Quiz – Speed and Power (solved) |

These are all speedy players (at least 130 career stolen bases, and 25 or more at least twice), And, they have a bit of pop in their bats (at least 90 career HR, and double digits at least twice). But, these are the only players since 1901 with a particular season batting feat.

What is this unusual batting accomplishment?

Rk	Player
1	Grady Sizemore
2	Curtis Granderson
3	Alfonso Soriano
4	Hanley Ramirez
5	Randy Winn
6	Brian Roberts
7	Lou Brock
8	Devon White
9	Mark Grudzielanek

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 9/10/2013.

Congratulations to bells! He identified that these are the only players with a season of more than 60 extra-base hits, but at least 10 fewer RBI (alternatively, a season of 50+ RBI and at least 10 more XBH produces the same result).

Lou Brock in 1968 is the first player with such a season. Until 1986, having a 50 RBI season and more XBH (never mind 10 more) was pretty unusual – happened only 76 times. Since 1987, with more power spread throughout the batting order, it’s happened 51 times.

Here are the seasons for the quiz players.

Player	XBH	RBI	Year	Age	Tm	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Grady Sizemore	92	76	2006	23	CLE	162	751	655	134	190	53	11	28	78	153	22	6	.290	.375	.533	.907
Curtis Granderson	84	74	2007	26	DET	158	676	612	122	185	38	23	23	52	141	26	1	.302	.361	.552	.913
Alfonso Soriano	80	70	2007	31	CHC	135	617	579	97	173	42	5	33	31	130	19	6	.299	.337	.560	.897
Hanley Ramirez	74	59	2006	22	FLA	158	700	633	119	185	46	11	17	56	128	51	15	.292	.353	.480	.833
Randy Winn	73	63	2005	31	TOT	160	683	617	85	189	47	6	20	48	91	19	11	.306	.360	.499	.859
Brian Roberts	68	57	2008	30	BAL	155	704	611	107	181	51	8	9	82	104	40	10	.296	.378	.450	.828
Lou Brock	66	51	1968	29	STL	159	712	660	92	184	46	14	6	46	124	62	12	.279	.328	.418	.746
Devon White	63	52	1993	30	TOR	146	668	598	116	163	42	6	15	57	127	34	4	.273	.341	.438	.779
Mark Grudzielanek	61	51	1997	27	MON	156	688	649	76	177	54	3	4	23	76	25	9	.273	.307	.384	.690

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 9/11/2013.

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brp

10 years ago

No guess, but Grudzielanek’s 2010 season with 110 ABs and no XBH has got to be pretty remarkable.

Author

Doug

Reply to brp

Excluding pitchers, Grudzielanek ranks 5th in the live-ball era for most PA (and most AB) without an XBH. Rk Player AB XBH Year Age Tm G PA ▾ R H RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS Pos 1 Dwain Anderson 124 0 1973 25 TOT 71 144 16 15 3 18 33 .121 .232 .121 .353 *6H/58 2 Dave Nelson 123 0 1969 25 CLE 52 137 11 25 6 9 26 .203 .259 .203 .463 *4H/79 3 Pat Corrales 120 0 1972 31 TOT 46 135 6 23 6 13 26 .192 .276 .192 .468 *2/H 4 Mike Gallego… Read more »

Josh

Reply to Doug

Grudzielanek also only had 2 seasons of 20+ SBs.

Reply to Josh

Thanks. Fixed it.

mosc

Any quiz where Mark Grudzielanek is an answer is pretty damn cool to me. LOL!

Paul E

I don’t know what the odd item/factoid is, however, since signing his extension, Brian Roberts has had 742 total PA’s and produced a .242/.308/.348 with an OPS+ of 79 in the last four seasons. That includes 72 runs scored and 72 driven in……nice guy, though

Hartvig

Without having thoroughly researched this this but desperately wanting to finally win one of this I’m going to take a wild shot and say more than 60 extra base hits and 25 steals in a season while hitting less than .300?

Reply to Hartvig

Hartvig:
78 guys total. Maybe these are the only ones with multiple seasons?

Is doubles plus triples greater than or equal to 50 part of it?

That doubles and triples totaling over 50 isn’t exactly right but it’s on the right track.

Hartvig is getting close. It is about extraa-base hits.

All of these guys spent at least part of their career as a leadoff hitter. So I’m guessing it (whatever it is!) was done in a year in which they hit leadoff.

80 EXBH
20 SB’s
in the expansion era?

Stolen bases is not part of the answer.

I don’t know whether this feat was achieved in a season hitting leadoff. But, it would usually be easier to achieve this feat hitting from that spot.

bells

is it XBH>60, XBH>RBI?

Very close, Bells.

okay…. XBH>60, XBH-RBI 10 or greater?

Reply to bells

XBH minus RBI >= 10 is right. But the other part isn’t quite it.

Richard Chester

Is the other part simply “for the expansion era only”?

Reply to Richard Chester

I said in the post that this was since 1901.

The XBH >= 60 and XBH – RBI >= 10 pulls in one more player than the ones in the quiz (see Johnny Mostil, 1926).

Mostil had 60 XBH in 1926, the 9 on your list had 61 or more. So why wouldn’t it be XBH>60 per post 16?

Was it because his batting average was over .300?

Is the final part- with a batting average below .300?

Nothing to do with batting average.

My reply to post 16 (see post 17) was that the RBI – XBH >= 10 was right but the other part (XBH > 60) wasn’t correct.

The part that’s missing doesn’t involve XBH.

David Horwich

Doug, how *do* you come up with these quizzes? They’re so specific, and yet so obscure…in this case was there a particular player’s stats that set you off searching for others who matched whatever the feat was? Anyway…all of these players *do* have a season where XBH > 60 and XBH-RBI >= 10 while Mostil had exactly 60 XBH in 1926, but we’ve been told that’s not it. And we know the missing piece doesn’t have to do with BA, or XBH. So I looked at the relevant seasons of each these players, as well as Mostil’s 1926, in an… Read more »

Reply to David Horwich

Aargh…a few sentences dropped out of my post, probably because I used a “less than” sign in a place where I shouldn’t have (presumably interpreted as an attempt at html), which caused it to turn nonsensical toward the end. Too bad this site doesn’t have a “preview post” feature. Anyway, let’s try that last part again: Everyone but Mostil had K > BB. Everyone but Mostil had an OBP below .400. But I don’t think it’s either of those. The title of the quiz suggests it might have something to do with speed, but nothing in the players’ SB column… Read more »

Thanks for pointing out the 60 XBH vs more than 60. I didn’t pick up on that. That being the case, I’ll give it bells. What I was looking for though was RBI >= 50. That gives the same result as XBH > 60 (or >= 61). How do I come up with these things? Usually it’s a comment or some nugget in JA’s game notes that leads me to a particular player. If it seems interesting, I’ll see how many other players were like that and if it’s not a big number (or I can make it a small… Read more »

woo hoo! I solved a quiz (sort of)! I’ve never felt like such a more accomplished baseball fan. I was scratching my head over what I was missing, I never thought of the flipside, that you were looking for a number of RBI rather than XBH.

The surprise on that list of 3 seasons with 50+ RBI and XBH > RBI is Bonds, of course. Easy to forget he was primarily a leadoff hitter from 1986-1989.

Doug – How did you do that search via the PI?

Reply to Ed

RBI >= 50
XBH > 1.1 * RBI

Then just eyeball the list to pick out the ones with a difference of 10 or more.

There used to be a way to do it directly by putting an SQL expression (like _fieldname_+10) in the box where the number goes. But, when Andy (back when he was at B-R) inquired how I had done a query like that, it was quickly tightened up to accept only a number.

Thanks Doug! Strange that BR would tighten things up that way.