Forget about .300

Dejan's article in the PG today talks about how the current Pittsburgh Pirates don't have any .300 hitters among the regulars (Ryan Doumit doesn't count, I don't think, because he doesn't have the at-bats ... not that he's hitting .300 right now anyways). I'm not exactly a fan of using batting average as the most important stat to gauge offense, so let's look at some other fun numbers.

The highest OPS among regulars is Xavier Nady's .813. Doumit is at .834 but may not qualify (he will need about 502 PAs, he's got 213 at the present). The highest on-base percentage among regulars? Jose Bautista's .338. That's pitiful. Forget the not having a .300 average thing, that's a much bigger indictment of our offense. The highest slugging percentage by a good margin is Xavier Nady's .479. Remember, Nady is the guy that the team wants you to believe is the breakout power hitting star of 2007, and he's not even slugging .500 (though he is the only regular player that's close to .500, LaRoche is next at .439).

So, as the team stands right now, it's possible that no player will even approach an OBP of .350, let alone .400 for the 2007 season. Nady is probably the only guy with a chance of slugging .500 and he, Bay, and LaRoche are the only guys on the might OPS .800 on the season (I'm including Bay on the assumption that he'll find his form somewhere this second half, that might be a big assumption). You can throw Ryan Doumit into these categories, but he probably won't qualify for any of the rate stats, so including him is dubious at best.

The thing is, .350, .500, and .800 are mostly used to identify good hitters, not great ones. What I'm trying to say is, our offense really, really sucks.