Who would you say is the best player in MLB history? Well, before answering, you might ask me to specify an age. If you’re looking for someone under 25, it would have to be Ted Williams, right? Somebody in their early 30’s? That must be Babe Ruth. How about the best player in their late 30s to 40s? Clearly it’s Barry Bonds.

But what if you didn’t have to choose? What if we picked the best year by any player at each age, and put them all together to build the perfect player? That’s just what we do after the jump.

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Towards the end of this coming season, we may see something that hasn’t ever happened before. At least not involving players on the same team.

This something (whatever it is) has occurred involving players on opposing teams only rarely, including in the following games.

Cardinals 4, Nationals 2 – Aug 27, 2010

Yankees 4, Braves 3 – June 28, 2006

Mariners 5, Rangers 2 – June 27, 1999

Orioles 6, Twins 5 – July 2, 1966

Giants 11, Braves 10 – Sept 19, 1961

So, what is this something?

Hint: if it doesn’t happen this year, it won’t happen next year, either.

Congratulations to ATarwerdi96! He correctly identified that, with a 40 home run season this year, Prince Fielder would join Tiger teammate Miguel Cabrera in the 300 HR club and do so when both are aged 30 or younger.  As far as I can tell, it would be the first time a team has had two such players. The closest so far has been the 1962 Braves, with Eddie Mathews, aged 30, at 399 home runs, and 28 year-old Hank Aaron with 298 round-trippers.

After the jump, more on precocious home run hitters, including the players represented in the box score clues.

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Here is a list of well-known ballplayers, all connected by a common seasonal batting achievement.

Your job: find that common batting feat, and identify the missing ballplayers needed to complete this list.

Note: there is no significance to the multi-column list; a single column list would have worked just as well

Congratulations to Ed on identifying these hitters as the record holders for home runs in a season at a specific age. After that, it was a true team effort to identify the remaining mystery players, shown in red above. So, thanks to everyone for playing.

Interestingly, there is a single HR  record-holder for every age – no ties. See the complete list of these record HR seasons after the jump.

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This Circle of Greats vote is not to induct anyone into the Circle, but only to select two players who will restored back on to the main ballot after having been previously been dropped from eligibility. The intent is to help assure that deserving guys who have may have been dropped during a particularly talent-heavy era get another chance in a different context where they might be more competitive. Continue reading →

This post is for voting and discussion in the tenth round of balloting for the Circle of Greats. This round adds players born in 1959. Rules and lists are after the jump. Continue reading →

Cal Ripken, Jr. is our ninth inductee into the Circle of Greats. Cal’s astounding iron man record evidences an extraordinary combination of mold-breaking talent plus discipline, luck, stubbornness and, self-referentially, the very allure of baseball records themselves.  More on Ripken, and the 1960 voting results, after the jump. Continue reading →

While not much remarked upon, in 2012 the Yankees completed their eighth consecutive season with a left-side infield of Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. At this juncture, it seems likely it will be nine seasons running with this trio in 2013. In that time, the Yankees have claimed just a single pennant, which was cashed in for a WS championship in 2009. Despite that pennant drought (by Yankee standards), the Yankees did make the playoffs in all but one of those eight seasons.

This Yankee trio is in the same class for longevity as the 1970s Dodgers who famously featured Davey Lopes, Bill Russell and Ron Cey (and Steve Garvey at 1B) from 1973 to 1981, a period during which the Dodgers claimed four pennants, but only one World Series title.

Usually when a team maintains the same infield year in and year out, defense is at least part of the reason why. But, that hasn’t been the case for the Yankees. After the jump, I’ll explore this topic in a bit more depth.

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Here are what might appear to be a random collection of ballplayers. Represented are players from each of the past 7 decades.

But, there is a common batting feat that connects the following list of players. What is that feat?

Hint: these are only retired players to achieve this feat since 1946

Congratulations to Insert Name Here and Richard Chester. INH identified these players as the only retired players with careers of 1500 or fewer hits that included a season since 1946 of 200 hits and 50 RBI. Of the 102 retired players with a 200 hit season since 1946, only 11 failed to parlay that success into a career of more than 1500 hits. Those 11 include the 10 players in our quiz plus Bob Dillinger, whose 200 hit season produced only 44 RBI. Dillinger’s career was only 753 games, the only player of those 102 not to reach 1000 games, which was the alternative solution to the quiz identified by Richard Chester.

Earned Run Average (ERA) and its derivative, ERA+ are, unquestionably, the go to stats for evaluating pitcher performance. Seldom mentioned is Run Average, or RA. Yet, when the runs are tallied at the end of the game, it doesn’t matter whether some are earned and some not; they all count the same.

So, why don’t we pay more attention to Run Average? The conventional answer to this question is that so-called unearned runs are not the pitcher’s fault. All the blame rests solely on the defense. But, is this really true? Let’s find out!

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I was looking up something else when this caught my eye. Among active players with at least 70 career home runs:

• The highest percentage of HRs hit at home belongs to Andre Ethier — 66% (85 of 129).
• The lowest percentage of HRs hit at home belongs to James Loney — 34% (25 of 73).

Both bat left-handed and have spent virtually all their careers with the Dodgers, both starting in 2006. (Loney played 30 games with Boston last year.)

But wait — there’s more!

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