Over the years, the AL and NL batting crowns have been dominated by skilled hitters such as Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, and Tony Gwynn. A total of 28 batting titles have been claimed by this trio of hitters with Cobb securing the honor a dozen times while Wagner and Gwynn earned eight apiece. When a player shared the league with one of these perennial batting champions, achieving the honor proved to be an especially difficult task. In the history of the sport, rarely have a collection of players from one particular team dominated winning the batting title the way individual players have. However, with the 1993 addition of the Colorado Rockies to the NL, this Denver-based franchise has stood tall among other clubs when it came to having its players capture the batting crown. In fact, in the 31-year history of the team, nine different Rockies players have claimed 11 NL batting titles. Moreover, since the introduction of the Rockies franchise, no other senior circuit club has come anywhere near matching that total as only the San Diego Padres have secured four batting crowns—each of which were won by the aforementioned Gwynn—while the Miami Marlins are the sole NL team to have more than two players earn the distinction. And, during that same 31-year period, no AL franchise has been able to run away from the pack like Colorado, as the Boston Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers share the lead with a handful of batting titles each with the Red Sox also producing the most individual batting champions over that timeframe with four.
Yet, despite boasting an abundance
of batting crowns, the Rockies have only reached the postseason on five
occasions while generally finishing well out of contention with sub-.500
records. What’s more, critics are quick to point out that playing in
the thin air of Denver—a city which sits 5,280 feet above sea
level—inflates the offensive numbers of Colorado’s hitters, a belief
that is underscored by the significant disparity between batters’ home
and road totals. Of course that doesn’t tell the whole story as others
believe that because the Rockies play their home games at high
elevation, in turn, the team’s hitters struggle to adapt when going on
the road and playing at lower altitudes. Additionally, some suspect
that constantly adjusting to changes in altitude causes Colorado’s
players to become more susceptible to injury. Regardless of the
advantages or disadvantages of playing at high elevation, a hitter’s
ability to perform optimally at their home ballpark should be considered
a strength, as the hitter easily accumulates more plate appearances at
home than at any other ballpark. With this in mind, I decided to take a
deeper look at the seasons in which one of Colorado’s hitters won the
NL batting crown and see which players finished in the bridesmaid
position of the batting race and were thus denied the opportunity to
achieve the honor by the presence of this mile-high-based franchise. Each table below will also include the third and in some cases
fourth-place finisher to show how close the batting race would have been
without the Rockies players. The tables will feature each player’s
home and road splits as well as the park factor values for each player’s
home ballpark. While park factors are not a completely accurate
reflection of advantages or disadvantages in batting average, they give
some idea as to how much the ballpark played as hitter-friendly or
pitcher-friendly during the season in question.
Going into the 1993 campaign, Rockies first baseman Andrés Galarraga seemed like an extreme long shot to win the NL batting crown. As a young player with the Montréal Expos, Galarraga had posted respective averages of .305 and .302 in 1987 and 1988, slotting seventh in the senior loop batting race during the former season and ranking fourth in the latter campaign. However, he slumped during his next three years with the Expos, batting a paltry .247 over that stretch. Galarraga fared no better following a trade to the St. Louis Cardinals, managing to hit only .243 for 1992. Yet, after joining the expansion Rockies as a free agent, Galarraga shocked the baseball world by getting off to a dynamic start in 1993 and carrying a .400-plus average into early July. The slugger maintained a robust average for the reminder of the campaign and captured the batting title with a .370 mark.
Finishing
directly behind Galarraga was Padres right fielder Tony Gwynn who
already had four NL batting crowns to his name, having achieved the
honor in 1984, 1987, 1988, and 1989. Gwynn suffered a season-ending
injury to his left knee on September 5, denying him the chance to
challenge Galarraga during the final weeks of the campaign. Nevertheless, Gwynn’s runner-up .358 figure represented the
second-highest average of his career up until that point, bettered only
by his own .370 mark from 1987. Galarraga was at his best in the thin
air of Colorado’s Mile High Stadium where he punished NL pitching to the
tune of a scorching .402 average. Despite playing his home games at
the much less-favorable Jack Murphy Stadium, Gwynn still batted 50
points higher in San Diego than on the road. St. Louis Cardinals first
baseman Gregg Jefferies slotted third in the batting race with a .342
average. After struggling to live up to the lofty expectations placed
on him as a top prospect for the New York Mets, Jefferies came over to
the Cardinals as part of a four-player trade following a mediocre year
with the Kansas City Royals. Jefferies had spent the previous few
seasons bouncing between second and third base but upon his arrival in
St. Louis, he was moved to first where he coincidentally replaced
Galarraga. Jefferies responded well to the position change and played
brilliantly for his new team, finally producing the standout campaign
that so many had forecast for him. Like Gwynn, Jefferies called a
tougher ballpark home yet he managed to register nearly identical home
and away averages. Though Galarraga took full advantage of the friendly
confines of Mile High Stadium, his impressive .328 mark on foreign
terrain was in-line with the road figures of Gwynn and Jefferies.
Following
the 1993 campaign, Galarraga became a premier power hitter, smacking a
combined 194 home runs during the next five years. Though he logged a
.319 average in 1994 and hit .296 over the remainder of his career,
Galarraga never contended for another batting crown. For his part,
Jefferies proved 1993 was not a fluke by posting respective averages of
.325 and .306 in 1994 and 1995. However, his third-place result from
1993 would be his highest finish in a batting race. Gwynn, on the other
hand, began an incredible stretch, doubling his collection of batting
titles by leading the NL during each of the next four seasons—most
notably making a run at hitting .400 in 1994 before ultimately finishing
at .394 when the strike brought a premature end to the campaign. Although no one was able to unseat Gwynn over this four-year stretch,
each batting race saw a Rockies player classify in the top three as the
unlikely name of Mike Kingery finished third in 1994, followed by Dante
Bichette repeating the ranking in 1995 before Ellis Burks and Larry
Walker respectively occupied the bridesmaid role behind the Padres right
fielder for 1996 and 1997.
After calling Mile
High Stadium home for the initial two years of the franchise’s
existence, the Rockies moved to Coors Field for the 1995 season. The
Rockies opened their new home in grand style by earning the club’s first
playoff appearance after securing the NL wild card. Although Colorado
fell to the NL West champion-Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS, the
freshly-minted franchise captivated the baseball world with its
exciting, offense-heavy style of play. The 1995 campaign also saw the
arrival of the aforementioned Larry Walker who signed with the Rockies
as a free agent following a series of impressive seasons as a right
fielder for the Expos. During his first two years in Colorado, Walker
played at a similar level to what he had in Montréal. However in 1997,
Walker broke out in a big way, winning the NL MVP Award after clubbing a
loop-high 49 home runs while ranking second to Gwynn with a .366
average. Though Rockies hitters made a habit of taking advantage of
Coors Field, no slugger swung the bat in a more dominant fashion at the
ballpark than Walker. Over the course of Walker’s career, he posted an
astounding .381 average and 1.172 OPS at Coors Field. Yet, he did not
solely rely on Denver’s high elevation and thin air to produce superb
offensive numbers as he maintained a .282 average outside of Coors Field
with an .872 OPS that ranks higher than the career OPS figures of
roughly two-thirds of the position players currently enshrined in
Cooperstown.
Walker followed up his MVP-winning 1997 with a sensational 1998 effort, logging a .363 average en route to earning his first NL batting title. He faced stout competition from a former batting champion but on this occasion the challenge did not come from Tony Gwynn as the perennial top dog slumped to a .321 average that—while below par for him—still ranked ninth-best in the senior circuit. Walker’s opposition instead came in the form of New York Mets first baseman John Olerud who punished NL pitching to the tune of a .354 average. Olerud’s .354 mark represented the second-highest average of his career as five years earlier he had captured the AL batting crown with a .363 figure for the World Series champion Toronto Blue Jays, ahead of a pair of future Hall of Fame teammates in Paul Molitor and Roberto Alomar, to give the club a complete sweep of the top-three spots on the leaderboard. However, this time around, Olerud was the one playing runner-up to a .363 average as he was denied the opportunity to join Ed Delahanty as the second player to win the batting title in both the AL and NL. Nevertheless, Olerud’s outstanding .354 figure broke the Mets single-season record for batting average, matching an achievement from his banner 1993 when he set the same benchmark for the Blue Jays. Olerud currently stands as the only player to hold the single-season batting average record for two different active franchises.
Slotting
third in the batting race with a .331 average was Walker’s teammate
Dante Bichette who patrolled the left side of Colorado’s outfield. Bichette’s third-place result equaled his finish in the 1995 NL batting
race and represented his final appearance on the top-10 rundown. Both
Walker and Bichette hit over 100 points higher at home than on the road
with the right fielder notching an eye-popping .418 figure at Coors
Field. By contrast, Olerud hit nearly 40 points higher on the road than
at New York’s Shea Stadium which generated a neutral park factor of 100
for the 1998 campaign but was traditionally known to favor pitchers. Interestingly, aside from his respective first and second-place
finishes in the 1993 AL and 1998 NL batting races, Olerud—a career .295
hitter—never cracked the top-10 leaderboard in any other season. If not
for the presence of Walker and Bichette, Olerud would have easily
claimed the batting crown with his Mets teammate Mike Piazza a distant
runner-up at .328. The 1998 campaign was a nomadic one for Piazza who
began the year with the Los Angeles Dodgers, was traded to the Florida
Marlins on May 14, and was then swapped to New York eight days later. Like Olerud, Piazza registered a much higher batting average on the
road. Despite playing the physically-taxing position of catcher, Piazza
had established himself as a regular participant in the batting race,
achieving a bridesmaid finish in 1995, followed by successive
third-place efforts in 1996 and 1997. However, the 1998 campaign
essentially signaled the end of Piazza’s pursuit of the batting crown as
a 10th on the 2000 NL rundown amounted to his best result over the
remainder of his career.
Larry Walker’s domination of opposing pitching at Coors Field reached new heights in 1999 as the slugger posted an otherworldly .461 average at home on his way to becoming a back-to-back NL batting champion, finishing the year with an overall .379 mark. In the history of the AL and NL, only four other players—Shoeless Joe Jackson, Rogers Hornsby, George Sisler, and Chuck Klein—have produced superior home batting averages during a season in which they qualified for their league’s respective batting title. With his .379 figure, Walker set the Rockies single-season record for batting average that still stands today. Interestingly, his home/road spilt was even more pronounced than it had been in prior years with Colorado as he maintained an adequate but unspectacular .286 average away from Coors Field.
Finishing well behind
Walker in the number-two spot of the batting race was Arizona
Diamondbacks right fielder Luis Gonzalez who hit .336. Owning just a
.268 career batting average going into 1999, Gonzalez was an unlikely
bridesmaid in the rundown. Coming to Arizona by way of a trade from the
Detroit Tigers, Gonzalez helped the newly-minted Diamondbacks make an
incredible 35-game improvement from the franchise’s inaugural season of
play and win the NL West division title with a 100-62 record. Although,
the club’s Bank One Ballpark would become a hitter’s haven, during the
initial two years of the Diamondbacks’ existence, the stadium generated a
neutral park factor. Gonzalez hit better on the road in 1999 as his
.352 mark represented a 66-point advantage over Walker’s respective
figure on foreign soil. Had the Rockies slugger not been there to run
away with the batting crown, a tight battle for top honors would have
played out between Gonzalez and yet another right fielder, Bobby Abreu
of the Philadelphia Phillies. Gonzalez edged Abreu by a single point to
slot runner-up to Walker. Gonzalez proved his breakout 1999 effort was
no fluke by putting together a series of impressive campaigns, the most
notable of which came in 2001 when he hit .325 and capped the year with
a walk-off single in Game Seven of the Fall Classic to secure the World
Series championship for the Diamondbacks. Yet, Gonzalez’s .325 average
was only good enough for 10th in the NL and marked his final appearance
on the leaderboard. Abreu’s .335 average established a personal-best
for the slugger. Though he hit .300 or higher a half dozen times in his
career, outside of 1999, he never managed to crack the top 10.
The 2000 season witnessed the third-consecutive year in which a Rockies player captured the senior circuit batting crown. However, on this occasion, the slugger to earn top batting honors was not Larry Walker as the two-time defending champion suffered through a difficult year plagued by an elbow injury that first sidelined him for close to a month in early May before bringing a premature end to his campaign on August 19. Despite playing in a weakened state, Walker still took the field for 87 games and hit .309 for Colorado. With Walker unable to factor into the batting race, Rockies first baseman Todd Helton stepped up and turned in a sensational effort, pacing the NL with a blistering .372 average. Originally signed by Colorado with the eighth overall pick in the first round of the 1995 amateur draft, Helton quickly bore fruit for the club, batting .315 as a rookie in 1998 and following it up with a .320 mark in 1999. Helton clearly enjoyed the benefits of Coors Field in 2000, hitting .391 at home, though he did not suffer quite as dramatic of a drop off on the road as his predecessors Andrés Galarraga and Larry Walker had during their batting crown-winning campaigns. In fact, Helton’s .353 average on enemy terrain was not only in-line with the road figures of the two sluggers who slotted directly behind him in the batting race but also stands as the highest road mark achieved by a Rockies batting champion.
While an elbow injury
took Walker out of the running for top honors, the second-place
finisher in the rundown, Houston Astros outfielder Moises Alou, was
returning to the field after missing the entire 1999 campaign as a
result of an ACL tear suffered when he fell off a treadmill during
preseason training. Alou rebounded from his injury with a phenomenal
year at the plate, registering an electric .355 average—in the process
setting a new personal-best, surpassing his .339 mark from 1994 when he
classified fourth in the NL batting race as a member the Montréal Expos. Like Helton, Alou benefited from playing his home games in a favorable
environment as Houston’s Enron Field generated a 108 park factor which,
among senior circuit teams, was only eclipsed by the staggering 129
park factor of Coors Field. Despite the advantageous setting, Alou
actually hit slightly better on the road than at home. Slotting close
behind the former Expos outfielder was Montréal’s current right fielder,
Vladimir Guerrero, who rounded out the top three with an impressive
.345 average. A future Hall of Famer who ultimately retired with a
superb .318 career batting average, Guerrero’s .345 figure proved to be
the high-water mark for the slugger as did his third-place finish in the
batting race. However, he was able to match the ranking three more
times—once in the NL and twice in the AL.
Larry Walker returned to the diamond for the 2001 season and snapped back into peak form, not only adding a third batting title to his collection but also giving the Rockies franchise its fourth-straight batting champion. The 34-year-old Walker held off the challenge of Todd Helton to claim the honor, outclassing his younger teammate both at home and on the road to stand atop the leaderboard with an overall .350 average to the defending batting champion’s .336 mark. Just as in 1998 and 1999, Walker made the most of his favorable surroundings, once again hitting over .400 at Coors Field—this time logging a .406 home batting average. Moises Alou put together another standout performance for Houston, returning to the leaderboard with a .331 figure that was only topped by Walker and Helton. Thus, for the second year in a row, excluding Rockies sluggers, Alou produced the NL’s highest batting average. In contrast to the prior campaign though, Alou notched a better average at home than on the road. Finishing an eyelash behind Alou in fourth place was his Astros teammate, center fielder Lance Berkman. If not for Walker and Helton, the batting race would have been a memorable one as Alou and Berkman each hit .331 with the difference coming down to the former’s .3314 mark narrowly edging the latter’s .3310 figure. And, hot on the heels of the Astros outfielders were an additional four sluggers—Chipper Jones, Albert Pujols, Barry Bonds, and Sammy Sosa—who posted averages within three points of Alou and Berkman. Denied the chance to win the batting crown or possibly even become a rare back-to-back honoree, Alou managed to slot among the senior circuit batting average leaders just one more time with a fifth-place finish in 2005. Berkman cracked the top-10 on three more occasions but like Alou classified no better than the fifth place he would achieve in the 2008 NL batting race.
The 2002 season witnessed
Colorado’s stranglehold on the NL batting title finally come to an end
as aforementioned San Francisco Giants left fielder Barry Bonds earned
top honors for the first time after recording a sparkling .370 average. Bonds’ .370 mark is all the more impressive considering he was age 37
and played his home games at cavernous Pacific Bell Park which generated
a pitcher-friendly park factor of 93. The 2002 campaign also saw MLB
approve the use of a climate-controlled humidor at Coors Field as a way
to cut down on scoring at the ballpark. The humidor, which was designed
to keep baseballs from drying out in the thin air of Denver, helped
curtail scoring to a degree as Coors Field’s park factor, which had
generally hovered in the mid-to-high 120s, dropped to 117 for 2002 and
typically stayed in the 110s from that point forward. However, even
with the lower park factor, Coors Field still maintained its reputation
as MLB’s most hitter-friendly ballpark. While unable to offer a true
challenge to Bonds in the batting race, a pair of familiar Rockies
sluggers slotted high in the final rundown as Larry Walker grabbed the
number-two spot with a .338 average and Todd Helton classified fourth
with a .329 mark. Though Walker still hit better at Coors Field,
possibly due to the effects of the humidor, he found the park less to
his liking than in previous years, batting .362 at home compared to .312
on the road. Nevertheless, Rockies batters as a whole continued to
produce massive home/road splits, including Helton who hit nearly 100
points higher at Coors Field than on foreign soil. Walker’s
second-place finish proved to be the last time the future Hall of Famer
was able to contend for the batting crown as age and injures began to
catch up with the veteran. Almost seven years Walker’s junior, Helton
took over as Colorado’s main threat in the batting race and made a fine
showing of himself by posting respective .358 and .347 averages in 2003
and 2004. However, Helton had to settle for the bridesmaid position
during both those campaigns as St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert
Pujols narrowly-edged the Rockies slugger with a .359 mark in 2003,
while Bonds returned to the head of the leaderboard and claimed his
second batting title with a .362 figure in 2004. The 2005 season
represented the first time since the franchise’s inception in which a
Colorado player failed to classify in the top three of the NL batting
race as Helton could only manage fourth even though his .320 average
trailed the leader, Chicago Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee, by the same
15-point margin that he had when he finished runner-up behind Bonds
during the prior year.
The 2006 campaign
signaled something of a changing of the guard for the Rockies as, after
ranking no lower than fourth in the NL batting race during each of
previous six seasons, Helton slid all the way down to 15th in the final
order despite maintaining a solid .302 average. In Helton’s place, a
pair of younger teammates took up the mantle as third baseman Garrett
Atkins and left fielder Matt Holliday slotted fourth and fifth on the
leaderboard. Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman Freddy Sanchez captured
the senior circuit batting crown with a .344 average while Atkins and
Holliday respectively registered .329 and .326 figures, coincidentally
marking the third-straight campaign in which the highest-ranking Rockies
hitter ended the year 15 points behind the leader.
While Atkins’ fourth-place result proved to be his sole appearance on the NL rundown, Holliday carried the momentum of his strong 2006 effort into 2007 and established himself as a contender in a tight batting race. Going into the final month of the regular season, Holliday sat fourth in a six-player cluster separated by a mere 12 points with Philadelphia Phillies second baseman Chase Utley leading the way over Washington Nationals first baseman Dmitri Young, Atlanta Braves shortstop Edgar Rentería, Florida Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramírez, and Braves third baseman Chipper Jones. Utley maintained the lead for the majority of the first half of September before Jones took over the top spot just past the midway point of the month. Holliday traded the lead with both Utley and Jones during September as the Rockies battled multiple teams in the race for the NL West division title and wild card. From September 16 to the end of the month, Colorado went on an incredible run, winning 13 of their final 14 regular season contests to force a tiebreaker game with the San Diego Padres. Holliday hit .457 during this 14-game stretch to raise his average from .330 to .340, in the process passing Jones for the batting lead on September 29. Holding a scant, three-point edge over Jones, Holliday went 2 for 6 in the tiebreaker game, thus maintaining his advantage and securing the NL batting crown. In his final plate appearance, Holliday tied the score in the bottom of the 13th inning, ripping an RBI-triple off Padres closer Trevor Hoffman. Holliday then scored on Jamey Carroll’s sacrifice fly to send the Rockies to their first postseason in a dozen years. Colorado’s winning ways continued into the playoffs where the team swept the Phillies in the NLDS and the Diamondbacks in the NLCS before running out of gas and being the victim of a sweep at the hands of the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. Holliday nearly became the second Rockies player to win the NL MVP as he finished runner-up to Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins in a close election.
Holliday’s
batting title marked the first time a Rockies player had earned top
honors since the introduction of the humidor. Though Holliday hit 75
points higher at home than on the road, Coors Field generated a
less-extreme park factor of 109 for the year. By contrast, the batting
crown runner-up Jones—who called Atlanta’s spacious Turner Field
home—hit 33 points better on the road. Like Holliday, third-place
finisher Utley benefited from playing at a hitter’s park and produced
almost identical home/road splits to the Rockies slugger. Utley’s .332
average represented a personal-high for the keystoner as well as the
only time he would crack the top-10 leaderboard in the category. Though
Jones had seemingly been denied his best chance to win a batting title,
the 14-year veteran came back in 2008 and hit a career-high .364 en
route to claiming top honors for the NL. Holliday turned in his own
strong follow-up performance, batting .321 and slotting two spots behind
Jones in third. Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramírez vaulted to the head
of the leaderboard in 2009, earning the senior circuit batting crown
with a .342 average while Todd Helton cracked the top five one final
time, ranking fourth with a team-best .325 mark. Helton’s steady
campaign helped Colorado secure the NL wild card and return to the
postseason where the club subsequently lost to the Phillies in the NLDS. Helton retired in 2013 after spending the entirety of his 17-year
career with the Rockies. Over that span, he batted .316, notching a
superb .345 average at Coors Field compared to a less-illustrious but
more than respectable .287 figure on foreign soil. Though he hit far
better at home, like his former teammate Larry Walker, Helton produced
road batting numbers that rivaled many Hall of Famers. On January 23,
2024, Helton joined Walker as only the second Rockies player voted into
Cooperstown.
With Matt Holliday set to become eligible for free agency at the conclusion of the 2009 season, prior to the start of the campaign, the Rockies decided to be proactive and traded the slugger to the Oakland Athletics in return for three players including 23-year-old outfielder Carlos González. Fresh off a middling rookie effort with Oakland in which he hit just .242, González began 2009 with the Rockies Triple-A affiliate Colorado Springs Sky Sox. After dominating Triple-A pitching, González earned the call-up to Denver in early June and hit .284 the rest of the way. González then broke out in a monumental fashion during 2010, pacing the senior loop with a .336 average, thus becoming the fifth different Rockies player to win the NL batting title. A noteworthy aspect of González’s campaign is that he was able to maintain his high average and earn a Gold Glove Award for his defensive work despite being shuttled back and forth between all three outfield positions. Like many Rockies hitters before him, he made the most of his advantageous home ballpark, batting .380 at Coors Field while posting a road average that was almost 100 points lower. González’s breakout batting crown-winning campaign represented his only appearance on the top-10 leaderboard.
Cincinnati
Reds first baseman Joey Votto occupied the bridesmaid position,
finishing the year with a .324 average. In most seasons, Cincinnati’s
Great American Ball Park favored hitters, however, in 2010, the stadium
generated a park factor of just 98. Votto seemed more affected by this
than most Reds hitters as he recorded a 52-point higher average on the
road than at home. Though he fell short in the batting race, Votto
received substantial credit for helping Cincinnati reach the playoffs
for the first time in 15 seasons and was voted NL MVP while González
classified an impressive third in the election. Notoriously selective
at the plate, Votto registered a senior circuit-best .424 OBP, marking
the first of seven times he would pace the loop in the category. Slotting number three in the batting race was the unlikely name of Omar
Infante. Over the course of his eight-year big league career, Infante
had battled injuries and struggled to maintain a starting role. Finally
healthy, Infante put together a fine season for the Braves, seeing
regular action while serving the club as an invaluable utility player. While Colorado’s González alternated between the three outfield
positions, Infante fulfilled an even more nomadic role for Atlanta,
taking the field in slightly over half his games at second base while
splitting the rest of his starts between shortstop, third base, and the
two corner outfield positions. Infante hit a personal-best .321 for the
year and cracked the leaderboard in average for the only time in his
career. Infante found Turner Field particularly to his liking, batting
50-plus points higher at home than on the road.
Through
the first 18 years of the franchise’s existence, at least one Rockies
hitter placed among the NL top five in batting average during each
season. However, the 2011 campaign saw that streak come to an end as
shortstop Troy Tulowitzki’s team-leading .302 average only ranked
10th-best in the loop while New York Mets shortstop José Reyes secured
top honors with a .337 mark. The pattern repeated itself in 2012 with
no Rockies hitter managing to break into the top five, though rookie
third baseman Jordan Pacheco came close, logging a .309 figure that
classified sixth as San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey captured
the batting title with a .336 average.
After two consecutive seasons in which Rockies hitters uncharacteristically failed to make a serious run at the batting crown, the franchise’s next player to pace the senior circuit in average came in the unexpected form of veteran right fielder Michael Cuddyer. A free agent acquisition prior to the 2012 campaign, Cuddyer brought a .272 career batting average to Colorado from parts of 11 major league seasons spent with the Minnesota Twins. Cuddyer showed no indications of challenging for a batting title, having never hit higher than .284 for Minnesota and posting a middling .260 figure in his first year with the Rockies. However, he broke out in a big way during 2013, recording a NL-leading .331 average to reclaim the batting crown for Colorado. Like all Rockies batting champions before him, Cuddyer benefitted from hitter-friendly Coors Field where he batted .356. Yet, he also thrived outside of Colorado as he produced a personal-best .311 mark on the road. Cuddyer hit at a comparable level in 2014, notching a .332 average, but was plagued by injuries and limited to just 49 games. The veteran then signed with the Mets for 2015 and batted .259 in what would be the final year of his big league career.
Occupying
the two spots behind Cuddyer in the 2013 batting race were a pair of
Braves hitters in third baseman Chris Johnson and first baseman Freddie
Freeman. Johnson put together a career-best effort, slotting runner-up
with a .321 average that was an eyelash ahead of Freeman’s .319 figure. Generally known as a pitcher’s park, Atlanta’s Turner Field favored
hitters in 2013. While Johnson registered nearly identical home and
away averages, Freeman took advantage of the favorable conditions,
batting 48 points higher at Turner Field than on enemy turf, an even
greater difference than Cuddyer’s 45-point home/away split. The Braves
represented the third franchise for Johnson who had struggled to
distinguish himself in parts of four big league campaigns going into
2013. Johnson was unable to build on the momentum of his solid 2013,
slumping to a .252 average over his three remaining years in the majors. By contrast, 2013 marked the first of several trips to the top-five
batting leaderboard for Freeman.
Similar to 2013, the 2014 NL batting race saw another unlikely player vault to the head of the pack as Rockies first baseman Justin Morneau earned top honors for the senior circuit. A standout player for several seasons with the Twins, Morneau’s list of accomplishments included capturing the 2006 AL MVP Award after a stellar campaign which saw him bat .321 with 34 home runs and 130 RBI while playing an invaluable role in helping the club secure the AL Central division title. Morneau’s .321 average ranked seventh-highest in the junior loop as his MVP-winning effort represented the first of a series of strong seasons by the first basemen. He appeared to be in the midst of putting together another MVP-caliber campaign through the first half of 2010 when disaster struck on July 7: While sliding into second base, Morneau suffered a season-ending concussion when his head made contact with the knee of Toronto Blue Jays infielder John McDonald. At the time of Morneau’s injury, the slugger ranked among the AL leaders with a .345 average. He returned to the field for the beginning of 2011 but took a significant step backwards, batting a respective .227, .267, and .259 over his next three campaigns. With Morneau set to become eligible for free agency at the conclusion of the 2013 season and not considered an integral part of the Twins’ future plans, he was shipped to the Pittsburgh Pirates on August 31. Morneau provided a veteran presence for the playoff-bound Pirates who subsequently fell to the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLDS. During the offseason, the former MVP signed a two-year deal with the Rockies. The move to Colorado revitalized Morneau as the 33-year-old slugger regained his hitting stroke and followed in the footsteps of his former Twins teammate Michael Cuddyer by claiming the NL batting title with a .319 average. Coors Field generated a 120 park factor for 2014 with Rockies hitters collectively posting a .322 average at home while logging a paltry .229 clip on the road. However, Morneau produced a much less substantial split, batting .327 at Coors Field while maintaining a comparable .309 figure away from Denver. In fact, Morneau’s 18-point advantage at home was by far the smallest difference for any of the Rockies batting champions. Morneau’s bat stayed strong for 2015 with the slugger recording a .310 average in his second year with Colorado. Unfortunately, like Cuddyer, Morneau was unable to defend his batting crown as injures limited him to just 49 games. In Morneau’s case, a head injury once again sidelined him as he missed several months after suffering a concussion and whiplash while diving for a ball during a May 13 game versus the Los Angeles Angels. Morneau signed with the Chicago White Sox for 2016 but only managed to hit .261 and decided to call it a career at season’s end.
Finishing
directly behind Morneau on the 2014 NL rundown were a pair of players
he had briefly shared the Pirates clubhouse with during the prior year,
third baseman Josh Harrison and center fielder Andrew McCutchen. Though
primarily used at third base, Harrison fulfilled a utility role for the
Pirates, also seeing action at each corner outfield position as well as
second base and shortstop. Harrison pulled up just a few points shy of
Morneau, concluding 2014 with a .315 average. The campaign represented
Harrison’s first true chance as a full-time player in the big leagues
after batting .250 in parts of three seasons. Had Morneau not earned
top honors, the batting race would have been a tight one between the two
Pirates teammates as McCutchen checked in immediately behind Harrison
with a .314 average. The defending NL MVP, McCutchen’s phenomenal play
had been the key component in the franchise’s reemergence as a contender
after a string of 20 consecutive losing seasons from 1993 to 2012. McCutchen’s .314 average had been proceeded two years earlier by a
personal-best .327 mark which slotted him runner-up to Buster Posey in
the 2012 NL batting race and followed by a .317 figure during his
MVP-winning 2013 campaign that ranked seventh-highest in the senior
circuit. However, since 2014, neither Harrison nor McCutchen have hit
.300 or come anywhere close to challenging for another batting crown.
After back-to-back seasons in which seemingly-past-their-prime-
LeMahieu
claimed the batting title after holding off the challenge of fellow
keystoner Daniel Murphy of the Washington Nationals. A .288
career-hitter going into 2016, Murphy signed a free agent deal with the
Nationals, following seven seasons with the New York Mets. Murphy broke
out in a big way for Washington, getting off to an electric start and
standing atop the batting average leaderboard for much of the campaign. LeMahieu caught Murphy in late August and the pair traded the batting
lead back and forth until a glute strain sidelined the Nationals slugger
for much of the second half of September. With Washington headed to
the playoffs, the club rested Murphy, only having him make three
pinch-hitting appearances over the final 14 games of the regular season. LeMahieu passed Murphy for good on September 19 and with the Rockies
out of playoff contention, the team’s manager Walt Weiss chose to sit
LeMahieu for the final two regular season contests rather than risk
having him lose the batting crown. Thus, LeMahieu earned top NL honors,
finishing a single point ahead of Murphy’s .347 average. After an
uncharacteristically poor start to the 2016 campaign, Reds first basemen
Joey Votto righted the ship and recovered to a .326 mark that ranked
him third in the final order—his best result since slotting runner-up to
Carlos González in 2010. LeMahieu took advantage of hitting at Coors
Field and posted a 91-point higher batting average at home than on the
road. Normally a hitter’s haven, Nationals Park generated a neutral
park factor of 100 during 2016. Nevertheless, after seven seasons of
calling the pitcher-friendly confines of New York’s Shea Stadium and
Citi Field home, Murphy took a liking to his new abode, batting .361 at
Nationals Park. Similar to 2010, Votto hit better away from
Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, though this time around his
home/road split was not quite as pronounced.
Just behind Votto on the 2016 NL rundown was the Rockies’ next batting champion, center fielder Charlie Blackmon who slotted fourth with a .324 average. Originally signed by Colorado as a second round draft pick in 2008, Blackmon had hit a combined .289 over parts of a handful of major league campaigns before his breakout 2016 effort. The 30-year-old slugger carried the momentum into 2017, capturing the NL batting title with a .331 average—thus making him the fourth different Rockies player in five seasons to earn top honors for the senior circuit. In addition to pacing the loop in batting average, Blackmon also finished atop the leaderboard in hits, runs scored, triples, and total bases. For the first time since 2009, Colorado reached the postseason, albeit briefly as the club secured the second NL wild card but fell to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the Wild Card Game. MVP voters recognized Blackmon’s contributions to the Rockies’ season as he picked up three first-place tallies and classified fifth in the election, one spot behind his teammate, third baseman Nolan Arenado. En route to claiming the NL batting crown, Blackmon devoured opposing pitching at Coors Field where he batted .391 but looked much more human on the road where he hit a far-less illustrious .277. Blackmon’s .277 mark actually represented the lowest road figure posted by a Rockies hitter during a season in which the player won the batting title. Moreover, only Larry Walker—who dominated at Coors Field like no one else before or since—managed to win a batting crown for Colorado while registering a more severe home/road split than Blackmon’s.
Occupying the
bridesmaid position in the NL batting race for the second year in a row
was Nationals keystoner Daniel Murphy. While the prior campaign had
seen Murphy finish a single point behind DJ LeMahieu for the batting
crown, on this occasion, he checked up nine points in arrears of
Blackmon and narrowly-edged Los Angeles Dodgers third baseman Justin
Turner for second place. The battle for runner-up had been a
razor-close one as both Murphy and Turner ended the season with a .322
average, the difference coming down to the former’s .3221 mark leading
the latter’s .3217 figure. Thus, had it not been for the presence of
Colorado’s LeMahieu in 2016 and Blackmon in 2017, Murphy likely would
have paced the loop during each of those years and become a back-to-back
NL batting champion. In a reverse of the previous season, Murphy hit
much better on the road despite Nationals Park generating a park factor
of 107. Votto put together another strong campaign, slotting a close
fourth with a .320 average. LeMahieu followed up his batting
crown-winning 2016 by notching a solid .310 mark that ranked
eighth-best, one spot ahead of the .309 figure of his teammate Arenado. As it currently stands, the 2017 senior circuit rundown witnessed the
final time Murphy, Turner, or Votto challenged for top honors.
During
2017, the Denver-based franchise completed its 25th year of play. Over
that span, nine different Rockies hitters earned 11 NL batting titles
for the organization. Yet, after a period of such dominance in winning
the batting crown, the subsequent six seasons have not seen a single
Rockies hitter come close to claiming top honors for the franchise even
though Coors Field still produced lofty park factors between 110 and 119
which have ranked first or second-highest among NL stadiums each year. The 2018 campaign signaled a return to the postseason for Colorado with
the team securing the second NL wild card and defeating the Chicago
Cubs in the ensuing Wild Card Game before losing to the Milwaukee
Brewers in the NLDS. Despite the success on the field, the highest any
Rockies hitters could muster in the batting race was Nolan Arenado
finishing 10th with a .297 average while Brewers outfielder Christian
Yelich paced the senior loop with a .326 mark. In fact, for the first
time, one of Colorado’s pitchers ranked higher on the ERA leaderboard
than one of its hitters did in the batting race as left-hander Kyle
Freeland’s 2.85 ERA slotted fifth-best among NL hurlers. Prior to
Freeland, the only Rockies pitchers to crack the top-10 leaderboard in
ERA had been right-hander Marvin Freeman who crafted the senior
circuit’s third-lowest figure with a 2.80 mark during the
strike-shortened 1994 campaign and righty Ubaldo Jiménez who classified
eighth with a 2.88 ERA in 2010. At season’s end the club’s roster
weakened with the departure of DJ LeMahieu who signed with the New York
Yankees as a free agent. Yelich became a back-to-back NL batting
champion in 2019, cementing top honors with a .329 average for
Milwaukee. Colorado put a pair of sluggers on the leaderboard with
Arenado’s .315 mark good for fifth place and Blackmon’s .314 figure just
behind in sixth. During the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign,
Washington Nationals left fielder Juan Soto paced the NL with a .351
average while Rockies left fielder Raimel Tapia’s .321 mark slotted him
in eighth as the team’s sole representative on the rundown. Over in the
AL, LeMahieu posted a junior circuit-best .364 average for the Yankees
and in the process joined Ed Delahanty as just the second player to win
batting crowns in both the AL and NL. Colorado’s roster further
weakened during the offseason as the team shipped Arenado to the St.
Louis Cardinals in exchange for a handful of unproven prospects. Finally, after 28 seasons of placing at least one hitter among the NL
top 10 in batting average, the 2021 campaign witnessed the first
instance in which no Rockies hitters cracked the leaderboard as first
baseman C.J. Cron registered a team-leading .281 mark that only
classified 15th best in the loop. Although former batting champion
Blackmon remained on the roster, he no longer ranked among the leaders
as he hit .270 and subsequently produced respective .264 and .279
averages in 2022 and 2023. Infielder Trea Turner earned the 2021 NL
batting title, hitting a combined .328 during a season in which he began
the year with the Nationals and finished it with the Dodgers following a
late-July trade. Colorado’s pattern of futility in the batting race
repeated itself for 2022 as second baseman Brendan Rodgers paced the
team’s qualified hitters with a .266 figure that ranked nowhere near the
top-10 leaderboard while the club sank to the bottom of the NL West. Rodgers’ pedestrian .266 average checked in 60 points behind the
league-leading mark of New York Mets second baseman/outfielder Jeff
McNeil. The 2023 campaign saw more of the same with Colorado finishing
in the NL West cellar for the second year in a row and the eighth time
in the franchise’s existence. Catcher Elias Díaz’s middling .267
figure represented the highest average among qualified Rockies hitters
and slotted well off the top-10 leaderboard which was headed by Miami
Marlins second baseman Luis Arraez who paced the circuit with a .354
mark and joined Delahanty and LeMahieu as the third player to claim
batting titles in both the AL and NL and the first to accomplish the
feat in successive campaigns. However, Colorado’s rookie outfielder
Nolan Jones provided a glimmer of hope for the future as he batted .297
across 424 plate appearances.
Even taking into
account the recent downturn by Rockies hitters, with nine different
players winning 11 NL batting crowns over the franchise’s 31-year
existence, the team has been able to produce batting champions at an
unmatched pace. While it has been six seasons since one of Colorado’s
hitters has captured the batting title, the team’s short history tells
us it is only a matter of time before a budding young player such as
Nolan Jones ascends to the top of the leaderboard like Todd Helton,
Carlos González, and DJ LeMahieu have or a veteran surprisingly steps to
the forefront the way Andrés Galarraga, Michael Cuddyer, and Justin
Morneau did. From Moises Alou to Daniel Murphy to Joey Votto, the
presence of this mile-high based franchise has denied some excellent
hitters the chance to add “batting champion” to their list of
accomplishments.
----by John Tuberty
Follow me on Twitter/X @BloggerTubbs
Stats
links to main players mentioned: Larry Walker, Todd Helton, Joey Votto,
Charlie Blackmon, Nolan Arenado, Tony Gwynn, Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, DJ LeMahieu, Trea Turner, Freddie Freeman, Luis Arraez, Nolan Jones, Justin Turner, Juan Soto, Christian Yelich, Andrew McCutchen,
Jeff McNeil, Andrés Galarraga, Gregg Jefferies, John Olerud, Mike Piazza, Luis Gonzalez, Bobby Abreu, Vladimir Guerrero, Moises Alou, Matt Holliday, Chipper Jones, Chase Utley, Carlos González, Omar Infante,
Michael Cuddyer, Chris Johnson, Justin Morneau, Daniel Murphy, Josh Harrison
Sources:
All statistics are drawn from Baseball Reference and Stathead
Cards:
Andrés Galarraga 1994 Bowman, Tony Gwynn 1994 Score, Gregg Jefferies
1993 Bowman, Larry Walker 1998 Pinnacle Plus, John Olerud 1998 Donruss
Signature Series, Dante Bichette 1998 Fleer Sports Illustrated, Mike
Piazza 1999 Pacific Aurora-Pennant Fever, Larry Walker 1998 Score Rookie
& Traded, Luis Gonzalez 2002 SP, Bobby Abreu 2000 Upper Deck MVP,
Todd Helton 2001 Fleer Game Time, Moises Alou 2001 Upper Deck, Vladimir
Guerrero 2001 Upper Deck Pros & Prospects, Larry Walker 2001 Topps,
Todd Helton 2001 Topps Home Team Advantage, Moises Alou 2001 Donruss
Signature Series, Lance Berkman 2002 Fleer Genuine, Matt Holliday 2009
Upper Deck, Chipper Jones 2008 Upper Deck First Edition, Chase Utley
2008 SP Authentic, Carlos González 2011 Topps, Joey Votto 2011 Topps,
Omar Infante 2009 Upper Deck, Michael Cuddyer 2013 Topps Update Series,
Chris Johnson 2013 Topps Update Series, Freddie Freeman 2013 Topps,
Justin Morneau 2016 Topps Archives, Josh Harrison 2015 Topps, Andrew
McCutchen 2016 Topps, DJ LeMahieu 2016 Topps Bunt, Daniel Murphy 2018
Topps, Joey Votto 2017 Topps Salute Spring Training, Charlie Blackmon
2018 Topps, Daniel Murphy 2016 Topps, Justin Turner 2017 Topps Bunt
Other Articles by Tubbs Baseball Blog:
Rod Carew’s Seven Batting Titles and the Players He Denied the Honor by Annually Capturing the Crown
Great post John! Truly appreciate the research you put into it. Never really paid any attention to the fact that Gwynn came in second to Colorado's Gallaraga in 1993. Would have been cool had he had won one more to separate him and Wagner, but it is what it is.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words, Fuji! I guess being able to hold off the likes of Rockies hitters such as Larry Walker, Ellis Burks, and Dante Bichette to claim his final four batting titles from 1994 to 1997 just shows how excellent of a hitter Gwynn was.
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