I don’t mean to suggest he’s in a decline phase. Just that the hyper-peak may be over soon, and that it would not surprise me at all if sometime in the next year or two he settles into a grove of hitting slightly fewer homers with a slightly lower batting average than he has riped off these past few seasons, and that’s not conducive to winning a triple crown.

For example, he hit .357 last year. It wouldn’t shock me at all if he never hit that again and instead settled into a .310-.330 range until he really does go into decline. That’s still MVP territory, but in most years it’s not batting title territory.

Also, as Sara has noted, the guy is getting IBB’d at near-Bonds levels recently. That could very well raise the batting average, but it could also lower the RBI and home run chances.

Thanks.

Re Yaz’s 3 crown.  As I recall, it was not initially considered as such because he had not won all 3 titles outright, but rather had been tied in HRs, same as Joe Medwick, who up til then had not been considered a triple crown winner.  The public outcry was such (he WAS very popular) that the “rules” changed, to his benefit (and Medwick’s) thereafter.  It was a long time ago, and I was stationed in Germany where it was hard to follow BB, but I think that’s what happened…