Hot 20 – If baseball has the Mendoza Line, surely NASCAR can have the Danica Line

Mario Mendoza is a member of the Mexican Baseball League’s Hall of Fame, yet his legacy in the Major Leagues is not as illustrious. In fact, when one measures how competent a batsmen has been throughout a season and, indeed, his MLB career, the Mendoza Line is one players strive not to fall below. It began as a club house joke; hit below .200 and one has fallen below the Mendoza Line.  Though he hit .215 over parts of nine Big League campaigns, in five of them Mendoza hit under .200.

NASCAR has something similar, though unlike baseball’s this is a floating standard. It all comes down to where Danica Patrick falls in the points. Record fewer points than she has, well, you have fallen below the Danica Line. Why Danica, some might ask? She arrived on the scene with tons of hoop-la, buckets of sponsorship cash, and drives top flight equipment, yet her on-track results have been anything but stellar. Heading into Darlington, her average finish in 53 Cup races is worse than 26^th. Even in 61 Nationwide races, it took a good day to even crack the Top 20.  Sunday at Texas, she was 27^th.

Granted, that means Dale Earnhardt Jr, Kevin Harvick, and Kurt Busch all finished below the Danica Line on that day, finishing 43^rd, 42^nd , and 39^th respectively. However, of the other 13 cars that finished behind her, I would wager that each and every one of those drivers would have given their eye teeth to have been able to be in her car instead of their own.  

For Kevin Harvick, the new points system, where wins trump points, has been a real blessing. If NASCAR had gone with my idea of giving 22 additional points for victories and tossing out the Chase, he would have become somewhat irrelevant already, a Phoenix win or not.

Here is a look at our most dominant hot 20 drivers this season, and where the Danica Line is set coming in to the Southern 500 in Darlington on Saturday night.