Billy’s Streak – Does It Matter?

In the first series of 2009, Billy Butler went 0-11 against the White Sox.

In the next series, he got one hit in six at bats against the Yankees.  And since, he’s gotten a hit in every single series that the Royals have completed (he was 0-4 in last night’s series opener against the White Sox).

The Royals have made a big deal out if this, as he’s tied the team record for hits in consecutive series.  I’m not so sure it’s really an accomplishment.  What I mean by that is, that yes, Butler getting hits consistently is a good thing.  That he doesn’t go more than four days without a hit is a positive thing, but does it really say much about him as a hitter, or is it just a fun stat to cook up and talk about?

Well, they cooked it up, so now I’ll talk about it.

First, let’s look at some game logs for the past two seasons:

One reason why I’m skeptical of proclaiming anything from some kind of streak like this is that “getting a hit in a series” can mean getting one hit or seven hits, so it’s not very precise in what it says.  Joe DiMaggio got a base hit in 56 straight games in 1941, and that record is unlikely to ever fall.  But let’s say a genie offered you a chance to play a full season of 162 games and that you’d get one base hit in every single one.  Would that make you a great hitter?  Consistent, yes, but if it’s only one hit a game, in four at bats per game, you’re only hitting .250 on the year (and who knows if you ever take a walk).  Baseball historians would say your streak was great…BUT.  For the record, DiMaggio hit .357 in 1941, so he was assuredly getting more than a hit a game in his streak.

In Butler’s case, if he got only one hit in a series over two years, that’d be around 100 hits.  Total.  The streak would still exist, but it wouldn’t mean he was all that good, just that he got a hit in every series.

So here’s my crude way of looking at this series streak.  Butler has 1250 plate appearances over the life of the streak.  And let’s include the 0-fer at Chicago last year for 97 total series.  That works out to 12.89 plate appearances per series.  He has 341 hits in the last two years, or 3.5 per series.

That set my paramaters of an average series for Billy Butler at 13 plate appearances and 3.5 base hits.  Considering that some series are only two games and some are four games (and that Butler won’t play in every game), it’s not perfect, but I think it’s enough to set those as benchmarks.  If Billy gets less than 3.5 hits in a series (which works out conveniently for an over/under), I’ll call it a weak series.  If he has more than 3.5 hits, I’ll call that a strong series.  For this streak the Royals keep mentioning to matter, I think Billy should have more strong series than weak.

Over the course of the last two seasons, Butler has gotten 13 plate appearances or more in 63 series.  He’s gotten four or more hits in 38 of those.  So 60% of the time, he has what I would arbitrarily call a “strong series”.  If you give him some leeway for not being able to get half of a hit and lower that standard to three hits in a series, he’s done that in 70 of 97 series overall.

And in 2010, he got at least three hits in every series, regardless of how often he came to the plate, in 16 of the first 17 series.

How about the frequency in which Butler has gotten a lone cheap hit in a series to keep the streak going?  He’s done that 12 times, though only four have happened this year.  And only three of those series have seen him go to the plate 13 times or more.

In other words, okay, it does show something.  Butler hits a lot and is consistent at doing so.  Considering he’s sitting on a .305 batting average combining the last two years, I’d say that’s pretty good.

It’s not a perfect measurement, of course, considering that any seeing eye single counts and again, someone could go 1-10 over the course of a million series and still only bat .100.  And since there are two and four game series among the typical three game tilts, the separation of a “series” is shaky and also arbitrary like the streak itself.

It seems Butler had that covered, as while he’s had seven instances where he’s gone two consecutive games without a hit, over the last two years, he’s never gone three without a hit (with the exception of the first series of 2009).

If nothing else is significant about the streak, that part, at least, should be.

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