On August 4th, 1993, Tony Gwynn had six hits against the Giants. It was the Padres outfielder’s fourth game of 1993 with five or more hits. He became only the third person to get five hits or better that many times in a season.

Tony Gwynn won 8 batting titles and finished his 20-year career with a .338 career batting average. He led the league in hits 7 times and was a perennial All-Star.

One of the things that mark me as a Boomer baseball fan I think is that I still esteem batting average as one of the best measurements of a good hitter. Baseball front offices, and the younger fans on the podcasts I listen to and the blogs I read tend to ignore or downplay batting average when looking at players contributions and performance. They prefer more “Advanced Metrics.”

In 2022 and 2023, one of my favorite players, Luis Arraez, won back-to-back batting titles. In 2022 with the Minnesota Twins, Arraez won the American League title hitting .316. The Twins then traded Arraez to the Miami Marlins where he hit .354, to win the National League batting title.

His reward for another season of excellence? He was traded yet again. This time to the San Diego Padres, Tony Gwynn’s old team. Undaunted by three trades in three seasons, Arraez is currently among the league leaders again in batting average.

I associate Arraez now with Gwynn not only because of the Padres, but also because they both can do something better than almost all of their contemporaries- make contact with a major league pitch.

For some reason, when Tony Gwynn played (1982-2001) that skill was greatly appreciated. Gwynn spent his whole 20-year career with just one team, the Padres. Today, Arraez, the modern-day Gwynn, has already been traded twice.

It brings up two questions, when and how did hitting for average become a liability?