Eh I'll play devil's advocate here.

OBP factors in walks, why punish a guy like Bonds for being intimidating or having a good eye?

In theory every hit that doesn't leave the park is 'luck' that it landed in between fielders or just shy, now I don't necesarily agree with that logic, but you can make the case.

It's not as if you're truly harming a Mauer type, since usually the batting title winner will have a pretty large OBP as well, it just seperates the boys from the men in terms of overall hitters.

Perhaps the better question would've been, "Do we need a recognition for the player with the highest OBP?"

This question splits for me. On the one hand, I feel that the Batting Title should stay determined by Batting Average, because it does take a measure of which player is the best hitter, and that is best measured by BA. That said, it is an irrelevant award that I personally don't care about because of its emphasis on BA.

However, that said, you are still wrong Tyler, which you seem to be making a habit of... :)

In a direct matchup, of course a single is better than a walk because it gives any baserunners that may be aboard the opportunity to advance. However when you extrapolate all of a player's hits and all of a player's walks over a full season, this comparison is simplistic and irrelevant. A lot of singles come with....

1. No one on base
   
2. Runners on base that do not move on a single any more than they would a walk

Ultimately for the batter involved, a higher on base percentage means that the player in question is putting himself on more often and giving his team the potential to score a run, but more importantly, he is not creating an out, thus allowing the theoretically infinite supply of outs to remain cut. The situation you cite is of one player with a very good average and an exemplary OBP, and the other player has an exemplary average as well as an exemplary OBP because of that average. Therein lies the problem. But still, using that comparison, Player B does not create an out 20 more times over the course of a 625 PA season, and while that may not seem significant, we also don't know how many of Player A's singles were in garbage time and whether he could make up that difference, nor are we aware of their slugging percentages. Evaluating based on the hypothetical you suggest is difficult for these reasons. You can throw BABIP in there as well as a possible sabotage agent.

However I would add that I'd rather have a player with a .100 IsoD than one with a .30 IsoD, because I know that while a string of bad luck can bring down Player A's batting average immensely, the same could happen to Player B, however he would have something to fall back on. Cut each BA .50 points, we'll say .340 in Player A's case, and you are left with a .320 OBP vs. a .350 OBP for a similar reduction for Player B. That is a huge difference, and Player B is the far safer choice, and depending on the circumstances, more valuable to his team.

The Billy Beane Memorial sounds fine to me.