Steven Kwan flirting with .400 season, chasing history and Ted Williams

CLEVELAND — For a hitter, it's the most difficult thing to do in baseball: truly staying locked in for every single pitch, in every single at-bat, during every single game across a long season.

Baseball, remember, is played by human beings. Hitters see so many pitches across so many at-bats that actually being at the top of their game 100% of the time is nearly impossible.

There are very few hitters who can truly never let their guard down even a blip during the chess match that is a major league at-bat. Steven Kwan is one of those hitters, one of the few who is in rarefied air. And right now, perhaps nobody in the game is a more difficult batter to face.

"It's the hardest thing in our sport, with hitting being the hardest thing to do in sports," Guardians catcher Austin Hedges said. "There's a lot of at-bats, and you're talking 3-to-8, maybe 3-to-9 pitches depending on the at-bat. That's a lot of pitches where if you take one off, that's your rollover to second base, that's your popup, that's your swing and miss, and you're mad at yourself, not because of your swing, which we work on in the cage all the time, but because you've got to have a great mental approach every day."

In Hedges' eyes, that's what separates Kwan from nearly every other hitter in baseball. It isn't just the bat control, which is elite. Nor is it the command of the strike zone, which is also elite.

"It sounds cliche, but he just doesn't take pitches off," Hedges said. "Not a whole lot of hitters take bats off, but [it's almost impossible] to not take pitches off. And he sticks to his plan throughout the whole game, every single pitch. Even in his [off-the-field] work, his work is so disciplined, and he wants to be great."

Guardians outfielder Steven Kwan flirting with .400 season, chasing Ted Williams

And this season for the Guardians, Kwan is doing some great things (and he's threatening to do some historic things).

Entering Tuesday's game against the Seattle Mariners, Kwan was hitting .398 in the 43 games he's played sandwiched around a stint on the injured list due to a hamstring injury.

The season isn't yet even halfway finished. Ninety three games remain as of Monday, which means if Kwan stays healthy, he could have roughly 400 at-bats left. That's a long, long way to go.

But a .400 batting average is one of the most illustrious numbers in baseball. It's a figure hitters have been chasing ever since Ted Williams eclipsed that mark with a .406 average in 1941.

Since that year, which helped to etch Williams' name into the record books as a baseball legend, only a few hitters have come close while also reaching the minimum requirement to qualify for the batting title (502 plate appearances).

Rod Carew and George Brett each gave a good run at it. Carew finished the 1977 season with a .388 average in 616 at-bats. Brett hit .390 in 1980, just reaching the threshold for plate appearances (515) while having 449 at-bats. Stan Musial hit .376 with more than 600 at-bats in 1948. Tony Gwynn (1997), Todd Helton (2000), Nomar Garciaparra (2000) and Ichiro Suzuki (2004) all turned in .372 seasons with at least 529 at-bats during the offensive explosion during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

In his historic season, Suzuki set the MLB record with a borderline ridiculous 262 hits. He averaged 1.6273 hits per game that season. Kwan, entering Tuesday, was at 1.6279 hits per at-bat, just eclipsing Suzuki's rate.

Can Steven Kwan hit .400? Guardians teammates, opposing manager think he has a chance

A .400 season would create perhaps the biggest storyline of a baseball record being chased, and the most hype as the season wound down if it's still within reach, other than, of course, the home run crown.

Kwan will need to get to 502 plate appearances. If he remains healthy, he should get there. All that remains after that stipulation is putting together the best season by batting average since World War II. Kwan won't beat Suzuki's record for 262 hits in a season after missing a few weeks with the hamstring issue. But .400 is the big number, the one sitting on a pedestal of baseball lore.

Nobody has seriously challenged for a .400 season, with enough at-bats to qualify for the batting title, in 20 years, though Luis Arraez at least began knocking on that door last summer, when he hit .354 with the Miami Marlins. And only a handful have flirted with that figure in the last 80 years.

Kwan is at .398, which means even with his scorching hot recent pace, he actually still needs to improve his hits-per-at-bat rate. And manager Stephen Vogt pointed out that today's game probably makes it more difficult than ever to go on the type of a run that would be required to reach a .400 season.

"I mean, the way our game is played now, it's extremely difficult to hit .400," Vogt said before Tuesday's game against the Seattle Mariners. "With all the information that we have, where guys are positioning, just the advancements in the game, it takes somebody who has the ability to make contact consistently and hit the ball all over the field. But could it be done again? Yeah, I think it could, but it's extremely difficult.

"But, I would definitely say Kwanie has the skillset to do it."

The most difficult hitters to face in 2024? Steven Kwan is near the top of the list

While pitchers have more resources to perfect their game-plans to attack hitters compared to past eras, Kwan is a small group of batters who don't seem to have a major weakness to exploit. And that's the frustrating part for many on the mound who face him.

"It’s unbelievable, but it speaks to his skillset. He just doesn’t swing and miss," said Mariners manager Scott Servais. "It’s a 1% whiff rate on fastballs and a 5% whiff rate on breaking balls. It’s really unbelievable hand-eye coordination. He’s very gifted in that way. There’s really only he and Luis Arraez who have the contact skills needed to hit .400. I’m glad we only see him for three days before we can move on down the road."

Kwan at one point said his goal was to be "annoying" as a hitter, which essentially translates to someone who is a difficult out. Few hitters in baseball would be seen as "annoying" as Kwan has been this year.

"There's not really a ton of spots in the zone where you can beat him," said Mariners starting pitcher Logan Gilbert. "You're kind of just going for more soft contact, hopefully, than anything. It's pretty difficult because he uses all parts of the field."

After Kwan's historic major league debut in 2022, he had what he felt was a down 2023, in which he hit .268 with a .340 OBP and won his second second consecutive Gold Glove in left field. Kwan said at that time he wanted to be more focused on the little details, and the work that goes into the day-by-day grind. His teammates have seen that change.

"He doesn't want to be a guy that's just happy to be here, happy to make the big leagues," Hedges said. "I think he experienced that a little bit his rookie year, where he was just grateful to be a big leaguer and wanted to help the team win. And now he realizes and knows that he's a really, really special talent, really special player, and he can be a guy flirting with the batting title every single year of his career."

The Guardians were at the 69-game mark heading into Tuesday night. Only four hitters have been above .400 after 69 games in the expansion era (since 1961), a list that includes Carew (1977), John Olreud (1993), Larry Walker (1997) and Tony Fernandez (1999). Kwan is only a couple hits off of that pace.

For as long as he can hover around .400, it'll be a storyline to watch. He has a long way to go. There's a reason so few names have really challenged Williams to be the last hitter to pull off the feat in the last 80-plus years.

But Kwan is also one of the only hitters in baseball who something like this might even be in the realm of possibility. That skillet has met the intersection of Kwan being as hot at the plate as he's been since he broke into the majors in 2022.

For the time being, he's chasing history.

Ryan Lewis can be reached at rlewis1@gannett.com. Read more about the Guardians at www.beaconjournal.com/sports/cleveland-guardians. Follow him on Threads at @ByRyanLewis.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Guardians' Steven Kwan flirting with .400 season in 2024