Originally putforward here by poster LouGehrig, the theory seems impressive. Fifty-six game hitting streak. No one has been close really for years, and yet is this really all that significant?

Grandstander says no, but not quite that simply;

In baseball, what counts is how many per opportunity over the course of a year. How these happen to get arranged within any particular number of games is utterly unimportant. If you divide the season into three 54 game segments and Player A gets 220 hits while player B gets 200 hits, but player B happened to have gotten at least one hit in each game of one of those 54 game segments, that in no manner boosts his value past player A.

For 1941, Dimaggio hit .357 in 541 at bats. During the streak he was 91 for 223, .408. That means that in the other games, he was 102 for 315, .321.

What it all actually means is that he hit .357 in 1941. That is exactly as valuable as any other player who has hit .357 with the same secondary stats. That a large portion of his total contribution was concentrated in a 56 game segment….means zip.

DiMaggio hit .408 during a 56 game stretch. That same year, Ted Williams hit .406 for the whole season. Unable to grasp that the streak meant nothing in terms of boosting the Yankees fortunes, the writers voted DiMaggio the MVP. A ridiculous award for a fluke accomplishment.

This leads me to what I think the actual remaining record is that would impress both the saber and scouting communities, Nap Lajoie’s .4265 single season modern era batting average mark. Since World War Two, new Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn was closest back in the strike damaged season of 1994 when he hit .3938. That record being broken wouldn’t be a fluke, but a full season of success, not 56 games of hits, but 162.

Take your opinion on the greatest remaining record to the thread