Wash Incorrectly. Rinse. Repeat Every Sunday

Below is the listing in my Sunday newspaper of the team batting leaders in the National League. 

This listing reflects the fact that the AP and my local sports section editor worship the false god of batting average.

No Team AVG   AB  R H 2B 3B  HR  RBI  BB   K HPB SB  CS  GDP  1. Detroit Tigers .278 1592 220  442  101  4 46 214 130 301 11 39 17 32  2. Texas Rangers .267  1678 216 448 87 11 34 202 160 348 20 35 22 53  3. Baltimore Orioles .265 1686  203 447 80 6 47 198 115 349 19 15 6 38  4. Chicago WSox .261 1804 247 471 91 8 54 232 155 460 17 30 10  38  5. NY Yankees .259 1704 211 441 81 10 47 194 149 367 16 34 5 43  6. Toronto Blue Jays .258 1747 246 450 95 9 70 233  176 366  12 25 9 37  7. L.A. Angels .256 1721 241 441 91 15 55 230 166 386 19 32 7 32  8. KC Royals .254 1673 192 425 91 7 20 177 131 280 10 41 12 40  9. Cleveland Indians .252 1731 225 436 98 8 45 211 196 351 17 32 9 45  10. Oakland Athletics .249 1741 248 433 90 13 52 232 217 353 15 30 3 42  11. Tampa Bay Rays .246 1765 201 435 89 3 38 191 182 361 17 20 8 46  12. Minnesota Twins .243 1612 206 391 86 5 36 190 190 414 14 29 10 30  13. Boston Red Sox .240 1685 195 405 95 5 39 185 190 411 23 14 11 45  14. Seattle Mariners .234 1645 201 385 79 12 38 188 129 389 23 21 13 26  15. Houston Astros .232 1708 185 397 73 11 54 174 157 440 17 38 12 41

But this is nonsense, of course.

The purpose of batting is to score runs, not run up a batting average. The Tigers aren't the top hitting team; they've only tallied 220 runs. The A's have plated 248 runs, most in the league, but they're listed 10th because they do it with home runs and walks, not with batting average. 

Detroit is only the sixth best hitting team. In fact, though they lead the league in batting average by a goodly margin, they're one free pass from the bottom of the league in walks, leaving them third in OBP.

If you were to re-order this list by what really matters it would look like this:  10-4-6-7-9-1-2-5-12-3-14-11-13-8-15. 

There's not a lot of correlation there. Teams in the top half of the league in batting average tended to be in the top half in scoring, but that's about the entirety of the connection.

If you ordered teams by OBP or OPS you'd have a higher correlation. Listing teams in the order of their home runs would give you roughly the same mess.

Hitting for high average is valuable, but it's only one of many building blocks of the ultimate aim -- scoring runs. Could someone wake the Associated Press and let them know?