Where Have All the .400 Hitters Gone ?

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Posted By: cmoking

I posted this in the "Our Love of Wagner" thread...I'll repost it here. As you see, Gould does look at the 19th century, as well as multiple data points. I'm not going to make his argument for him (I'm not qualified), but will just refer to anyone interested to go read his book.

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In Jay Gould's book "Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville", chapter "Why No One Hits .400 Any More", he uses "Difference between high average and league average in percentage points" and "difference between low average and league average in percentage points" from 1880 thru 1980. The graph he presents looks convincing. It is clearly sloping towards zero (less variability).

Later in the chapter, he presents similar data (using batting averages) separated in Decades and presents his evidence in Standard Deviation and Coefficient of Variation. Here is the table (first number = decade, second number = SD, third number = CoV)

1870 .0496 19.25
1880 .0460 18.45
1890 .0436 15.60
1900 .0386 14.97
1910 .0371 13.97
1920 .0374 12.70
1930 .0340 12.00
1940 .0326 12.23
1950 .0325 12.25
1960 .0316 12.31
1970 .0317 12.13

This table is very convincing. It shows that the variability of batting averages have decreased over the years.

He started the chapter by asking "Were the old guys really better?" And he concludes with: "we've exposed the extinction of .400 hitting as a sign of progress, not degradation - the paradoxical effect of declining variation as play improves and stabilizes, and as average contestants also approach the right wall of human limits. Do not lament the loss of literally outstanding performance....Celebrate instead the immense improvement of average play...."

I don't know enough about this stuff to back up his point or debate it, all I can suggest is for someone to read his book and see Jay Gould's argument.