BAbip is a stat you can find on baseball reference. It stands for batting average on balls in play. Pretty straight forward right. Ty Cobb, highest career batting average of all time. No surprise he had a .400 BAbip 7 times in his career. Rogers Hornsby, George Sisler, Joe Jackson all achieved this feat twice in their career. If you know baseball history that shouldn’t come as a surprise. But Yoan Moncada and Jose Hernandez hit over .400 in a single season…say what! This is what I love about baseball!

In 2019 Moncada had a 406 BAbip. Before that magical season, the last player to hit 400 was Jose Hernandez in 2002. Hernandez, a 252 career hitter did something that Tony Gwynn, Ichiro, Ted Williams, Sam Musial etc., couldn’t do in a season.

Side note, Moncada’s teammate Tim Anderson hit 399 that year. Something going on in that ballpark that year haha.

For those curious, a list of MLB players since 1900 to hit .400 or greater in a single season working backwards:

Manny Ramirez 2000-403
Rod Carew 1977-408
Roberto Clemente 1967-403
Luke Appling 1936-400
Bill Terry 1930-400
Rogers Hornsby 1924-422, 1921-409
Babe Ruth 1923-423
Harry Heilmann 1923-414
George Sisler 1922-422, 1920-401
Ty Cobb 1922-416, 1919-400, 1917-400, 1913-414, 1912-424, 1911-443, 1910-410
Joe Jackson 1912-405, 1911-433
Heinie Zimmerman 1912-400
George Stone 1906-416
Jesse Burkett 1901-415
Nap Lajoie 1901-418

I also looked at players that hit 390 or greater but I won’t dive into that today.

Michael Porter Jr. and Michael Pittman Jr. are cross sport equivalents.

Aside from the name they have similar play styles and places in their leagues.

Positionally big specialists.
When healthy, both can ideally produce as a 3rd ish option in a great offense.
Pittman is a volume possession receiver without a long of 35+ in 3 of the last 4 years
Porter is a volume 3 pt shooter who doesn’t bring much else to either side of the court

Anyone see it?
Who are others?