MVP candidates Kris Bryant and Mike Trout are the only two players to appear on the leaderboard for both home runs and batting average. It is no surprise that Jose Altuve is on top of the batting average leaderboard. He has finished in the top 10 for the past three seasons, finishing first in the American League in 2016 and first in all of Major League Baseball in 2014.
The 2016 batting champion, DJ LeMahieu, is eighth overall in the 2017 projections. Last season's silver medalist in batting average, Daniel Murphy, falls short of the projected top 10 with a .302 average, 45 points lower than his 2016 batting average of .347. Five of the players in the top 10 for 2016 batting average appear on our projections leaderboard.
For more information on how we do projections, and some insight into the new projection system we are developing, there is an actuarial webinar that I presented called "Thinking Outside the Strike Zone: Predictive Analytics and Baseball" that can be found at the link below. There is a charge for the webinar.
https://www.actexmadriver.com/product.aspx?id=453138376