :-DD
Votto got on base enough times to win the OBP title. And Stanton had enough total bases for the SLG title. So let's not deprive them, just because they didn't make enough outs.