I came across an interesting article by Dayn Perry on FoxSports.com a few days ago and couldn’t decide if I agreed that he was onto something or if he needed a good lashing. Really, Dayn makes a decent point about the Triple Crown in baseball:

As you know, a hitter wins the Triple Crown when he leads his league in batting average, home runs and RBIs. But there are serious problems with two of these measures. To wit, batting average makes no account for power or reaching base by means other than a hit, and RBI as a stat is so context-dependent that it’s all but useless. Fortunately, there is a better way.

What you need in a Triple Crown are three measures that demonstrate a player’s efficiency at the plate, his power and his prowess in terms of getting on base. You also need some built-in indication of playing time. In light of those standards, a new and improved Triple Crown — using only traditional measures of offensive performance — might include OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage), total bases and times on base.

You know, I like the idea of questioning authority, but if you did decide to change the stats you really can’t call it the Triple Crown anymore. Why? Because the Triple Crown is what legends are made of. The last winner was Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, and if you changed the requirements for the triple crown you can bet your ass that there will be hell to pay.

The notional point of the Triple Crown is to identify those hitters who best all others at the most vital phases of the offensive game. It doesn’t do that, and, as such, is in need of some serious repair.

I don’t know, but even if that was the original point of the Triple Crown, we are talking about something deeply rooted into baseball lore and I really don’t see baseball as a sport wiling to change its celebrated stats and history to be “correct”. Honestly, I love to see people thinking outside the box and it’s a decent thought… but considering that the average geek plays roto with R, H, HR, RBI, SB, and AVG I think that the idea of OPS and total bases might be a bit too much to ask.