MLB History: Can Anyone Ever Break Joe DiMaggio’s Record?
Can Joe DiMaggio‘s hit record be broken in today’s game, or has pitcher usage, travel, and scheduling made it impossible for anyone to seriously threaten one of the more hallowed records in the history of the MLB?
Everyone knows of Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio’s famous 56-game consecutive game hitting streak. It seems every season we watch as another player hits 25-, 30-, 35-, or even more games in a row with all sorts of headlines, realizing that they’re still a month away from the record at that point!
Recently, Jackie Bradley, Jr.’s 29-game hit streak brought to light some interesting statistics about DiMaggio’s streak that could shed some light on the feasibility of anyone breaking the record in the modern game. Now with JBJ’s teammate Xander Bogaerts extending his hitting streak to 20 games on Friday night, we’ll add in a look at his streak and compare the three streaks to examine whether a modern hitter really has a shot at 56.
DiMaggio’s streak (56 games: May 15th-July 17th, 1941)
Stats During Streak: .408/.463/.717, 91 H, 35 XBH, 21/5 BB/K, .374 BABIP
Teams Faced: 7
Pitchers Faced: 55
Home Games: 29
Away Games: 27
Travel Miles Between Back-to-Back Games: 784 (St. Louis to Chicago, Cleveland to Detroit, Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., Chicago to Cleveland)
Days Off Between Games: 14
Days Off Of Rest: 0
Plate Appearances Per Game: 4.41
Bradley’s Streak (29 games: April 24th – May 25th)
Stats During Streak: .415/.488/.783, 44 H, 20 XBH, 14/20 BB/K, .462 BABIP
Teams Faced: 8
Pitchers Faced: 65
Home Games: 17
Away Games: 12
Travel Miles Between Back-to-Back Games: 2,541 (Houston to Atlanta, Atlanta to Boston, Chicago to New York, New York to Boston)
Days Off Between Games: 4
Days Off Of Rest: 0
Plate Appearances Per Game: 4.17
Bogaert’s Streak (20 games: May 6th – present)
Stats During Streak: .391/.419/.598, 34 H, 10 XBH, 6/17 BB/K, .460 BABIP
Teams Faced: 7
Pitchers Faced: 50
Home Games: 13
Away Games: 7
Travel Miles Between Back-to-Back Games: 740 (NYC to Boston, Cleveland to Boston)
Days Off Between Games: 3
Days Off Of Rest: 0
Plate Appearances Per Game: 4.65
Analysis
Interestingly, the start of Xander’s streak thus far really resembles Joe’s streak in a lot of ways outside of the fact that in only 20 games, he’s faced nearly as many pitchers as DiMaggio did in his ENTIRE streak.
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One of the most remarkable numbers in the DiMaggio streak is that strikeout to walk ratio – 21 walks to 5 strikeouts. Five whole strikeouts in 56 games! Bradley had 4 times that amount in half the games and Bogaerts has 17 in his 20 games. That’s a big sign in the shift of the game.
The major things you see are in Bradley’s streak. The reasons that it will be near impossible for a modern player to approach Joltin’ Joe’s record are multi-faceted.
First, the pitcher usage in today’s game means that a batter will face many more arms over the course of a streak. As you see in both Bradley’s streak and Xander’s streak, the ratio is almost 2-1 of pitchers to games now, whereas in DiMaggio’s streak, it was 1-1. Heavier bullpen usage and the advent of 5-man rotations has meant that a batter faces a lot more different arms and different looks.
Second, the travel required in the modern game. In DiMaggio’s day, St. Louis was as far west as any team was, and because most teams traveled by bus, there were travel days built in for basically any travel over a half-day’s drive. While modern travel is much better, Major League Baseball does not have nearly the travel days built in for teams. Oddly enough, two of the days off in Bradley’s streak were in the midst of home stands!
Last, the difference in the type of pitchers. I did some research into the pitchers DiMaggio faced, and while he did face Hall of Fame pitchers during his streak, I don’t think anyone would argue that he was facing near the velocity of today’s pitchers. He very possibly saw more “junk”, but he had an opportunity to square up a lot more of what would be considered sub-par fastballs today.
During Bradley’s streak, he faced all three of the top average velocity relievers in the major leagues in 2016 twice (outside of Aroldis Chapman, who was just activated after the last matchup between the teams during Bradley’s streak) in Arodys Vizcaino, Kelvin Herrera, and Dellin Betances. The lowest AVERAGE fastball of those three is Herrera’s 97.4 MPH.
Facing that level of not just velocity, but fresh velocity with a fresh breaking ball all game long reduces the chances of getting that needed hit late in the game as well.
Conclusion
From just a look at these two recent streaks, it’s pretty easy to see that while hitting streaks are fun to track for media purposes, the modern game has changed so much that even bringing any thought of challenging Joe DiMaggio is a pretty drastic overplay.