It's too early to start putting Chipper updates in the paper every day, but Jones is already further along than Tony Gwynn was in 1994, according to day-by-day data available at Baseball-reference.com. Gwynn was hitting .394 when the strike happened in August of that season, but his last day over .400 was May 15, when he was hitting .408.While Clancy's article is well-written, and I understand what he's talking about, it actually doesn't matter much that Jones has a better batting average than Gwynn did further along in the season. Nor does it matter that Garciaparra was at .403 as late as July 20. What matters is that Jones ends up with a .400 batting average when the season is over. Statistically, there's nothing that says Jones can't drop below .400 for some time, then go on tear and bring his average back up to .400.
But Jones still has another month to match Nomar Garciaparra's 2000 season. Garciaparra was up to .403 after the first game of a July 20 doubleheader, but dropped down with an 0-for-5 in the second game. He finished with a .372 batting average.
That said, based on the logic Clancy is using, it still doesn't matter that Jones is further along in his .400 quest than Gwynn was at this point in the season. Career batting average tells us that Jones' .310 career batting average, 28 points lower than Gwynn's career average, would suggest Jones always has less of a chance than Gwynn to hit .400. The only time this changes is if we get much later into this season and Jones still is hovering around .400. At that point he will have a better probability than he does right now of hiting .400 -- much better than Gwynn anyway, whose season and career are both over.
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