It took a while for Circle of Greats voters to get past the limitations of Nolan Ryan’s somewhat un-nuanced approach to pitching.  But ultimately his undeniable talent for throwing pitches really hard and his extreme durability were enough to tie Pete Rose in a high-comment-generating scheduled voting round, and then to defeat Rose in a closely contested, head-to-head runoff.  Ryan becomes the 34th player inducted into the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats.  More on Ryan, and the voting, after the jump (oh, and here, courtesy of Katz’s Deli, is the sandwich missing in this post’s title: Katz’s Sandwich . Continue reading →

Baseball-Reference.com

Pro football HOFer Ace Parker died Wednesday in his hometown of Portsmouth, Virginia. Parker played professionally in baseball and football in the 1930s and 1940s, continuing in pro baseball into the early 1950s. At his death, Parker was the oldest living US-born major-leaguer.

More on Ace after the jump.

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“Good young pitching” was a dominant theme of the 2013 MLB season, as discussed by fans and media. Ever skeptical of perceived trends, I had to ask: Were the numbers truly unusual, or was the discussion based on selective notice? And if the numbers do stand up to initial scrutiny, are they part of a trend, or just a random event? Here’s a quick study of pitchers and age since 1998, the last expansion year.

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According to Wins Above Replacement (WAR, baseball-reference version), the top two rookies in the National League this past season were Jose Fernandez (6.3 pitching WAR) and Yasiel Puig (5.0 WAR).   How often have two rookies in the NL both reached 5 or more WAR (baseball-reference version, pitching WAR for pitchers and overall WAR for everyday players) in the same season, prior to this year? Continue reading →

For 101 major league seasons (1901-2001), the players below were the only hitters to achieve a certain seasonal batting feat. In 2002, three more players achieved this distinction and, since 2002, 5 more players have done this a total of 7 times.

What is this batting feat peculiar to modern day hitters?

Hint: Versalles’ season is the one you’re thinking of.

Don’t know whether I stumped you or just no interest. Anyway, the solution is that these players and the others from the current century all have a low slugging percentage relative to extra-base hits. In particular, they are the only players since 1901 having a season with an extra-base hit total of over 160 times slugging percentage. The seasons are after the jump.
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