The Fate of National League Batting Champions

Jose Reyes recorded 181 base hits in 537 at-bats during the 2011 Major League season, for a batting average of .337. The next highest batting average by a player with enough at-bats to qualify was Ryan Braun's .332 (Braun went 0-4 tonight, validating to some extent Reyes' strategy of bunt-and-run). Jose Reyes, New York Mets shortstop and leadoff hitter, is your 2011 National League batting champion.

Just for fun, let's consider the fate of other recent National League batting champions. It's not great:

• 2010 champion Carlos Gonzalez (COL LF, .336) saw his average decline to a career-average-ish .295 this year, though his power and walk-drawing skills, if anything, improved. He did play in slightly fewer games this year, and overall was worth just half as many wins above replacement this year (2.6) as last year (5.0). However, it's way too soon to tell if this is a protracted decline or just the fact that you don't have a career year every year.
• 2009 champion Hanley Ramirez (FLA SS, .342) saw his average drop to .300 last year, and plummet all the way to .243 this year. He's collapsed since winning his batting title. WAR numbers for the last three years: 7.2, 3.7, 0.4. I hope Reyes does not decide to emulate Hanley's post-batting-title performance.
• 2008 champion Chipper Jones (ATL 3B, .364) hasn't been nearly the player he used to be after winning his title. Over the four years ending in '08, his lowest average was .295, lowest OBP .409, lowest SLG .556, lowest HR 21. He was really good. Since then, his high in average is .278, OBP .388, SLG .478, HR 18. His WAR numbers were 6.6 in '08, 7.9 in '07, but just 2.4, 3.2, and 3.0 since then. He's still a good player, unlike Hanley, but he's no longer a superstar-level player.
• 2007 champion Matt Holliday (COL LF, .340) has done just fine, thank you very much. Since winning his title, he's hit .311/.395/.527. No problems there. In fact, his OPS+ with the St. Louis Cardinals has been 154, higher than the 144 he posted in his batting-champion year. Admittedly he's been averaging just 4.8 WAR/year as opposed to the 7.3 mark he put up in '07, but you can't do 7.3 every year and 4.8 is still all-star level play.
• 2006 champion Freddy Sanchez (PIT UT, .344) is a somewhat strange case. He won his batting title as a utility player with no one position all his own. In that '06 season he was worth 5.5 WAR. Since then, aggregate, he's been worth 6.4 WAR. In five years. The weird thing is that it's hard to call this a decline, since he was never that good before '06. But he sure as hell hasn't showed the same batting-champ form subsequently.
• 2005 champion Derrek Lee (CHC 1B, .335) has seen some ups and downs since his triple-crown-threat '05. Since then, he's hit .289/.367/.485, with highs of .317/.400/.579 and lows of .260/.323/.428. He's averaged just 2.2 WAR per year, down from the 3.0 WAR/year from 2000 to 2005. Some years he looks like a bust, like the year right after winning the crown when he only had 200 plate appearances. Other years, like 2007 and 2009, he's looked just fine. So it's hard to say.

Overall, since Barry Bonds last led the league in hitting the National League batting champions have had a somewhat difficult time maintaining their form. Here's hoping Reyes bucks that trend, and that he does it in a Mets uniform.