J.D. Martinez not only has a shot at the AL Triple Crown this season, he could win the MLB Triple Crown as well:
The Red Sox slugger entered September in the top two in the Major Leagues in batting average, home runs and RBIs, putting him in position to challenge for a “true” Triple Crown, which would encompass all of MLB. The last player to lead the Majors in all three categories in the same season was Mickey Mantle, who batted .353 with 52 homers and 130 RBIs for the Yankees in 1956.
In fact, Martinez could become only the sixth player since the American League began play in 1901 to snag an MLB Triple Crown. It’s a short list of baseball legends, featuring Hall of Famers Mantle, Ted Williams (1942), Lou Gehrig (’34), Rogers Hornsby (’25), and Ty Cobb (’09).
The way the races are setting up, if Martinez wins the AL Triple Crown, he’ll win the MLB one as well.
I revived some spread sheets and simulations from Miguel Cabrera‘s runs at the TC to calculate the probability of Martinez winning the title. It’s the probability of winning the batting title time the probability of winning the home run title times the probability of winning the RBI title.
For the batting title, he is competing with his teammate Mookie Betts, and while they are listed with the same .335 BA, Betts is a little better if more decimal places are used. Martinez has a .48 probability of winning the batting title. Note that they will take out a BA as far as they can to determine the winner. They do not round to a tie.
For the home run title, Martinez takes on Khris Davis of Oakland, and Davis leads Martinez 40 HR to 39 HR. Davis owns a better home run rate for his career (HR/PA), and the probability of Martinez at least tying him is 0.33.
Martinez and Davis are also competing for the RBI title, but Martinez has a nine RBI lead. The probability of him at least tying for the title is .94 (I use a simulation for this one).
So 0.48*0.33*0.94 = 0.149. Martinez has about a 15% chance of winning the triple crown. That’s not bad.
You can view the spreadsheet with HR and BA probabilities here.
I don’t think that’s right, David. Simply multiplying the three probabilities to find the probability of their conjunction only works if the three events are independent! But surely, *obviously*, Martinez’ getting a lot of homers is not independent on his getting a lot of RBI.
James » Yes, which is why this is an approximation. Also, I’m not calculating the probability of Martinez hitting a lot of home runs, I’m calculating the probability of Martinez at least tying Davis for the home run title. He could do that with one more home run, and still win the RBI title easily.
I suppose a better way to do his would be to take the RBI simulation, and add home runs and batting average to it, then figure out how often he wins all three categories against Betts and Davis.
Or, I could set up a prediction market and see what people think? So if I told you I’d pay you $8.33 on a one dollar bet to win, or $8.33 on a $7.33 bet to lose, which would you take? If more people take the win bet, then the probability is too low. I’m guessing .12 is about right.