When Optimism Goes Too Far

by Jeff Sullivan on Apr 3, 2005 12:40 PM PDT in Seattle Mariners Regular News

Dave Boling, in today's News Tribune:

It wouldn't take much to make this a benchmark summer, to elevate the Seattle Mariners' leadoff man into a position as the most celebrated and accomplished professional athlete in the region's history.

That's not overstating it. If this slender 31-year-old import from Japan could, say, bat .400, it would rate as the most impressive individual accomplishment we've seen on fields and courts and diamonds in these precincts.

So, it "wouldn't take much" for Ichiro to bat .400?

And I think Willie Bloomquist accomplishing that feat would be much more impressive.

Last season, Ichiro finished with the major leagues' best batting average (.372), and that includes what he called a slow start, in which he batted .321 before All-Star break.

Of course, Ichiro's career batting average heading into the season was .328, so that was actually a normal start.

But how many typical fans could have told you of Sisler's record? And the team surrounding Ichiro was so awful last season that it somewhat muted the impact of his achievement.

Actually, it made the achievement that much more prominent and garish, since it was the only thing worth paying attention too for most of the season.

What if getting 262 hits was only a prelude to bigger things this season?

Let's round it out for mathematical purposes. If he gets 700 at-bats, Ichiro would need 280 hits to reach .400. That's 18 more than he had last year in 704 plate appearances.

In a 26-week season, he needs fewer than one more single a week to become an international legend.

And he needs one fewer single a week to fall to being a .347 hitter. What's easier: getting more hits or making more outs?

Ted Williams compiled a .406 average in the momentous 1941 season, in which Joe DiMaggio also put together a 56-game hitting streak - another seemingly unreachable achievement that Ichiro might be quietly plotting to overtake.

Some math:

Ichiro is a career .339 hitter, and he averages 4.29 at bats per game. Based on his BA and average number of AB's, he has an 83.1% chance of recording at least one hit in any given game. Squaring that figure gives Ichiro a 69% chance of recording at least one hit in two consecutive games.

His odds of getting at least one hit in 56 consecutive games are .003%, or once every 319 opportunities. In other words, over a 17,884 game span - just over 110 full seasons - you could expect Ichiro to put together a 56-game hit streak once.

Going by last season's .372 BA and 4.37 AB/game, Ichiro's chances of tying the hit streak are .039% - once every 26 opportunities, or once over a 1435-game (about 9 seasons) span.

Over the post-break portion of last season, Ichiro batted .429. For the month of August, .463.

Over the post-break portion of last season, JT Snow hit .387. For the month of August, .452.

Spring training not only doesn't count, it's sometimes not even an accurate indicator of the season a hitter will have. Still, in Arizona this spring, Ichiro batted .436 and had a hit in every game he played through Thursday.

Add it up and get him off to a good April, and it's likely we could be on .400 watch all summer.

Ichiro hit .429 last spring, and followed that with one of the worst months of his career.

But the pressure, the strain, the physical and emotional drain, the defenses stacked up against him ... there's a reason nobody has batted .400 since 1941.

Yeah, it has to do with the odds, not the strain. The Elias Sports Bureau estimates that the chances of a career .300 hitter reaching .400 in 600 at bats is one in 1,919,940,000,000,000.

He should stay healthy and at or near full physical effectiveness the entire season.

Ichiro's only missed 14 games over four seasons, and he's still 61 points away from .400.

(Other reasons)

Pretty worthless support.

There's a case to be made for Ichiro having a shot at .400 - if you pick up an issue of Grand Salami this month before a ballgame, you'll see that I wrote an article that touches on that very subject. As a speedy contact hitter who doesn't strike out, doesn't walk much, and who puts the ball on the ground, Ichiro gives himself the best odds in baseball of getting a hit in any given game.

Dave Boling didn't make that case, and the result is a pretty weak article.

(Opening Day: just over four hours away!)

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trib

Well, it could have been worse. At least it wasn't a Darrin Beene article.

by wackomann on Apr 3, 2005 3:11 PM PDT reply actions

Math and Streak Probability

I tried to reproduce your probabilities but got slightly different results. Did we use the same method?

Using career #'s, the probability that Ichiro will start a 56-game hitting streak in a particular game is (1-.339)^4.29, which is 0.0000308, or once in 32,499 games.

His probability of failing to start a 56-game hitting streak (such high standards!) in a given game is 1-0.0000308, or 0.999969 (p).

The "failure probability" over n games is p^n. If we define 0.5 as the minimum probability at which we'd "expect" an event to occur, we need to solve 0.5=p^n to get the minimum # of games Ichiro would need to play for the record to be expected.

n=log base p (0.5) = ln(0.5)/ln(p) = 22,492 games

So, using career numbers, Ichiro would need to play 22,492 games to be expected to tie the record. Using his career best 2004 numbers, the number of games drops to 1,795.

The chance that he'll do it in any given season is 0.0032 using the career numbers model and 0.0396 using the career best year model.

Probably not going to happen, but I bet he's had the best statistical chance in history since the record was established.

by Caldwell on Apr 4, 2005 5:34 AM PDT reply actions

Re: Math and Streak Probability

I'm going to trust your numbers, since I haven't done more complicated probabilities in a few years.

As you can see, the point still stands.

by Jeff Sullivan on Apr 4, 2005 7:09 AM PDT up reply actions

Get over yourself

You are too damn negative! It is opening day for crying out loud, why not go one full day without trying to rip everyone around you a new one, because they aren't as amazing and brilliant as you are!

Go M's

by OBF on Apr 4, 2005 8:02 AM PDT reply actions

Re: Get over yourself

Dave Boling = everyone?

by Jeff Sullivan on Apr 4, 2005 9:09 AM PDT up reply actions

Well....

No, Dave Boling != everyone. And really I should have prefaced my above statement with "Warning, general fed up rant upcoming." It was more a comment about the entire blog-o-shpere, your blog was just the lucky one where I was at when I needed to fume a bit. I just think it is silly that a valuable resource such as a journalistic outpost (a blog) should waste its time going over every piece written with a fine tooth comb, trying to find something wrong with it. Here's a question, is there anybody you LIKE to read? I know that this is YOUR blog, and therefore should be full of YOUR opinions, but (and like I said this is NOT just your blog, it is a blog epedimic) why do some many blogs go from being someones opinons and news about the mariners, politics, the space program, whatever, and turn into someones opinion about someone elses opinons? So many blogs just turn into a forum to rip on other authors or other bloggers, or to just generally fill the world with spite and bad opinions of everyone. Yours, is actually a pretty good blog, and I appreciate that it is generally a news worthy place, to find your opinion about news, not your opinon about other peoples opinion, but you do that from time to time as well. Anyways to make a long story short, I came off a bit strong in my first comment, sorry about that, but my sentiment would still be, how about more of Jeffs opinon and news about the mariners, and less about Jeff's opinons on some other guys opinion :)

Thanks

Go M's

by OBF on Apr 5, 2005 8:07 AM PDT reply actions

Re: Well....

Speaking strictly for myself, I don't think I go over "every piece written with a fine tooth comb". If you search through the archives a little bit, I don't think you'll find too many posts like this one, where I tear apart an entire newspaper article. Most of the time, I ignore the little things and use the papers as sources of information, but when I come across a particularly weak piece of writing, I'm going to make a point of talking about it (see: last year's Larue column comparing Ryan Franklin to Roger Clemens).

There are lots of guys I enjoy reading, Larue included. I rag on Jim Street from time to time, but he's not too bad. I really don't hold a negative opinion of any particular Seattle sportswriter (although Finnigan could stand to be less of a mouthpiece). I just think that, when you start getting lazy, you should be called out on it.

Let it be known that by no means do I consider myself a better writer than they. We're all guilty of publishing total pieces of crap sometimes.

by Jeff Sullivan on Apr 5, 2005 12:57 PM PDT up reply actions