Last night on the ESPN telecast Joe Morgan and Jon Miller were debating whether it is more difficult to win the Triple Crown or to hit .400. Miller said it was more difficult to hit .400, because fewer players had done it in the modern era. A valid point.
Morgan said it was more difficult to win the Triple Crown. His reasoning was that to hit .400, everything is in the hands of the player. But for a Triple Crown, the RBI title is somewhat controlled by other players...whether they get on base in front of you.
Morgan is right about RBI being a dependent stat, but that alone cannot make .400 easier to obtain. A player may completely control hitting .400 (arguendo), but it is still a very very difficult thing to do. It is not nearly as hard to win a batting title, home run title or rbi title. What makes the Triple Crown difficult is doing it all in one year. As Morgan said, that depends on a lot of other things, including what stats the other players in the league put up. But the fact is: those other things are more likely to come together at the same time than achieving .400 is.
If you are a #3 or #4 hitter of high quality, you legitimately have a shot at the Triple Crown each year. RBI and HR go together somewhat. Leading the league in both is not particularly troublesome. Winning the batting title is an achievement, but someone does it every year. The trouble in achieving the Triple Crown is that high average hitters often do not hit with power, and vice versa. However, there is always a crop of 5-10 players who can do both. Can you say that about hitting .400?
A better argument for saying .400 is easier to achieve is the tendency today to intentionally walk hot hitters. A player who gets off to a hot start and is hitting .406 will have an easier time maintaining the .400 average if teams start walking him to avoid damage. Walks don't hurt your batting average.
Compare the Triple Crown, which has two categories of counting stats. Walks hurt. Every time a player like Derek Lee is walked, he preserves that high batting average but potentially loses ground in the home run and rbi race.
