Open Mic: Hey Chipper, Can You Hit .400?

Which record or accomplishment am I most eager to see broken?

Personally, I'd love to see someone break Joe DiMaggio's 56 game hitting streak. But on that note, I also consider it to be one of the most unbreakable records in all of sports.

So, being the corner cutter I am, I’m picking something that is already in progress. I’d like to see Chipper Jones hit .400 for the season.

Jones' seasonal average stands at .419 with about two-and-half months of play completed. The last person to hit .400 or above in a single season was Ted Williams back in 1941. The .400 hitter drought has grown 67 years long now.

So, just how possible is it for Jones to reach this improbable accomplishment?

For starters, if his career numbers are any indication, Chipper Jones is just starting to heat up.

Some of Jones' best career months in terms of average are all months that haven't occurred yet. His best month for career average is July in which he carries a .328 average. He follows that up with a .313 average in August and a .312 in September.

The only other month in which he has a higher average is April with .324. Plus, his second half average is 12 points higher than his first half average for his career.

As far as his remaining schedule, he faces teams he hits well against. He has 40 games left against teams he has at least a .320 career average against. He has 43 left against the rest of the national league.

One of those teams is Florida, a team he carries a .315 average against. The Braves still have nine games left against them.

The team he has the best average against is Philadelphia with .340. Luckily, that is the team the Braves have the most remaining games against with 12. However, he is only hitting .308 at Citizen's Bank Park compared to .350 in the old Veteran's Stadium.

Those numbers don't include the restart of interleague play. He has 12 games in interleague play left, and his career average tops out at .298.

The numbers to Ted Williams' .400 average year are unavailable for even the geniuses at Baseball-Reference. So, comparing how Ted started to Chipper's start is rather hard.

If there really is anyone who can pull this feat off, it's Chipper Jones. Yet there are some factors working against him.

Pitchers could start to get fed up with his hitting and start pitching around him more, especially in clutch situations.

Thankfully, the Braves made a deal last year to bring in a prominent slugger to hit behind Chipper. Mark Teixeira's bat in the clean-up spot should make pitchers think twice before they decide to let someone else beat them other than Chipper.

Why would you let Mark Teixeira beat you with a guy on base—especially when Chipper is out there hitting for average rather than the long ball?

That's why he's maintained his success over the years. The guy simply doesn't hit below .300, he's only done it four times in his career. Two of those were just mere four and five points away from .300.

How about other factors, like the summer heat and his old age? Chipper hasn't exactly been the healthiest player in baseball these past few years. In fact he's even battling some injuries with his quadriceps as we speak.

The heat is probably more of a benefit than it is a hindrance in my opinion. The ball tends to jump off the bat better, and as noted earlier, Jones' best months are the ones in the heat.

Injuries are certainly the biggest thing working against Jones though. 2005 and 2006 were his down years in which he played in less than 137 games for the first time. Last year he played in 134 and had his best season in terms of average with .347.

Chipper Jones has a lot of statistics supporting this feat. I personally think the chances of him doing it are very high.

It's something I want to see happen because as we've seen, hitting .400 in a season is truly a once in a lifetime thing. Given the skill of pitchers these days, it may never happen again.

I want a .400 hitter, and if it's ever going to happen, it will happen this year. This is something we need to get behind for the sake of baseball. We need a hope that no record or accomplishment is out of reach in this era of the game.

How else will we be able to hope for someone next time they inch closer and closer to that 56 game hitting streak, even if it's only in the mid 30's?

Good luck Chipper, I'm rooting for you.