As the 2016 season winds down, one of the things I most like to do is look around the league at different stat tentpoles and find what players will stand out in several years when we look back. A good benchmark for a great all-around hitting season is the gaudy .300/.400/.500 triple slash line.
By no means is this a be-all, end-all stat line -- nothing ever is in a complicated sport like baseball -- but it's a good, quick-and-easy snapshot of a player's performance with the stick.
Hitting .300 has long been a nice measuring stick, even if it's changed in stature many times through different eras (compare the 1930's .296 league batting average to .237 in 1968, for a few glaring examples), but in the same season we're looking at a relatively even playing field. Sure, some ballparks skew things, but .300 is .300. Heading into Friday, 23 qualified hitters are hitting .300 or better.
The middle number here is the most important one. It still makes me chuckle how many people think on-base percentage is some convoluted, made-up-from-thin-air, sabermetric stat. The guy who yelled at me after I wrote that Mike Trout is actually becoming underappreciated and said Trout doesn't lead the league in anything (he leads in OBP, walks -- because he has a great eye and his teammates suck -- and ballpark-adjusted OPS) was especially funny. OBP is the most basic principle of playing baseball. It's the number of times a hitter doesn't make an out. That's the most important thing. You are free to disagree if you would like to be wrong. Heading into Friday, only six qualified hitters sit at .400 or better.
Of course, we always need context to these things and just getting a bunch of singles and/or walks isn't nearly as helpful as putting balls into the gaps or the seats, so we need slugging percentage. More than a half-base per at-bat gets the slugging over .500. In a season of huge power, a whopping 37 players have a .500 or better slugging right now.
What about all three? Before we check out the candidates, let's look at what kind of a special offensive player it takes. In 2012, only Buster Posey, Prince Fielder and Andrew McCutchen did it. In 2013, McCutchen, Paul Goldschmidt, Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout pulled it off. In 2014, only McCutchen and Victor Martinez. Last year it was Goldschmidt, Cabrera, Joey Votto and Bryce Harper. Trout missed it by one batting average point. He won't have an issue this year ...
.300/.400/.500 locks for 2016
Good chance
Still in play
Better get hot ...
We'll stop there because Donaldson isn't adding 16 points of average in 10 days.
Just for fun, here's a list of the players with at least 5,000 career plate appearances to slash .300/.400/.500 over the course of their careers:
Ty Cobb, Stan Musial, Tris Speaker, Mel Ott, Babe Ruth, Chipper Jones, Frank Thomas, Ted Williams, Manny Ramirez, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Todd Helton, Harry Heilmann, Edgar Martinez, Larry Walker, Hank Greenberg, Shoeless Joe Jackson and Joey Votto.
As for Trout? He's at .306/.404/.558, but only 3,519 plate appearances. But yeah, he's overrated because you arbitrarily decided you hate WAR. Keep digging in those heels, naysayers.