Two economists at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, while investigating how round numbers influence goals, examined the behavior of major league hitters from 1975 to 2008 who entered what became their final plate appearance of the season with a batting average of .299 or .300 (in at least 200 at-bats).
They found that the 127 hitters at .299 or .300 batted a whopping .463 in that final at-bat, demonstrating a motivation to succeed well beyond normal (and in what was usually an otherwise meaningless game).
Most deliciously, not one of the 61 hitters who entered at .299 drew a walk — which would have fired those ugly 9s into permanence because batting average considers bases on balls neither hit nor at-bat.
OK. I have little doubt that guys who enter their final at-bats of the season hitting .299 take aggressive approaches at the plate. That part of this study passes the smell test for sure.
Beyond that, though, it seems like there’s some small-sample size issues and extrapolation here. I should probably defer to the Wharton School economists, mind you, but why would only hitters with at least 200 at-bats on the season be motivated by round numbers? Wouldn’t a rookie with 120 plate appearances want badly to reach .300 too? What happens if they change the at-bats minimum to 100? What if they use players hitting .199, too?
And consider the competition: Shouldn’t it be at least slightly easier for Major League hitters with at least a half season of hitting around .300 — good hitters, in other words — to succeed in their final at-bats of the season, likely often against September call-ups?
It seems like the conclusions here are a bit far-reaching for 127 at-bats, given baseball’s inherent caprices. Remember that Jeff Francoeur started out the season 16-for-35. A lot of strange and random things can happen when you’re swinging aggressively and putting the ball in play.
Tedquarters 
Ask and ye shall receive. I only have retrosheet data from ’03 to ’09 (it’s a pain to download and set up, so I don’t have the years that don’t have batted ball data), so the sample is pretty limited. But here’s what we get:
Previous AB AB Avg
0 – 99 13 0.077
100 – 199 3 0.333
200 – 299 4 0.000
300 – 399 3 0.667
400 – 499 12 0.583
500 – 599 10 0.400
600 – 699 7 0.286
Previous AB is how many AB the player had on the season, AB is the number of times someone in that group made their final plate appearance with either a .299 or .300 Avg, and Avg is that group’s average in their final at-bats.
The guy who really gets screwed is Prince Fielder, who in ’09 entered the last day batting .297, and went 3 for 5 with two homers to pull his average up to .299, only to be intentionally walked in his final plate appearance by that d*** of an a****** Tony LaRussa (well, really Todd Wellemeyer, but LaRussa’s still an asshole). Apparently it was really important for the Cards to try to win their division by 8.5 games instead of 7.5.
My comment is awaiting moderation? Should I scrap the profanity and try again?
Profanity scrapped, comment approved.
Nice, thanks. My apologies. I write like a sailor.