E-Mail Bag: Gotay And The Batting Title

With Gotay smoking the since his call up, what is the qualifications for the batting title because if Gotay were to qualify for it and win it, Willie would have to give him the 2nd base job. If you could give me that information it would be great.

Thanks,
Neil

Neil via E-mail

About the only qualification a player needs to meet to be in the hunt for the batting title is that he needs 3.10 plate appearances per game the team plays. This means that sac flies, sac bunts, hit by pitchers and walks also count.

So the Mets have played 99 games and Gotay has had 118 plate appearances this season. That comes out to 1.19 plate appearances per game, so it’s going to take a little more time for him to qualify for the batting title, but if he keeps starting for the Mets I don’t see why he can’t reach that plateau. The only thing he would have to do is maintain and he has shown no signs of letting up so far.