Baseball Triple Crown Odds question.....

[Sooga]

What sort of odds would you lay a person willing to bet you that there will be a triple crown winner in the next 20 years? For those of you who are unaware, there hasn't been an American League winner in 38 years, and there hasn't been a National League winner in 68 years.

[Clarkmeister]

I'd ballpark it at a 60% chance that it does happen in 20 years. Bonds would have won at least one if he hadn't been walked 200 times or whatever.

[Sooga]

Well wasn't one of the main reasons Bonds's average was so high precisely because of the fact he walked 200 times?

[LBJ]

[ QUOTE ]
Well wasn't one of the main reasons Bonds's average was so high precisely because of the fact he walked 200 times?

[/ QUOTE ]

What does that have to do with his average?

[Sooga]

The same reason it's easier to go 5 for 10 than 300 for 600.

[Clarkmeister]

Huh?

[Sooga]

It's easier to maintain a high average if you don't have a lot of at-bats to hurt you... if you go 0-5 during a game, your average will plummet, but if you walk 3 times, you'll only be 0-2. Isn't this one of the main reasons critics were pointing to that Ichiro won't hit .400? He racks up too many at bats.

[MEbenhoe]

Actually a lot of Bonds walks were a result of pitchers not wanting to give him a good pitch to hit, which meant Bonds had to turn a lot of balls out of the strike zone into hits. Actually making his high batting average even more impressive.

[Clarkmeister]

Plus, it's not like his average was a one-season fluke.

[Sooga]

I thought what was happening was that Bonds would just wait for his pitch. If he didn't get it, he didn't swing at it and walked. If he did get it, he usually got a hit out of it. I don't think Bonds went out of the strike zone very often.