Fewest XBH by a Batting Title Qualifier, 1988-2007

I am amused by records of futility throughout baseball history. If you've read some of the older posts you've likely figured that out by now. Even the last couple posts have been about futility in a way: either individual lack of overall power or team lack of health/scoring/what have you. Today I want to continue that with another post about guys with very little power.

For those unfamiliar with the abbreviation XBH used in the title, it stands for Extra Base Hits (2B, 3B, & HR). Instead of finding players with low slugging percentages and marveling at their slap-hitting ways, I thought using a counting stat like XBH might cause other players to jump out. I don't know if that happened since the list is still a bunch of shortstops and Otis Nixon, but I think it's neat anyway.

I only looked at the past twenty seasons and set the minimum plate appearances to the batting title qualifier of 502 (hence the title). This cuts out all of 1994 and many players in 1995, but with a counting stat like XBH it's not really fair to penalize players for not having the same opportunity to raise their numbers. Really I guess you could say I'm only looking at the past eighteen-plus seasons, but that's all the fans got, right? :)

Fewest XBH by a Batting Title Qualifier, 1988-2007

1. Felix Fermin, 1989, 562 PA, 10 XBH
2. Jose Lind, 1992, 506, 15
3. Alfredo Griffin, 1990, 502, 15
4. Eric Yelding, 1990, 559, 15
5. Gary Pettis, 1989, 536, 15
6. Otis Nixon, 1993, 532, 16
7. Mike Caruso, 1999, 564, 17
8. Otis Nixon, 1996, 575, 17
9. Rey Ordonez, 1996, 530, 17
10. Darren Lewis, 1995, 527, 17
11. Walt Weiss, 1993, 591, 17
12. Willie Randolph, 1991, 512, 17
13. Rafael Santana, 1988, 521, 17
14. Brad Ausmus, 2003, 509, 18
15. Tom Goodwin, 1998, 608, 18
16. Omar Vizquel, 1993, 630, 18
17. Otis Nixon, 1992, 502, 18
18. Jose Oquendo, 1988, 518, 18
19. Brad Ausmus, 2006, 502, 19
20. Tom Goodwin, 1996, 587, 19
21. Carney Lansford, 1990, 564, 19

These twenty-one players are the only ones to finish a full season with fewer than twenty extra base hits while qualifying for the batting title in the past twenty years. I guess it works out to an average of about one per year but only one player has joined (twice) since 2000 so it's getting rarer.

Another player almost joined this list in 2007, but Reggie Willits knocked out 21 extra base hits in 518 PA. Futile offensive player Nick Punto managed to rap out 23 XBH with a slugging percentage of only .271, which is just sad. Jason Kendall, Luis Castillo, Omar Vizquel, and Mark Loretta were the only other qualifying players with fewer than thirty.