Mendoza Line
The Mendoza Line is an unofficial term from baseball used to describe a threshold for a player's offensive strength. The statistical value on which this threshold is defined is the batting average .
origin
The term goes back to the Mexican baseball player Mario Mendoza . Mendoza played in the MLB from 1974 to 1982 , first for the Pittsburgh Pirates , then for the Seattle Mariners and finally for the Texas Rangers . He was very strong on the defensive, but his batting average over nine seasons in the MLB was mostly around .200, which means that he only scored a hit in one of five of his at-bats . A very strong offensive player gets a hit in one of three at-bats. The absolute value for the Mendoza line is not fixed, it is usually seen with a batting average of around .200. The term is said to go back to George Brett , who looked in the statistics of the match reports to see whether another player had beaten weaker than Mendoza. Another version of the story sees Mendoza's teammates with the Seattle Mariners , Tom Paciorek and Bruce Bochte , as the first to coined the term. They are said to have made fun of Mendoza's below-average hitting performance and teasing George Brett - who had a bad start to the season - at the beginning of the 1980 season that if he keeps hitting so badly, he would fall behind the Mendoza Line (the slash line is the current one Offensive statistics from AVG / OBP / SLG of a basball player).
meaning
The meaning of the term for a baseball team lies in weighing up to which lower value in the strike strength a defensively strong player is still valuable enough for a team to use him in the starting nine , the starting line-up of a team. Since every field player apart from the pitcher also has to be used on the offensive, one accepts a probable end with a weak player. However, if the defensive of this player is to be assessed in such a way that he can prevent more baserunners and thus more points from the opponent than he can achieve offensively, then his use in the starting line-up can make sense. Strong defensive players are often used as game players towards the end of a game, especially when their own team is in the lead.
Further use of the term
In the American- speaking world, the term found its way into areas outside of baseball. In the film business, for example, the term Mendoza Line is used for a film whose grossing in a cinema for a weekend is lower than the cost of copying and sending it, so in the end it would be cheaper not to show this film there at all. The term is also used in other sports to denote a situation in which it is questionable whether the commitment of an athlete contributes to the overall success - athletically or economically.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mario Mendoza Player Page ( English ) Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved March 18, 2010.
- ↑ Mario Mendoza at Baseball Library.com ( English ) The Idea Logical Company, Inc .. Archived from the original on December 24, 2010. Information: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 18, 2010.
- ↑ Wagoner, Glen Sklar, Robert & Eisenberg. Lee: Rotisserie League Baseball , Bantam 2nd Ed. Edition, Bantam Books, Toronto; New York :, ISBN 9780553343939 (Retrieved March 18, 2010).
- ↑ Slash Line ( English ) MLB Advanced Media, LP .. Retrieved May 22, 2018.
- ↑ How did Mario Mendoza become a shorthand for batting futility? ( English ) MLB Advanced Media, LP .. Retrieved May 22, 2018.
- ^ The Numbers - Even Horror Films Can't Survive the October of Terrors ( English ) Nash Information Services, LLC. Retrieved March 18, 2010.
- ^ The Mendoza Line ( English ) Personal Money Store. 2009. Retrieved March 18, 2010.
