Los Angeles All-Star Catcher Will Smith currently leads the National League on batting average (and on-base percentage), but may not win an NL batting title.
Smith will be the first catcher and fifth catcher to date to secure this honor, but the end of the season award will require a certain number of plate appearances to qualify. Because of Smith and most catchers in general, he risks falling into the requirements as he doesn’t play every day.
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The official MLB rulebook states that “at least 3.1 plate appearances must be recorded per scheduled league game in order to qualify for individual category leadership with batting average, base percentage, or slugging rate.”
Now, the are prioritizing Smith’s rest this season. This is because he historically increased production as the season progressed. Throughout his seven-year career, Smith hits .279 in the first half with an OPS of .869.
Later in the season, Smith reached .244 with .777 OPS in his career.
Even this season, Smith hit .323/.425/.540, which occurred on OPS’s .966. With the first appearance of 74 plates since the Mid Summer Crassic, Smith is still producing, but the .270 bats at the .839 opening.
Speaking of plate appearance, that’s the core of why Smith risks not winning the title. The appearance of 3.1 plates per game is on average a total of 502 plates, with Smith at a pace that ends around that number
However, fans and catcher Enza Ast are lucky. Because manager Dave Roberts recently spoke about qualifying for a backstop batting title.
“He’s trying to qualify. No matter what, I’ll check it out,” Roberts said. “I’m going to make sure he gets enough at-bats.”
With his commitment to line up Smith for the title, all that remains is to continue collecting hits and do what is necessary to do to run on the board.
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Photo credit: Kirby Lee-Immagn Image
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