After the first 2 weeks of the major league baseball season, newspapers begin to print the top 10 batting averages. Typically, after 2 weeks, the leading batter has an average of about .450. Yet no batter in major league history has ever averaged .450 at the end of a season. Why do you think this is?
a. A player’s high average at the beginning of the season may be just a lucky fluke.
b. A batter who has such a hot streak at the beginning of the season is under a lot of stress to maintain his performance record. Such stress adversely affects his playing.
c. Pitchers tend to get better over the course of the season as they get more in shape. As pitchers improve, they are more likely to strike out batters, so batters’ averages go down.
d. When a batter is known to be hitting for a high average, pitchers bear down more when they pitch to him.
e. When a batter is known to be hitting for a high average, he stops getting good pitches to hit. Instead, pitchers “play the corners” of the plate because they don’t mind walking him.