Can Chipper Hit .400?

Lance Berkman has been amazing. Alfonso Soriano is on a terror like none other. Edinson Volquez, Cliff Lee, and Brandon Webb: phenomenal. There is, however, one man that has been better than the rest, yet, for some reason, he’s flying under the national radar. Take a look at your calendar, it’s about to be June and Chipper Jones is still hitting well above .400.

The quest for .400 actually goes back to last season for Jones. According to ESPN.com over the last 162 he’s hit .376/.459/.622. Meaning that if he would have recorded an extra hit every 14 days he would have hit .400 for one season. That sounds like a pretty capable candidate, if you ask me.

To reach this mark you have to extraordinary. The circumstances have to be perfect, most who have witnessed Williams pursuit call it a season of destiny. Jones is already defying the odds, wagging a proverbial finger in the face of history. He’s 36-years-old and injury prone, certainly not the type of player you’d put your money on to make such a quest, but at the same time he has to perfect make-up. He’s one of the games most accomplished switch hitters. His stroke from both sides of the plate is nearly identical, as evidenced by his .409 average from the left side and his .431 mark from the right, which makes it nearly impossible for an opposing manager to exploit his holes, taking away a large disadvantage bestowed upon traditional hitters. Although, it should be noted that his power comes almost exclusively from the left side of the plate, but that doesn’t really matter when you’re talking average.

Another fundamental difference to note is that when Ichiro Suzuki made his run at .400 and fell 28 points short he never walked. He broke the all-time hits record and it still wasn’t good enough because he only took a free pass 49 times. Which is exactly why he’ll never get there, he makes it too hard on himself. Chipper is going to need an inordinate amount of hits to get it done but it won’t take 262 because he’ll take 80 or more walks. When Williams did it he only needed 185 hit because he walked an astounding 147 times. Jones can simply match his career highs in both categories (189 hits and 126 walks) he’d be in pretty good shape.

He’s already on the right path. Only three times in the past 50 years has a player entered June with a batting average as high as Jones’: Rod Carew in 1983, Rico Carty in ’74, and in ’59 with Hank Aaron. Granted, none of these players went on to eclipse Ted Williams mark of .406, with Aaron finishing the highest at .355, so it proves nothing, except to say that Jones is doing something truly special.

So seriously, though, why not Chipper? We’re talking about .400 here, folks. This isn’t something that is won over night. The season’s a marathon, not a sprint, and realistically all Jones has done is taken an early lead. With his injury history, or as the season progresses and things start to level out, he could easily crumble and fall like Eight Belles.

So far Jones been the luckiest man on the diamond. Take a look at his BABIP (batting average on balls in play). The league average currently sits a shade above the .300 mark. Jones? He currently sits at an astonishing .424, more than 100 points higher than his career average. In 1941 Williams’ BABIP sat at .378, so if history is any indication Jones is going to have to continue at this high level. To be fair, he’s always been well above average, but his current mark is in a league of its own.

So can he do it? Honestly, I don’t know. Right now his numbers suggest that a hard, hard, fall to earth is coming, but the thing is, nothing about .400 seems logical. The numbers aren’t going to look right, it’s basically an anomaly. It just isn’t supposed to happen. In today’s climate it almost can’t. Jones has the stuff to do it, he’s as good a candidate as there is, but there have been plenty of others who had the stuff but fell short.

It’s going to take a little more than a two month sprint before I’m willing to start plastering his face on the front of the sports page next to Williams’ every morning, though. We’ve been here before and left disappointed each time. Will Jones be a worthy candidate like George Brett? Or will he come into the break around .400 and crash and burn like John Olerud did in 1993?