Will Any Batter Ever Hit .400 Again?

Only 35 batters have ever hit .400, and 10 of those occurred in 1887, and "In 1887, when a player received a bases on balls (walk) he was also awarded a hit in his official statistics. The rules of the day and Major League Baseball recognize the statistics as they were recorded." 12 others all achieved this mark in the late 1800's, so only 13 did it in the 20th century. Ted Williams was the last to do so (in 1941), so the .400 club hasn't gained a new member in the past 74 years. However, streaks do end: there were 37 years between Triple Crown winners in horse racing, and 45 years between Triple Crown winners in baseball. But is it likely any hitter will ever hit .400 again?

The short answer is no. Not if the current trend of league-wide worsening hitting continues:

Data from Baseball-Reference

The steroid era accounts for the major increase throughout the 1990's, but since 2006 the league-wide batting average has been in a virtual free-fall. 

But what about the leaders, the hitters at the top, since we're concerned with anyone capable of breaking .400? For the most part, the trend of decreased average in recent years holds there too:

Data from Baseball-Reference

Using these leaders since 2006, I've attempted to quantify the respective probability each batter could've hit .400, given their batting average at the end of the year:

Year	Player	BA	Z-Score	P-Value
2014	Jose Altuve	0.341	-3.20	0.07%
2013	Miguel Cabrera	0.348	-2.57	0.51%
2012	Buster Posey	0.336	-3.12	0.09%
2011	Miguel Cabrera	0.344	-2.82	0.24%
2010	Josh Hamilton	0.359	-1.94	2.60%
2009	Joe Mauer	0.365	-1.66	4.84%
2008	Chipper Jones	0.364	-1.57	5.87%
2007	Magglio Ordonez	0.363	-1.88	3.04%
2006	Joe Mauer	0.347	-2.54	0.56%

In this case, the p-value represents the probability each player could've hit .400, given that they actually hit what's shown above. Therefore the fewer at bats, the more uncertain we are they couldn't actually have hit .400. Thus Chipper Jones's 5.87% is the highest, since he had the fewest at bats of these 9 players. 

Just as the league-wide batting average has declined, so have these z-scores and their respective p-values. Over the course of a full season with 500+ ABs, it's virtually impossible (now) to get a hit in 2 of every 5 trips to the plate. That being said, through 257 ABs...

Year	Player	BA	Z-Score	P-Value
2015	Paul Goldschmidt	0.354	-1.54	6.19%

Players with Both D-League and NBA Championships

Another topic from that one "8" guy: on Tuesday, James Michael McAdoo became an NBA champion with the Golden State Warriors. Additionally, he also became a D-League champion earlier in the year with the Santa Cruz Warriors. So the question was: how many players have won both NBA and D-League titles, and has anyone else ever done it in the same year besides McAdoo? That answer is actually pretty straightforward, and it's yes, because one of his teammates (Ognjen Kuzmic) was on both sets of Warriors this year as well. But who else?

Player	DLeague Team	Champ Year	NBA Team	Champ Year
Jason Williams	Greenville Groove	2002	Miami Heat	2006
Rusty LaRue	Asheville Altitude	2004	Chicago Bulls	1998
Mickell Gladness	Rio Grande Valley Vipers	2010	Miami Heat	2012
Terrel Harris	Rio Grande Valley Vipers	2010	Miami Heat	2012
Cory Joseph	Austin Toros	2012	San Antonio Spurs	2014
Ognjen Kuzmic	Santa Cruz Warriors	2015	Golden State Warriors	2015
James Michael McAdoo	Santa Cruz Warriors	2015	Golden State Warriors	2015

As before, all data was gathered from Basketball-Reference.

Turns out McAdoo and Kuzmic are the only two players to win both titles in the same year (granted, the D-League has only existed for 15 years). Another interesting fact that stands out from the above list is that only one player won these titles in reverse order: Rusty LaRue, who won it all in the NBA with Jordan and the Bulls in 1998, and then added a D-League championship later in his career in 2004.

Number of NBA Champions by College

A friend of mine from college (forever immortalized in this post) proposed a solid question: which colleges have turned out the most NBA champions? It's easy to find lists of how many draft picks schools have turned out, but what about titles?

There have been 919 players to win the title (this includes duplicates; in other words, Michael Jordan counts 6 times, for example). Of those 919, 49 have been internationals or were drafted straight from high school, which leaves 870 players across 193 distinct colleges/universities. For starters, here are the top 10:

Rank	College	Count
1	University of North Carolina	33
2	University of California, Los Angeles	30
3	University of San Francisco	27
4	Ohio State University	26
5	University of Kentucky	23
6	University of Kansas	18
7	College of the Holy Cross	17
8	University of Florida	14
8	University of Arizona	14
8	University of Minnesota	14

UNC tops the list, and its dominance is relatively recent: since 1975, 23 of the last 40 NBA championship teams have had at least 1 Tar Heel on them.


All data was gathered from Basketball-Reference. The full list follows: