With the season finish line in sight, HHS readers have uncovered some odd seasonal achievements that would become even more unusual were they to continue for the full season. Or maybe it’s just an unusual player or team accomplishment in a recent game. If you’ve uncovered something interesting that’s happened recently, this is your opportunity to contribute.
More after the jump.
I’ll start the ball rolling by noting a few oddities that readers have contributed in other posts.
- David P is reporting that Indian catcher Roberto Perez could become the first non-pitcher in over 100 years with a 75 PA season having twice as many walks as hits
- David P also identified that White Sox pitcher Jose Quintana is already the only pitcher with three consecutive 200 IP seasons winning fewer than 10 games. He might do it again this year, but only if he doesn’t record another W.
- Voomo Zanzibar identified that Red Sox catcher Sandy Leon is flirting with the highest seasonal batting average for a catcher in limited PAs (100 minimum)
- Daniel Longmire identified that Oriole catcher Caleb Joseph has yet to record an RBI this year in more than 100 PA
So, what weird and wonderful happenings have you noticed?
Wow at Quintana. Been a very good and durable starter for 3 years and can’t get 10 wins. Must be a combination of all kinds of bad luck.
Sandy Leon makes no sense. He has no history at all of being a good hitter. It’s crazy that he’s been hot all of a sudden for this long.
In an August 5th game with only 5 hits total, one of them was an RBI single by pitcher Jaime Garcia who threw 8 innings in a 1-0 win for StL over ATL. Cards finished with 2 H, Braves with 3.
Doug: a small correction. The Perez thing is more than twice as many walks as hits. A few others have had exactly twice as many, including Nick Johnson in 2010 (98 PAs, 24 walks, 12 hits).
I mentioned this before but the Orioles are very likely to set the record for fewest triples in a season. The Orioles currently have 4 triples. Every other team in the history of MLB has at least 11 (’98 and ’81 Orioles share the record).
And since the 4 triples have been hit by 4 different players, I’m guessing the Orioles could become the first team to have no one with more than one triple.
Looks like that guess was a good one. If I have done my work correctly the fewest triples in a season (1901-2015) for a team leader is 2 by 13 different teams. Additionally, this year no one on the Padres has more than 2.
Orioles got another triple last night so they’re up to a total of 5 triples by 5 different players.
This morning, ‘mlb.com’ notes that Albert Pujols has reached 95 RBI for the 15th time. This year’s numbers are a little different though. He has scored only 49 R…either he gets pulled for pinch-runners a lot, or there’s been no production from 5-6 hitters, or both. Also, he has 38 RBI with 1B open, but only 4 IBB, compared with a high of 44 IBB in ’09.
It’s a combination mostly of these 2 things I imagine.
He has a very high OBP and great baserunner Trout batting in front of him.
And he has a low OBP and no speed himself.
Pujols is batting .319 with RISP, .300 with any men on and .188 with nobody on base. Also he has come to bat with 408 runners on base with 502 PA. Average number of runners on base for players with 502 PA is 299.
Interesting notes. So he has driven in 73 (95 RBI minus 22 HR) of 408 base-runners (17.9%). With an average number of base-runners, that would calculate to 53.5 RBI. Yes, I guess that says something about Trout. Escobar and Calhoun have solid OBPs too.
Pujols has driven in Trout 24 times, Calhoun 21 times and Escobar 17 times.
When calculating a player’s efficiency for driving in runs I like to ignore those PA with men on in which he received a walk unless the bases were loaded. Pujols had a total of 41 such base-runners. Including last night’s game he has come to bat with 412 runners on base. Subtracting those 41 base-runners from 412 leaves him with 371 and his efficiency is 73/371 = 19.7% which is very good.
I wonder how many other players, if any, have had 95+ RBI in 15 of their first 16 seasons. I’m guessing it’s a short, short list.
Pujols is the only one.
As far as I can determine, the only other player with 15 seasons of 95 or more RBIs is Hank Aaron. A few have 14, including A-Rod, who is the only one with 14 of 100 or more, unless my bifocals are playing tricks.
Pujols and Aaron have 15 seasons of 95+ RBI and A-Rod and Ruth are the only ones with 14. Foxx, Simmons and Gehrig have 13.
Trea Turner’s small sample size 2016, projected over a full season:
125 R
214 H
36 2B
31 3B
15 HR
83 RBI
67/5 SB
0 GDP
360 TB
You may need to revise those numbers after tonight. Turner is now 3 for 4 in Atlanta with a double and two runs scored.
What an exciting player. Love to see that triples mindset right out of the box from an RHH.
131 R
222 H
40 2B
30 3B
15 HR
86 RBI
65/5 SB
.324 / .343 / .537 / .879
369 TB
Here’s something I stumbled across on Twitter:
HR in last 230 PA
Bumgarner……12
Ortiz…………..11
Trout………….10
Harper…………8
Another factoid from Twitter. Last night Madison Bumgarner became the 2nd pitcher since 1901to surrender a GS and hit a go-ahead HR in the same inning. Hal Jeffcoat in 1957 is the other one.
Here’s something I stumbled across. Currently Coco Crisp is batting .238 overall with 406 PA but his BA with runners on base is .362. That gives him a ratio of 152.1% for BA with men on to overall BA. The ML record for players with 502 PA minimum is 135.7% by Lee May in 1976. If Crisp gets enough playing time between now and the end of the season he can set a record for qualifiers. That would include seasons with lower qualifying PA.
Orioles are the first team to hit 4 home runs in a game before making their first out. And yet somehow they lost 15-8.
Cleveland won tonight on an inside-the-park walk-off home run. It’s the 16th such hit since 1965, and the first in that period in Cleveland.
Houston right-hander Jim Owens suffered this misfortune twice in two seasons (1965-66), both times in Connie Mack Stadium, his former home ballyard.
Doug: My PI run indicates 18 such HR since 1965 (including last night’s) and 26 altogether since 1930. One that I remember occurred on 6-23-1950 when Hoot Evers hit one leading the Tigers to a 10-9 victory the Yankees. A then-record 11 HR were hit in that game. All runs were scored on HRs.
First walk-off inside-the-park-home run by the Indians in 100 years. Their last one was on August 13th, 1916 by Braggo Roth.
BTW, the only walk-off inside-the-park grand slam was by Roberto Clemente on July 25th, 1956. Apparently his teammates weren’t too happy with him though. There were no outs at the time and he ignored orders from the manager and third base coach to stop at third.
http://lithub.com/the-greatest-forgotten-home-run-of-all-time/
Is Xander Bogaerts playing hurt? He’s at .197 / .239 / .197 for August with 0 XBH (obviously) and 2 RBI, one with a SF and one with a GO.
Khris Davis now has
31 HR
19 BB
Least walks with 30 HR:
19 … Galarraga
19 … Davis *
22 … Horner
22 … Dawson
22 … Bichette
_______________________________
He also has a .298 OBP
Lousy, but not quite historic.
Lowest OBP with 30 HR:
.254 … Tony Armas
.255 … Dave Kingman
.272 … Tony Batista
.273 … Cory Snyder
.284 … Dave Kingman
.285 … Dave Kingman
.286 … Dave Kingman
Dave Kingman on the list 4 times. Gosh. What a surprise. (Note the dripping sarcasm.)
HHS mentioned today on Twitter that the Astros are the first team since 1999 to have 2 players 66″ or shorter on their roster, Jose Altuve and Tony Kemp. It turns out that every season since 1901 has had at least 1 such player in the ML, the majority in the early part of the 20th century. From 1901 through 1929 there were anywhere from 9 through 22 such players each season. The turnaround came starting with the 1930 season. From that time on the number of such players ranged from 1 through 8. And in only 4 of those seasons were there more than 5. In 2016, along with Altuve and Kemp, there is Alexi Amarista making a total of 3 players in the ML for the first time since 2011.
As a 68″ guy always hurt by my lack of size, I love this little tidbit.
I saw a quote from a 5’4″ player in a collection of baseball or sports quotes.
Q: How does it feel to be the shortest player in the Major Leagues?
A: “A heck of a lot better than being the shortest player in the Minor Leagues.”
Here’s another tidbit I saw on Twitter. Albert Pujols currently has 96 RBI and 52 R. That would put him on pace to have 126 RBI and 66 R by season’s end for a differential of 60, (with more RBI than R). The current record is 58 held by Vic Wertz in 1960 and Harmon Killebrew in 1971 with 58.
Killer led the league in walks in 1971, and his BA was a better than league average .254. Of course, when he got on, it’s not as if he was a threat to steal…
As of the 24th, the numbers were 99 and 53. Pujols went 4 for 4 on the 24th, but only scored once, on his own HR.
An update on Caleb Joseph: he was demoted to triple-A yesterday, but not before moving into third place for the most plate appearances (121) in a season by a position player without an RBI. He trails only Bobby Messenger (130) with the 1909 White Sox, and Gene Good (135) from the 1906 Boston Beaneaters. We can only hope for a September call-up. :^)
And Joseph was indeed called up, and went 0-3 in his first start. The question is whether or not he will get the 12 plate appearances needed for the record.
I mentioned this in the Early Oddities post, but before this season, Joseph drove in 77 runs over 629 PA during the 2014-15 seasons. In the minors this year? 11 RBI in 88 plate appearances. Three years ago in Double-A Bowie? 97 ribbies in 570 PA.
With one (perhaps two) very important games to go, Joseph will likely finish the season with 141 plate appearances and zero RBI. This is a modern-day record for a position player, and second only to Oscar Jones in 1904 (150) when including pitchers.
However, he may not have the all-time record. Chub Sullivan (170 for 1880 Worcester Ruby Legs), John Kelly (208 in 1883), Jack Clements (220 in 1884) and George Strief (342, also in 1884) all had more plate appearances, although the statistics are rather suspect in the case of the final two players; Clements and Strief are credited for 5 home runs between them.
This most be worth mentioning.
Curtis Granderson has 20 home runs and only 34 RBI’s.
Granderson is hitting .050 in 49 PAs with 2 outs and RISP.
Lowest BA with 2 outs and RISP in the searchable era for a player with at least 502+ total PA in a season is .075 by Alex Rios in 2011, 4 hits in 53 AB.
Ouch.
Granderson is an old favorite of mine from his days with the Tigers. I was always aware that there were some holes in his game but it was never a case of his not caring or giving anything but his best. I suspect in this case the fact that he’s a smart guy is probably working against him and he’s overthinking the problem and pressing too hard.
Granderson (who now has 35 RBI) needs 6 more to surpass Chris Hoiles in 1992 and avoid the lowest RBI total in a 20 HR season.
I’m afraid the HHS jinx has struck again. Granderson is likely not going to do all those cool things we were rooting for. He now has 23 HR and 43 RBI, and has bumped up his BA with 2 outs and RISP to .070, with 3 RBI, in 53 PA (43AB)
The Dodgers’ Andrew Toles and Rob Segedin each hit his first major-league homer on August 22, and each hit his second major-league homer on August 23.
Tuna, correct me if I’m wrong, but their homers on the 22nd were back-to-back, just like Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin 9 days earlier for the Yankees, correct? If so, that would be the only two times in history that has happened…truly an oddity.
I think the hoopla over Judge and Austin’s homers was because they each homered in their first big-league game. Toles and Segedin both have a few ML games under their belts.
That is true, but I was under the impression that two rookies had never hit their first ML homers back-to-back, regardless of games played, until it happened this season (twice). Perhaps I’m mistaken.
Not an oddity, but . . .
It gives me no pleasure to report that Danny Salazar got shelled Tuesday for the fourth time running, two before and two after his stint on the DL. Through June his ERA was 2.22. Now it’s 3.90, and 19.29 in the last 28 days. I’m thinking he’s still ailing and trying to hide it like they used to do in the old days.
As of this morning the Orioles have 197 HR and only 14 SB for a differential of 183. The ML record is 211 by the 1961 Yankees, 240 HR and 29 SB.
Don’t want a day to go by without any comments on HHS so I’ll say that the O’s now have 202 HR and 15 SB.
As of this morning, 9-6-2016, the Orioles have 215 HR and 16 SB.
And the O’s did it. They completed the season with 253 HR and 19 SB for a record differential of 234.
The Indians are just the 11th team in MLB history to have a 3 game streak in which they scored exactly one run with each run coming via a solo home run. If they manage to do it tonight against the Rangers, they’ll be the first team to do that for 4 straight games.
Here’s a long comment made on June 21 with updates to August 25, roughly 3/4 of the way through the season:
Whereas on April 21 Birtelcom noted that run scoring was way up in the NL and down in the AL, now the AL is at 4.48 RPG, the NL at 4.31.
(Now AL 4.47—NL 4.46)
April 22, David P doubts his projections that the Braves might end up with 151 wild pitches and the Red Sox 140 hit batsmen. After 69 games the Braves have 38 WPs and the BoSox 31 HBPs.
(Now Braves have 69 WPs, BoSox 36 HBPs)
April 30. Kahuna Tuna noted that Paul Goldschmidt and O. Herrera were drawing walks at a rate more than 30% of ABs. At 70 games Goldschmidt is now at 23%, Herrera at 15.
(Goldschmidt currently is at 20%; Herrera at 12)
May 5, David P projects the Cubs to score 991 runs at their then current pace, becoming only the third team to do so with an OPS under .800. Cubs OPS is still under .800, but they’re now on a pace for 872 runs.
(Cubs now on a pace for 832 runs)
May 6, Rico Petrocelli notes that David Ortiz is on course for passing Ted Williams on the all time HR list. He and the Splinter are currently tied at 521.
(Ortiz currently at 533, will probably pass Foxx and Mantle, who have 534 and 536 respectively)
May 21, David P cites the BoSox for having a potentially record setting OPS mark with men on base, .918. Currently the team is at the none-to-shabby .858, but their pitching staff has dropped from ninth to eleventh in runs allowed, not a good sign.
(BoSox current OPS with men on base is an astonishing .871, offsetting runs allowed, still ninth in the league)
May 24, Daniel L noted the hot bat of Ichiro Suzuki. At present he’s hitting .349 with 2980 lifetime hits, so the chances are good that he’ll make the 3000 mark this season.
(Ichiro is at 3009 and counting)
From another thread: On April 20 I myself noted that Trevor Story was on course for an unlikely 94 HRs and 300 Ks, and after 15 games he only had 3 walks. Currently he’s on course for 42 HRs, 232 Ks, and a more respectable 51 BBs. The most interesting thing in the Story story is that he has hit 11 of his 18 dingers away from Coors.
(Story is stalled on the DL with 27 HRs, 130 Ks, 35 BBs)
From still another thread, on May 20 Paul E notes that Jose Quintana(255) and Chris Sale(248) have preternaturally high ERA+ for starters in their 27th year. Quintana is now at 152, Sale at 136. Drew Pomeranz, at 194 on May 20, is now at 129.
(Quintana is at 143 currently, Sale 129, Pomeranz 108)
Leaping ahead to today, June 21, what is the most remarkable stat in baseball? The Cubs ERA+ of 151. To find a historical franchise comparison you have to go back to 1906: Brown, Overall, Reulbach and Co. ERA+? 151.
(At the 126 game mark, it’s 130)
The question in the minds of longtime Cubbie fans, of course, is this: how will they screw it up?
(It’ll just about have to be in the post season).
Through August 24th, the Rangers sport an impressive 74-53 record, but they have given up one more run than they have scored, leading to a Pythagorean win-loss total of 63-64.
Has any team with a sub-.500 Pythag ever finished more than 20 games above the break-even mark? I recall that the Phillies were beating the odds earlier this season, but reality caught up with them by the All-Star break.
The answer is no. The ’32 Pirates, ’84 Mets, ’97 Giants and ’07 D-Backs all finished 18 games over .500 with a sub-.500 Pythag. The Mets’ .483 was the lowest Pythag of that group.
There is, however, one team that did the reverse and finished 20 games under .500 despite scoring more runs than runs allowed: the 1907 Reds finished 66-87 while scoring 7 more runs than they allowed. Not surprisingly, those Reds did poorly (22-39) in one run games. They were also bad on the road (23-51) and against Brooklyn (7-15) who finished an almost identical 65-83, close to their Pythag for scoring 76 fewer runs than runs allowed.
Related to this, the Rangers have a chance to have the largest difference between their win total and Pythagorean expectation (in all seasons since 1901 — I didn’t check before then). Currently they have a record of 94-65 with a run differential of 11 (757 scored, 746 allowed), which is 13.4 wins over expectation (using Pythagenpat). The only teams with a bigger difference are the 1993 Mets (59-103, 672 scored, 744 allowed, 14.3 below expectation) and the 1905 Tigers (79-74, 512 scored, 604 allowed, 13.6 above expectation). If Texas wins their last three games, they will have the largest difference; if they win 2 of 3, they will have the biggest amount above expectation (barring some very lopsided games).
Most wins with a sub-.500 Pythag are the 1984 Mets, the 2007 D-backs and the 1997 Giants who each finished the season at 90-72.
At first glance I mixed up the years for the D-backs & the Giants and I was going to guess that the common denominators for those 3 years was really good pitching at the top of the rotation and really crappy pitching at the bottom coupled with fairly punchless offenses.
Of course in 97 the D-backs were still a year away and Big Unit was 2 and Schilling 3. The 2007 version did get an outstanding year out of Brandon Webb & had a fairly punchless offense but the rest of the starters were pretty good to sort of mediocre and the bullpen was very solid so that doesn’t really fit the pattern I expected.
The 97 Giants got very good years out of their top 2 starters (Estes, Rueter) and the rest of the starters were mediocre to bad and the bullpen was nothing special so they fit that part of the pattern but the offense did have some punch with Bonds, Kent & JT Snow plus a few others altho a fair number of PA’s did go to guys who put up a lot of marginal numbers.
The 84 Mets had Gooden at the top but the rest of the rotation was average to a little below and the bullpen was nothing special. They had the best offense of the 3 teams led by Strawberry & Hernandez with only the catcher and shortstop positions not contributing.
I don’t really see a clear pattern here other than at least one starter with a very good to excellent season which ain’t exactly all that unusual.
I don’t know that it’s so much about roster construction as it is effectively sequencing runs (good record in close games) and sequencing hits (hitting well with runners on, in high-leverage situations, etc). The 2016 Rangers look really similar to the three teams mentioned above by Richard.
tOPS+ = split OPS relative to overall OPS (over 100 is better)
1984 Mets
1-run games: 29-20
Extra innings: 11-1
RISP: 102 tOPS+
Men on: 105 tOPS+
Late & Close: 101 tOPS+
High Leverage: 110 tOPS+
1997 Giants
1-run games: 23-17
Extra innings: 11-3
RISP: 102 tOPS+
Men on: 112 tOPS+
Late & Close: 120 tOPS+
High leverage: 115 tOPS+
2007 DBacks
1-run games: 32-20
Extra innings: 8-6
RISP: 105 tOPS+
Men on: 106 tOPS+
Late & Close: 111 tOPS+
High Leverage: 112 tOPS+
2016 Rangers
1-run games: 28-8
Extra innings: 5-5
RISP: 103 tOPS+
Men on: 103 tOPS+
Late & Close: 109 tOPS+
High Leverage: 110 tOPS+
Only 5 players have hit 9+ home runs in their first 21 MLB games with two of them (Trevor Story and Gary Sanchez) doing it this season.
The others are Alvin Davis (1984), George Scott (1966) and…wait for it…Mandy Brooks (???) in 1925.
Brooks was .379/.407/.816 for those 21 games, but .239/.291/.390 with 6 home runs for the rest of his career (341 PA). Despite that swoon, his career totals still project (for 162 games) to 21 HR and 109 RBI with 101 OPS+.
And that includes Sanchez’ two games and two total PA last year. He also didnt get his first HR until his 7th game this year. All the HRs have come in the last 13 games:
.469 / .536 / 1.082 / 1.617
___________________________
Here’s each of those fella’s through their first 21 games:
Sanchez
.378 / .439 / .824 / 1.263 … 9 HR and 16 SO
Story
.253 / .320 / .678 / .998 … 10 HR and 35 SO
Davis
.351 / .457 / .766 / 1.223 … 9 HR and 9 SO
Scott
.329 / .407 / .810 / 1.217 … 10 HR and 13 SO
Brooks
.379 / .407 / .816 / 1.223 … 9 HR and 6 SO
Brooks did that in 94 PA.
He would have 341 more PA in his career… and 6 homers.
Gary Sanchez compared to three of his ‘power-hitting’ teammates:
419 PA / 11 HR … Chase Headley
355 PA / 10 HR … Mark Teixiera
243 PA / 9 HR …. Alex Rodriguez
80 PA / 9 HR ….. Gary Sanchez
Here’s something a little different, I hope.
Two lists of 28 players, the first challenge being to identify what the lists are, the first list having a pair of secondary identifications.
Then, I hope, once the lists are identified for what they entail, the further challenge will be to justify why any or all of the the players are in one list and not the other.
Note: the players are not paired for any hidden reason. The lists run vertically, so I hope they show up that way when I send this.
Santo . . . . . . . . . . A. Dawson
Gordon . . . . . . . . . J. Rice
Davis . . . . . . . . . . R. Gossage
Vaughan . . . . . . . . B. Sutter
P/W Reese . . . . . . . . D. Eckersley
Mize . . . . . . . . . . . K. Puckett
Crawford . . . . . . . D. Winfield
H/R Baker . . . . . . . . . T. Perez
Plank . . . . . . . . . . . D. Sutton
Waddell . . . . . . . . . R. Fingers
Walsh . . . . . . . . . . W. Stargell
Rivera . . . . . . . . . . C. Hunter
Mussina . . . . . . . . B. Williams
Schilling . . . . . . . . L. Brock
Clemens . . . . . . . . L. Aparicio
Rodriguez . . . . . . . . D. Drysdale
Thome . . . . . . . . . . B. Lemon
Bagwell . . . . . . . . . R. Kiner
Lofton . . . . . . . . . . E. Wynn
Walker . . . . . . . . . . J. Medwick
Ba. Bonds . . . . . . . . . R. Ruffing
Martinez . . . . . . . . T. Lyons
Raines . . . . . . . . . . R. Maranville
Trammell . . . . . . . . B. Terry
Whitaker . . . . . . . . . D. Dean
Grich . . . . . . . . . . . H. Pennock
Rose . . . . . . . . . . . P. Traynor
Jackson . . . . . . . . . W. Keeler
This is old territory, in a way, but I think this approach might give rise to some new perspectives, if anyone wants to play.
Is WAR the main component?
Individual statistics have nothing to do with the lists. Each list is of players who belong together in some specific and definable way, although the first list has two sub-components.
Everyone on the left (as you look at the screen) is in the Circle of Greats, everyone to the right is not but all of them were on the ballot for multiple seasons.
You’ve got half of it, Hartvig. Your answer should tell you which half, but I’m easy: the second half may or may not be wrong, but it’s trivial, either way. Look upon the two lists as opposites. My last hint.
The right hand column group are all HOF, regardless of whether we thought they deserved it.
Mike L.:
And . . . ? See my reply to Hartvig at #62.
NSB, just eyeballing it, it seems that none of the very worthy folk in the left column were (yet) voted in by the writers.
Mike L:
Could you elucidate?
Elucidating–and it was just a wild guess. Your left hand column seemed to me to consist of Hall-worthy players who had not gotten in because a) they are Pete Rose or Joe Jackson, and out, b) they are Bonds and Clemens, tainted, c) Trammel, Raines, Whitaker, Grich, Lofton, (not sufficiently esteemed), Mo, Thome, Schilling, Mussina, IRod, Edgar, Bagwell, Larry Walker,(probably to definitely worthy but either not eligible yet, or not quite there) and older players who, just off the top of my head, I think had to have gone in through the Vet’s Committee, or other than a direct vote by the writer. (Vaughan, Santo, Gordon, Pee Wee, Mize,etc,)
It’s kind of a eclectic group. No inner circle except for the banned/blacklisted ones, or the not yet eligible ones.
That was my logic, but I haven’t run through every player.
The COGer’s on the left were all passed over by the BBWAA, the HOFer’s on the right were all passed over by the COG!
That should read: “the BBWAA-selected HOFer’s”
Thanks, Hartvig. I spent so much time showing my work that I obscured rather than elucidated.
Hartvig and Mike:
Together you’ve almost made it to the definitive answer, so . . . I’ll raise the subject again, but in the form of a question: Why are the two lists in direct opposition?
Another hint: what was the design or methodology of the Circle of Greats?
I’d say one reason the two lists are in opposition because, the COG and HOF were elected in reverse order, with the COG considering recent players first and the BBWAA doing the opposite for the HOF. In both voting models, there’s a smaller group of players to consider in the earlier rounds, so the COG has better representation in recent players than the HOF, and vice-versa for older players.
Also, both voting models reward players with the good fortune to be considered for election when the ballot is relatively uncrowded with worthy players. Thus, Rice and Perez make the HOF and Murray and Sisler (to name two that came to mind) were first ballot (I think) COG selections despite credentials inferior to some who took longer for the Voters to take a shine to.
Maybe I’m being too finicky, so I’ll award Hartvig the prize @69. The answer I was looking for was that the lists are opposites in that all the other 93 players elected by the BBWAA were also voted into the COG. These 56 players are the bones of contention between the COG and the BBWAA role of HOFers. The first 11 in the left column were rejected by the writers but voted into the Hall by the veteran’s committee. Three pitchers, Plank, Waddell, and Walsh, might have made it anyway, but the veteran’s committee was playing catch-up in 1946 and swept them in along with 8 others, some fairly deserving, some questionable. The other 8 vet’s committee choices in the list run from the no-brainers like Vaughan, Crawford, Davis, and Mize, to the more debatable Reese, Gordon, and Baker, to the tragic blundering of the writers and veteran’s committees alike in their mishandling of Ron Santo.
The other seventeen in the left column include two not yet eligible for the Hall, and fifteen whose time may or may not come, for varying reasons.
I’m hoping that seeing these lists side by side will spark some to comment about why the one on the left is superior, but also about the relative virtues or defects of individual players in comparison to similar players on the opposite list.
Here is an (to me) interesting breakdown:
COG only: 13 infielders, 6 outfielders, 1 catcher, 1DH, 6 starting pitchers, 1 reliever.
BBWAA only: 5 infielders, 10 outfielders, 9 starting pitchers; 4 relievers.
Thanks for these observations, nsb.
Those interested may also wish to review my earlier post on the topic.
http://www.highheatstats.com/2016/02/circle-of-greats-recap/
Does it have anything to do with being teammates?
Richard:
Nothing to do with teammates. Sorry.
An odd circumstance in Sunday’s Cubs-Dodgers game: the only run scored on Adrian Gonzalez’s grounder to third with two outs and the bases loaded. Javier Baez fielded the ball and threw it to Ben Zobrist at second, who was a bit late covering the bag.
So, the play was scored as a fielder’s choice (with an RBI credited to Gonzalez), but there was no error charged to Baez or Zobrist, and of course, no out was recorded. That situation can’t happen more than once or twice a season, can it? The reason the runner was on third to begin with was due to a throwing error by the pitcher on a grounder earlier in the inning, and yet the run was considered to be earned.
It seems from this perspective to be one of those events that slips through the cracks of the scoring system, much as a fly ball that scores a runner from third (or even second) counts as a SF, and a bunt that moves a runner to second, third or home is classified as a sacrifice hit, but a fly ball that moves a runner to second or third is simply called an out that counts against the batter…I’ve ranted about this topic on here before. :^)
Check that: the run was unearned…I misread the play-by-play. Still, how can this be neither a hit nor an error?
Clearly not a hit, assuming the grounder to third was of the routine variety. And not an error because nobody muffed a fielding chance, dropped a catchable throw, or made a wild throw. Not getting to a base quick enough is the same as, for example, an outfielder letting a catchable batted ball drop in front of him; not winning baseball but also not a failure to make an intended play.
I believe that an outfielder letting a catchable fly ball drop results in the batter being credited with a hit.
Gonzalez was charged with an AB on that play as if he had made an out.
Daniel: From 1925 to 1930 a fly ball that advanced a runner to 2nd or 3rd was scored as a SF.
Richard, of course you’re right about a hit being recorded. My point is the outfielder is *not* charged with an error for failing to employ reasonable effort to make a play, just as the second baseman (in the play in question) is not charged with an error for failing to make a better effort to cover the bag more quickly.
Doug, I would disagree with your opinion (for once) that it was not a failure to make an intended play. It was a routine grounder, and Baez could have thrown to first in plenty of time to beat Gonzalez, or Zobrist could have hustled harder to second (though he likely didn’t have a clue that Baez would choose that route). A huge mental mistake on both ends, sure, but it’s strange that neither fielder suffers any repercussions for that.
I get your point Daniel. However, errors are charged for physical miscues only, not mental ones, so that’s why the play was scored a fielder’s choice.
Another odd play in Tuesday’s Orioles/Blue Jays game. With one out, a runner on first and the shift employed by Toronto for a left-handed batter, a slow roller to the right side allowed the runner to advance to third. Everybody on the field did the right thing, with the pitcher breaking to first, the catcher moving to back up an errant throw that way, and the third baseman covering the bag at second in case the throw went there (the second baseman fielded the ball and took a look at second before going to first). But the result was the third baseman gamely but futilely chasing the astute runner to third base.
I suppose one way to avoid that result on such a play is for the shortstop to cover second and the third baseman to sprint to third as soon as the ball is hit. Or, maybe risk an errant throw to first by having the catcher not back up that base but instead sprint to third to cover there. Or, maybe just stay out of the shift in that situation, especially in a tight game, since the expectation is the batter will pull the ball and, thus, perhaps create the situation that can lead to the runner taking third (although the situation requires a pulled ball to be hit weakly, which is somewhat unusual, so that aspect has to be considered also).
Another bizarre play involving the Blue Jays, this time against the Red Sox. Runners at first and third for Boston, one out. Travis Shaw lofts a lazy fly ball to left, which Melvin Upton Jr. proceeds to drop. Mookie Betts scores from third, Hanley Ramirez moves up to second, and of course, Shaw reaches first.
How is it scored? As a sacrifice fly plus an E-7, with an RBI given to Shaw. So, he reached on an error, but was not charged with an at-bat. But even if you did score that as an official at-bat, how do you determine that play should result in an RBI? If an error directly leads to a runner scoring, that can’t benefit the hitter, correct? Or could it ever be scored as an at-bat AND a sacrifice fly?
It should be scored that the sacrifice fly doesnt exist.
Unless the batter squares around to bunt and bunts a fly ball all the way to an outfielder.
What is even stranger is that it was considered an earned run. The ball barely got to medium-depth left, so it shouldn’t be assumed that Betts would have scored from third. This goes back to the “cracks” in the scoring system that I discussed with Doug just above this thread.
Ichiro become the 4th player ages 42+ to steal 10 bases:
25 … Rickey
11 … Honus
11 … Omar V
10 … Ichiro
8 … Rickey
8 … Rose
At this moment he has the highest numbers in all three slash lines of any of those seasons.
Julio Teheran already has 5 starts this season allowing runs only via solo home runs. It’s his second such season, putting him in a tie for the second most among active pitchers, all of the others (Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Zack Grienke, James Shields, CC Sabathia, Ian Kennedy, Phil Hughes, Yovani Gallardo, John Lackey, Bartolo Colon) having been around quite a bit longer (with one more such start this season, Madison Bumgarner, Jered Weaver and Chase Anderson can join the group at two seasons).
The active and all-time leader is Cole Hamels with 4 such seasons, tied with the unlikely group of Jim Bunning, Don Sutton, Steve Trachsel and Dan Haren. Hamels needs one more such start this year to stand alone at the top of the list.
From last night…Indians are just the 12th team to do the following in a 9 inning game:
8+ walks, 6+ XBH, 2+ HRs, 5 or fewer runs scored.
Indians had two runners thrown out at third and one at home, which is how they managed to score so few runs.
Here’s a way to track that. Run the PI (assuming you are a subscriber) for Batting Game Finder, Find all matching games, ROE = 1, SF = 1 and PA = 1. I checked one such game which occurred on 9-23-2009 between the Nationals and the Dodgers. Pete Orr pinch-hit and hit a SF and also reached on error. The box score credits him with 1 RBI and 0 AB and the PBP indicates a ROE.
My post #149 was intended as a reply to post #148.
James Shields just turned in one of the worst months of August ever. Six starts, 26 innings, 11.42 ERA, 12 home runs allowed, .808 slugging allowed, 1.258 OPS allowed.
The slugging and OPS allowed are the worst ever for a month of August of 15+ innings pitched.
The ERA isn’t a record…the worst for 15+ innings pitched is Emmett O’Neill in 1945 (16.43). The worst for 6+ August starts is Fernando in 1983 (13.95).
The 12 home runs allowed aren’t quite a record as 4 pitchers have allowed 13 (Jim Waugh, 1953; Warren Hacker, 1955; Robin Roberts, 1963; Bill Travers, 1979).
BTW, I found all this because Indians’ pitcher Josh Tomlin just turned in an 11.48 ERA in 6 August starts. I thought Tomlin might have set some sort of August futility record. But, thanks to James Shields, it wasn’t even the worst August this year.
I saw it mentioned on Twitter that Yasmany Tomas currently has hit more HR (14) in multi-homer games than in 1 homer games (13). I did some analysis and found that 2 other players have accomplished that feat in a season (20 total HR min.). In 1970 Duke Sims hit 12 HR in multi- homer games and 11 HR in 1 homer games for a total of 23 HR. In 2015 Lucas Duda hit 15 HR in multi-homer games and 12 in 1 homer games for a total of 27 HR.
Dave Martinez of the Expos hit 3 HR in 1989, including a 2-HR game at Wrigley. He led off the game with a homer on the 15th pitch. (I was at that game and remembered it as the14th pitch.)
Matt Moore’s almost no-hitter last week was (according to information I’ve pieced together on the Web; my source for the pre-1961 data was SABR research from 1983 so likely to be some missing games there) the 56th individual no-hit bid since 1892 to be broken up with one out to go (plus Yu Darvish’s 2014 game when what was thought to be a no-hit bid was broken up with one out to go, but a changed scorer’s decision after the game added a second 7th inning hit).
It’s the fourth time a Giant pitcher has suffered that disappointment (tied, appropriately, with the arch-rival Dodgers who broke up Moore’s near gem), but the third time since 1990. Tiger and White Sox pitchers have had this happen 6 times, followed by the expansion Blue Jays(!) with 5 occasions (three of those by Dave Stieb). Boston has gone to the World Series in each of the three seasons (1967, 1975 and 2007) one of their pitchers has suffered this fate.
In Wednesday’s Orioles/Blue Jays game, for the second night in a row both starters went 6+ innings and struck out no more than 3 batters. Those are the 17th and 18th times that’s happened this year, but the first time it’s happened twice in the same series.
Joe Biagini has not allowed a home run in 56 innings this season. Only 31 other pitchers have met this criteria in the post-war era, and a mere 5 fellow rookies have done so.
Combing through the Play Index to sort out this information, I stumbled across the curious case of Gregory Minton. Not only does he hold the modern record for the most consecutive innings without surrendering a home run (269.1), but he lasted 16 seasons and compiled 150 saves while defying the odds.
Minton’s career ERA+ of 118 is third-best among all pitchers since 1940 who logged 1000 innings and had a SO/BB ratio of 1.00 or below. Just 18 other hurlers could even muster a ERA+ of 100 or better, and all of them were finished in the majors by 1961. Greg’s ghastly 3.8 K/9 rate probably wouldn’t get him past A ball these days, but it was all he needed to appear in 710 games.
Footnote: over 27 percent of Minton’s walk were intentional. Only 11 pitchers have ever thrown 900 or more innings and had a IBB/BB rate of 0.25 or higher. The most successful? You guessed it, Frank Stallone…er, I mean, Dan Quisenberry, with a career ERA+ of 146.
If Biagini remains unscathed, he has a chance to move up to second in IP in such rookie seasons. In first place is Terry Forster with an even 100 IP as a 20 year-old in 1972.
Minton was the subject of this post a few years back.
And obviously, I have the ability to place curses on people, as Biagini surrendered a home run in his very next outing (off the fair pole, no less).
Andrew Toles’ two-out 9th inning granny for the Dodgers in Wednesday’s nightcap in Denver capped a comeback from 6 runs down after 7 innings to beat the Rockies 10-8.
Toles’ .838 WPA is the highest since at least 1913 for a Dodger (and 14th highest for any team) in the first 25 games of a career (it was Toles’ 25th game), edging out Ed Stevens’ .831 score in 1945.
Aroldis Chapman retired his first two batters in closing out the Pirates in Wednesday’s win for the Cubs. But it was hardly a routine save as the next three batters reached, one scored, and Chapman was extended to eleven pitches before retiring Jody Mercer to end the game. Chapman’s 31 pitches in the inning are his highest total in a successful save of one inning or less.
Along the way, Chapman uncorked three wild ones (and was saved a couple more with some remarkable snags by his catcher) to become the 44th searchable pitcher to do so in an appearance of one inning or less. Fully one-third of those games have come in the last 7 seasons, including three just in the month of August.
Tonight Andrew Cashner became just the third pitcher to have a game of 6 hits, 6 runs, 6 earned runs, 6 walks, and 6 strikeouts.
Others to pull off the feat are Dave Morehead on June 10th, 1963 and Steve Carlton on June 21st 1986.
Sadly none of the three pitched exactly 6 innings.
BTW, three pitchers have also turned in an “all 7s” game.
Pete Smith on June 27th, 1994, Billy Pierce on May 3rd, 1956, and Fred Anderson on June 16th, 1915 (Federal League). Both Anderson and Pierce also pitched exactly 7 innings.
No pitcher has ever turned in an “all 8’s” or an “all 9”.
The Senators, against whom Pierce put up his 7-7-7-7-7-7 line on 5/3/56, began play that day with a record of 7-7.
With 2 doubles tonight, Abraham Almonte has a chance to become just the third player with 20+ doubles and less than 200 PAs. Almonte currently has 17 doubles in only 137 PAs.
Others to pull off the feat are Jorge Cantu in 2004 (20 in 185) and Earle Brucker in 1937 (21 in 191).
No idea what will happen to Almonte’s playing time down the stretch. Due to his PED suspension, he’s ineligible for the playoffs and the Indians just picked up Coco Crisp to replace him during the playoffs.
Jarrod Saltalamacchia is currently batting .187, but has an OPS of .699 in 251 plate appearances. How many players have garnered that many PAs, reached .700 OPS and batted under .190? Just two, in 1991 and 2001. I am going to guess (without peeking) that the answers are Rob Deer and Mark McGwire. Any takers?
That appears correct Daniel!
So here’s another Saltalamacchia trivia question.
He’s one of 7 players with a season of 40+ doubles and less than 500 PAs. Who are the other 6?
I’ll list the years and the teams (but please no peaking in the Play Index!):
1920 Yankees
1994 Expos
1994 Twins
1999 Brewers
2002 Marlins
2012 Reds
Okay David, I’ll bite. This feels like a tough one, but here are my best guesses:
1920: Tony Lazzeri (might be a little early for him)
1994 Expos: Vladimir Guerrero
1994 Twins: Kirby Puckett
1999: Greg Vaughan
2002: Jeff Conine
2012: Joey Votto (I’m pretty sure about this one)
*nervously awaits score*
It was much too early for Lazzeri. I would stick with Bob Meusel.
Votto and Meusel are correct.
Here are some hints to help with the others:
The 1994 Expos players was a fairly/somewhat controversial selection to the COG.
The 1994 Twin was a member of World Series teams with both the Twins and the Yankees.
The 1999 Brewer is 4th on Milwaukee’s all-time homer list, behind Yount, Braun, and Prince Fielder.
The 2002 Marlin was a member of the 2004 Red Sox World Series team and was known for using the phrase “Cowboy Up” and referring to his teammates as “idiots”.
Walker, Knoblauch, Burnitz, Mueller.
Walker and Knoblauch are correct, Burnitz and Mueller are incorrect.
The Marlin would be Kevin Millar, then?
Millar is correct! Interestingly, he nearly pulled the feat off two years in a row as the year before he had 39 doubles in 495 PAs.
So we’re left with the Brewer. Any guesses?
So no more guesses? Hmm…Geoff Jenkins wonders why no one remembers his career! 🙂
I have to admit that I couldn’t come up with anyone that fit the time frame so I went to their roster that season and peeked. And even tho I think I had Jenkins on my Rotisserie team a time or two I’m not sure I would have come up with him had I thought about it for the rest of the season.
Hartvig – I wouldn’t have been able to come up with Jenkins either. Unfortunately, he played on bad teams in a small market, making him easy to forget…
In their past 14 games, the Yankees have scored either 0 or 5 runs in 12 of those games (0 runs 4 times, 5 runs 8 times, and 13 and 14 runs once each).
In the 23 game stretch prior to this “streak”, the Yankees never scored 0 or 5 runs.
Hours after I posted this, the Yankees once again scored 5 runs.
Meanwhile, Aaron Judge has a chance to have the highest strikeout percentage ever for a position player with 100+ PAs.
Assuming I did the math correctly, the current record was set by Dave Duncan in 1967 with 50 Ks in 106 PAs. (47.2%). Judge currently has 35 Ks in 73 PAs (47.9%) and barring injuring, will no doubt top 100 PAs this year.
So, you’re saying that Judge is on pace to be an excellent pitching coach.
_______________
Two years after Duncan did all that striking out he made it onto this list:
Lowest batting average, min 150 PA:
.122 … Frank O’Rourke
.124 … Bill Killefer
.125 … Andy Anderson
.126 … Dave Duncan
.129 … Maury Wills
.131 … Luis Pujols
.132 … Bill Bergen
.135 … Doc Lavan
.135 … Ray Oyler
Judge gets compared a lot to Adam Dunn based on his height, his raw power, and his high strikeout rate. But Dunn debuted at age 21, putting up a 136 OPS+ and finishing 4th in the Rookie of the Year balloting. The following year he made the All-Star game. And at age 24, Dunn hit 46 home runs, drove in 102 runs, and finished 28th in MVP balloting.
Meanwhile, Judge is a 24 year old rookie, striking out at levels that are much higher than Dunn ever did (Dunn’s highest mark was 35.7% at age 31, when his skills were in decline).
The truth is that it’s VERY hard to bee successful as a tall position player. Judge is 6’7. Baseball reference only lists 36 position players 6’6 or taller. Of those 36 players, 9 had 12.5 or more WAR. The other 27 had 4.0 or less WAR.
That divide seems to show that it takes an overwhelming level of talent to succeed as a tall position player. Otherwise, the disadvantages are just too great to overcome.
And of the 9 successful tall position players, 8 of them debuted at age 22 or younger. (The exception is Tony Clark, who debuted at age 23). Again, I think this reinforces the idea that one needs an overwhelming talent level to succeed as a tall position player.
My guess is that when all is said and done, Judge will end up in that under 4.0 WAR group…
Joe Judge, height 5’8″, played first base(!) for the Senators back in their glory years, the 1920s, and struck out around 30 times a season on average.
So who’s to judge?
Seems to me that 25% reaching 12.5 WAR is an unusually high mark. The proportion for all retired position players since 1901 is just a bit more than half of that, at 13.5%.
Thanks Doug, I appreciate the context. Mostly I was struck by the “feast or famine” among the tall players. Yes, 25% have 12.5 or more WAR. But because of the divide, you could also say that 25% have 4.1 or more WAR.
We’ve got a pretty SSS (small-sample-size) to work with here.
Sure, bigger body, harder to get around on an MLB fastball.
But being 6’7″, and an elite athlete is rare, more rare than 6’6″. Anything above (or below) average drops in a gaussian curve.
So, not many of those guys to begin with.
And so, young guy, huge, athlete, in high school.
Which coach is going to get a hold of him?
Hoops (or volleyball).
Maybe football if he has the agility to be a tight end.
And if they do play hardball, they are probably slated to pitch.
Rare that the big fellas end up position players.
Damon Minor was a pitcher in college.
Twin bro Ryan played hoops, and walked away from a 2nd round NBA draft slot to try and match his bro.
_______________
Let’s not give up on Judge after a month.
Voomo @ 134:
I’m thinking of a 6’6″ outfielder who never got to the majors but made a small career for himself in the NBA. Had some shoes named after him.
He also had trouble with his golf game, as I remember.
Judge is more than just tall, he is is a giant. Just massive.
Saw him stand next to 6’4″ Justin Smoak, Toronto’s first baseman; made Smoak look like a little kid.
Aaron Judge images next to other people:
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2140824.1425745515!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_750/yankees-spring-training.jpg
http://images.hngn.com/data/images/full/89140/when-will-aaron-judge-crack-the-major-leagues.jpg
Judge now has gone 9 straight games with 2+ strikeouts. For the searchable era that’s a record, pitchers included.
Judge reminds me of Carlos Peguero (6’5″, 260 lbs), whose career totals currently show 126 whiffs in 319 PA. In his first 21 games, Peguero had 25 K’s in 70 PAs, including whiffs in 18 of the 19 games in which he had a PA.
That said, I think Judge has a better swing than Peguero who was (maybe still is) long and loopy and compounded that by swinging at everything. But, Peguero has probably hit the highest pop-up I’ve ever seen. It was headed for the seats down the first base line and the camera must have waited, seemingly frozen on those seats, for 6 or 7 seconds before the ball came down.
Brian Dozier didn’t crack the top ten home run leaders until this week. Now he’s second after hitting three more today (and six in his past four games).
On May 24th, Dozier was batting .199 with four home runs, and there was talk of him down to AAA. Now, he could become the first AL second basemen to hit 40 home runs, and it’s quite possible he could break Davey Johnson’s overall mark of 43. Dozier has hit two HRs as a DH, so he would technically need eight more from 2B to pass Johnson. While that seems a big number as I type it, he hit his last eight HR in just seven games.
Dozier is just three homers behind Mark Trumbo for the MLB lead. A few second basemen have led their league in home runs (e.g. Ryne Sandberg led the NL with 40 in 1990, and Bobby Grich tied for the AL lead in 1981 with 22). Perhaps someone can help me verify this, but it looks like Rogers Hornsby was the last 2B to lead to majors in HRs – back in 1925.
Looks like you are right about Hornsby. The only other second baseman to lead his league in HR was Nap Lajoie in 1901.
Thanks for checking that, Richard.
Dozier now has 11 home runs against the Royals this season, including nine in the their last nine meetings since the 12th of August. The Twins are 1-8 in those games and have been outscored 67-26. Four games remain in their season series.
Dozier’s 20 games hitting a home run while his team lost is tied for the 24th highest total since 1913. First place (32 games by Mark McGwire in 1999) is probably out of reach, but 25 would tie him with Sammy Sosa (2001) for 3rd spot (Sosa also has 2nd place with 27 games in 1999).
That was a four-way tie for Grich at 22 HR in a strike-shortened season, with one or two others at 21. The next bunch had 17.
Schmidt and Dawson had more circuits in the senior circuit that season, with two more NLers at 22.
With his home run tonight, Dozier ties Mark McGwire in 1999 for most home runs (26) in his team’s 52 games numbered 88 through 139.
With his first home run this season (38 dingers ago), Dozier set the career record for taters by a Senators/Twins second sacker, surpassing Rod Carew’s mark of 74.
Just wanted to note that Granderson now has 25 HR and 45 RBI. And he’s now 3/44 with 2 out and RISP.
Granderson is up to 29 HR and 56 RBI, so his ratio doesn’t look as bizarre now, but he plays on a team that seems to enjoy the feast-or-famine approach. Neil Walker has 23 HR and 55 RBI (out for the season) and Asdrubal Cabrera is at 22 HR and 55 RBI.
Number of player-seasons with at least 22 HR and fewer than 59 RBI: 52 (six this year).
Number of players with 30+ homers and fewer than 60 RBI? Zero.
The Mets have 208 HR, but only 587 RBI. I can’t seem to find the correct Play Index tool to sort teams with the fewest number of RBI and over 200 home runs. Can anyone help?
Best to use the Split Finder. The Mets and Rays (618 RBI) should both pass the current record low total for RBI in a 200 home run season.
Generated 9/23/2016.
Here’s an open question for the HHS community: how do you search for consecutive seasons in the Play Index Season Finder tool? I’m asking because Mike Trout is one triple away from five straight years with at least 100 runs, 25 doubles, 25 homers, and 5 triples.
He would become just the 12th player to tally even five total seasons with those numbers, but I don’t see how to narrow it down to a search for consecutive years. Vladimir Guerrero accomplished it from 1998-2000, but the only reason I know that is because he popped up on the regular list. Is it an option for subscribers only?
The following players have 5 or more consecutive seasons that match the criteria: Ruth, Gehrig, Klein, Foxx and Mays. Gehrig had a 12 year streak, the others each had one 5 year streak. I found the answer via the PI and an Excel spreadsheet analysis.
It can be done without being a subscriber but it is a complex procedure. Also it can be done by logging on to Fangraphs, extracting a list of all player seasons, hitting the export button to place the results into an Excel spreadsheet and start sorting and eliminating.
Also, in the AL, through September 7th:
Red Sox – 78 wins (East Division leader)
Blue Jays – 77 (WC #1)
Orioles – 76 (WC #2)
Tigers – 75
Astros – 74
Damn Yankees – 73
Royals – 72
Mariners – 71
Those (D) Yankees are closer to 1st place than they’ve been since April 27th. Have been in 4th since May. And they are not going away.
Updated AL standings, through September 28th:
Blue Jays – 87 wins (WC #1)
Orioles – 86 (WC #2)
Tigers – 85
Mariners – 84
Astros – 83 (played one more game)
Damn Yankees – 82
Royals – 81 (eliminated tonight)
That is some serious parity.
Byron Buxton, until he got sent down at the beginning of August:
218 PA
.193 / .247 / .315 / .561
Since his September callup:
27 PA
4 doubles, 4 home runs
.462 / .481 / 1.077 / 1.558
Indians have 5 players who have qualified for the batting title. Here are their respective OPS’:
.829 (Carlos Santana)
.828 (Francisco Lindor)
.827 (Mike Napoli)
.826 (Jason Kipnis)
.818 (Jose Ramirez)
But, still nobody with 115 OPS+.
The 1925 A’s are the only other team with 5 qualifiers having .800 OPS and OPS+ below 115. The difference was those A’s (who finished second) also had two qualifiers above those marks.
A recent hot streak has pushed Carlos Santana up to a 119 OPS+. So the Indians may yet avoid the “Doug Curse” . Or perhaps Doug put a reverse curse on the Indians. (and should Santana falter, Jose Ramirez is right there with a 114 OPS+).
Yeah, the Indians hitters are “hurt” by the 112 park factor. Of course, much of that is their own doing, as they’ve put up a .841 OPS at home vs .692 on the road. In fact, the difference between their home OPS and overall OPS (.841 vs .768) is the largest non-Rockies split since the 1983 Blue Jays (.852 vs .774).
The Indians pitchers, by the way, have nowhere near as extreme of a split, giving up a .733 OPS at home vs .689 on the road.
Four of five pitchers in the Indians rotation currently have 11 wins, speaking of peculiarities.
Roberto Osuna is one of 78 pitchers to accumulate 3.5 WAR by the age of 21, but he is the only one without a career start.
The Padres’ Ryan Schimpf recently got his 50th career hit. Thirty-eight of those hits have gone for extra bases. According to the team broadcasters, no other player has ever had more than 31 XBH among his first 50 career hits.
Jose Abreu is one guy with 31 XBH in his first 50 hits. I haven’t got time to do more research because I am off to vacation now for a couple of weeks.
Twins pitcher Jose Berrios’ career is off to a poor start to say the least. He’s made 11 starts (counting today) and has a 9.27 ERA.
Every start has been 6 or fewer innings with 2 or more earned runs allowed. The PI only shows one pitcher who started their career with a longer streak of starts of 6 or fewer innings and 2 or more earned runs allowed (14 games). Plus one who has a streak equal to Berrios’ current streak.
I also noticed that there’s someone who started their career with 46 starts of allowing 2 or more earned runs. No one else has a streak longer than 22 such starts at the beginning of their career.
Here’s that list.
Quite remarkable that there would be such a difference between the top of the list and everyone else.
Generated 9/12/2016.
Take a look at Sweetland’s SO/W ratio (or W/SO in his case). Sweetland broke his streak in 1929 with a 5.11 ERA, good for a 102 ERA+!!! (obviously no fun as a left-hander pitching at the Baker Bowl, with only 5 southpaws, incl. Sweetland, recording 300 career IP there).
Thanks Doug! That difference between first and second is what caught my eye as well. Sweetland is best known for having the highest single-season ERA in MLB history: 7.71 in 1930. Interestingly, he started that season with a complete game, 3 hit shutout.
Adrian Beltre now has
29 HR
96 RBI
.299 BA
If he gets 30/100/.300… the players who have done that at age 37+ :
.370 / 46 / 110 … Bonds
.362 / 45 / 101 … Bonds
.341 / 41 / 137 … Ruth
.327 / 47 / 118 … Aaron
.324 / 37 / 145 … Edgar Martinez
.315 / 32 / 110 … Ortiz*
.309 / 30 / 103 … Ortiz
.306 / 31 / 102 … McGriff
.305 / 44 / 121 … Galarraga
.301 / 34 / 104 … Ruth
Only one third baseman has come close:
.293 / 35 / 113 … Schmidt
That’s a very light list, especially when you take into account stadium and chemical influences.
Beltre has 5.6 WAR (on pace for 6.3).
Third basemen, WAR leaders, age 37+ :
6.1 … Schmidt
5.6 … Beltre*
5.0 … Brooks Robinson
4.5 … Jackie Robinson
4.2 … Wade Boggs
3.7 … Lave Cross
3.4 … Luke Appling
3.4 … Boggs
3.3 … Al Dark
3.3 … Pete Rose
3.3 … Graig Nettles
3.3 … Tony Fernandez
That was Jackie’s final season, his 2nd season as a primary 3B, and his highest Rfield of any year.
Appling was 41, and in his only year playing the hot corner (69 3B / 62 SS).
That was the last of 4 seasons at third for Pete Rose.
The stats say he was a great outfielder.
His last three years in LF he had Rfield of: 12,20,20.
His 4 years at 3rd: -12, 2, -11, -11
In Rose’s last year in LF, Dan Driessen was the 3B, and Foster and Griffey were up-and-comers who were not-quite full time. In ’75, Driessen was moved to a utility role, Foster and Griff had big years, and the Reds won 108 games. Guess Pete’s D didn’t hurt them too much.
Edgar’s 145 RBI is the best of any player aged 37+. That season, Galarraga’s, Ruth’s, and the two by Bonds all featured 100+ runs. The only other player that old with 100 runs, 100 RBI and 30 homers is … Moises Alou in 2004 (he hit .293), not someone I was likely to have come up with in my first 20 (or more) guesses.
I mentioned in post #144 how closely bunched the Indians PA leaders are in OPS+. Same thing for the Yankees. Here are the OPS+ for their 6 players with 440+ PAs:
McCann: 96
Gregourius: 94
Headley: 92
Castro: 91
Gardner: 91
Ellsbury: 90
(of course, this is partially the result of trading away Beltran).
So I’m wondering if this has happened before? Have the Yankees ever had a season in which all of their players who qualified for the batting title had an OPS+ under 100? Or have they ever had so many of them before?
(btw, Headley currently has 475 PAs so will probably qualify for the batting title; McCann has 446 so he’s a bit more iffy; the other 4 have already qualified).
The answer is no. The Yankees have not had a season without at least one qualified batter reaching 100 OPS+, so this likely will be the first.
The 1914 team had one such player and nine Yankee teams have had only two, including the 2013 club and the world championship team in 1949.
Thanks Doug. Obviously McCann and Gregourius have the best shot of topping 100 OPS+. But they’ve both slumped in the second half and McCann isn’t a lock to have sufficient PAs.
The 1949 Yankees are unusual–they had a position player aggregate OPS+ of 108, but 7 position players with between 103 and 116 games, and between 344 and 443 PA. Plus DiMaggio, who was out for half the year. I see only four qualifying players–Henrich and Berra, (148 and 111, respectively) and Rizzuto and Coleman (88 and 92).
With all that they were second in the league in Runs, and second in ERA
Last night, the White Sox scored in every inning in which they were allowed to bat in a 9-inning game. That was the second time they had done that (May 1949 against Boston), and about the 20th since 1900. Only two or three teams (all NL) have done it on the road.
I was at Busch Stadium watching McGwire the night in 1998 that the Royals scored in all 8 of their innings in Kansas City.
Somewhat related, the last time a team had a “full” box score (all 9 starters with a run, hit and RBI) was the A’s in 2013 against the Twins (Sep 11). Somewhat surprisingly, the frequency of this oddity has not increased with the advent of the DH, to wit:
– pre-DH: 28 times in 60 seasons (1913-72) – avg. 47% of seasons
– DH era: 18 times in 44 seasons (1973-2016) – avg. 41% of seasons (but many more games in these seasons)
Twice in same season: 1931 Yankees
Twice against in same season: 1930 Phillies
Once for and once against in same season: 2004 Tigers
The Brewers are on pace for an all-time record number of strikeouts as a team, with 1374 through Tuesday. However, they are also first in the majors in steals by a wide margin with 160.
Has any team ever lead the ML in both categories? They’re also second in walks, behind only the Cubs.
Since 1901, it’s happened only twice before, in 1938 (Yankees) and 1948 (Dodgers).
Carlos Santana has:
30 HR
89 BB
90 SO
So, a chance to have more BB than SO.
That done with 30+ HR has happened 319 times.
However, Santana also has a .353 OBP.
Lowest OBP with the above criteria:
.347 … Andy Pafko
.350 ,,, Ernie Banks
.355 … Ian Kinsler
.356 … Roger Maris
.358 … Larry Berra
.359 … Viagra Palmeiro
.361 … Vern Stephens
.362 … Ted Kluszewski
.362 … Carl Yastrzemski
.364 … Roy Campanella
Pafko was traded in that season (1951) as was another 30 home run hitter that year, Gus Zernial (in a 3-team trade that ended up being Zernial for Minoso for the White Sox). Only Goose Goslin (1930) and Hank Sauer (1949) were previously traded during a 30 home run season.
Fred McGriff and Mark Teixeira are the only players to have that happen twice in their careers, with Tex doing so in consecutive years (2007 and 2008).
Chris Archer goes for loss #19 tonight. Last pitcher to lose 19 games in a season was Darrell May in 2004. Last to lost 20+ was Mike Maroth in 2003.
At the same time in which wins and losses have been recognized as a generally useless way to evaluate pitchers, teams have been reluctant to let their starters cross the 20 loss barrier. Will be interesting to see how the Rays handle Archer in his last few starts.
BTW, Archer currently leads the AL in K’s and losses. Has that combo happened before? Actually as I typed the question, I thought of Nolan Ryan, and sure enough, he lead the league in K’s and losses in 1976.
Others to lead in SO and L’s in same season.
– Andy Benes (1994), the only year he led in either category
– Phil Niekro (1977), the only year he led in SO
– Sam Jones (1955), the only year he led in L
The only other Rays’ pitcher to lead in losses was Tanyon Sturtze in 2002. An Oriole pitcher has led the AL in losses 6 times in the last 15 years, including 5 times in 6 years (2006-11).
His teammate Bob Knepper prevented him from loss-leading in 1987 (when Ryan also led in ERA).
The Express
The Knep-mess
8 – 16 … 2.76 … 270 K … 11.5 K/9 … 1.139 WHIP … 5.4 WAR
8 – 17 … 5.27 … 076 K … 03.8 K/9 … 1.576 WHIP .. -1.0 WAR
Albert Pujols needs one more double to reach 600 for his career and join David Ortiz as 500 HR hitters reaching 600 doubles this season. But, doubles have been hard to come by this year for Albert, going more than two weeks without a two-bagger three times this season, including a month without one from July 3 to Aug 3.
Before this season, the only 500/600 players were Hank Aaron (1974) and Barry Bonds (2007).
I didn’t put the jinx on Pujols. He came through with the milestone double off Toronto’s R.A. Dickey in the first inning of tonight’s game.
Jose Altuve is six RBI, four hits, one home run, one double, and one run scored away from a remarkable season. This would give him at least 200 hits, 100 runs scored, 100 RBI, 40 doubles, 25 homers and 25 steals.
Number of players with 200/100/100/25 HR in a year: 105
Number with 200/100/100/40 2B: 99
Number with 200/100/100/40/25 HR: 45
Number with 200/100/100/25 SB: 21
Number with 200/100/100/40/25 SB: 11
Number with 200/100/100/25 HR/25 SB: 6
Number with 200/100 R/40/25 HR/25 SB: 3
Number with 200/100 R/100 RBI/40/25 HR/25 SB: 2
Doesn’t diminish the feat in any way but there are couple more seasons than just two (H/R/RBI/HR/2B/SB).
– Jacoby Ellsbury (2011) 212/119/105/32/46/39
– Alfonso Soriano (2002) 209/128/102/39/51/41
– Larry Walker (1997) 208/143/130/49/46/33
– Ellis Burks (1996) 211/142/128/40/45/32
Honorable mention to Darin Erstad, one double short in 2000.
Burks and Ellsbury are the only ones I found who did all of that with at least five triples; Altuve has exactly five 3B.
Erstad would have qualified, and Chuck Klein did have 15 triples (!) in 1932, along with 50 doubles and 38 homers (plus a gratuitous 137 RBI, 152 runs and 226 hits), but could only muster 20 steals. What a quitter.
Finally, Hanley Ramirez reached all of these milestones in 2007, except he somehow drove in just 81 runs with 83 extra-base hits (215 overall). That’s the highest total of RBI in a season, where RBI <= minimum 50 XBH. Ramirez met this criteria three straight years to begin his career.
Curtis Granderson had 84 extra-base hits (including 23 homers and 23 triples) with only 74 RBI in 2007; he makes the list again this year with his aforementioned peculiar season.
Grady Sizemore had 92 XBH (including 28 homers and 11 triples) in 2006, but a mere 76 runs batted in.
Thanks, Doug; I couldn’t finagle the Play Index to show all of those seasons.
Altuve got the double and run scored last night, with another hit to boot…he’s at 198 now.
Yanks have an excellent chance of doing something they haven’t done since 1913. That was the last season in which their leader in position player WAR had less than 3.5 WAR (exempting the ’81 strike season).
Their current leader is Brett Gardner with 3.0 WAR. If he plays in the rest of the games, then he’s on pace to finish with only 3.3 WAR.
Trea Turner’s 2016, adjusted to 162 games:
125 R
242 H
36 Dubs
16 Trips
25 Homers
89 RBI
72/11 SB
388 Total Bases
.349 / .369 / .558 / .927
That there is Ty Cobb territory.
__________________________________
The only thing that needs improvement:
22 / 134 …BB/SO
Turner’s been great, but yeah, that K/W ratio is worrisome. There are only 100 qualified seasons with a K/W ratio of 5:1 or greater. Only 3 of those seasons resulted in an OPS+ of 120 or greater:
Alfonso Soriano: 129 in 2002
Tony Armas: 126 in 1981
Starling Marte: 121 in 2013
Turner currently has a 6:1 ratio and a 142 OPS+. History shows that that combination doesn’t fit together over a full season.
Min 250 PA
SO 6x BB
Sorted by OPS:
.927 … Trea Turner*
.893 … Rex Hudler
.789 … Butch Hobson
.775 … Josh Rutledge
.749 … Juan Samuel
.726 … Mike Marshall
.710 … J.P. Arencibia
.680 … Angel Berroa
.606 … Art Fletcher
.564 … Boss Schmidt
James Shields
(connected to Trea Turner through multiple Wil Myers trades)
has been a complete disaster for the White Sox since being traded in June:
6.94 ERA
1.729 WHIP
For the whole season, he has
163 IP
1.604 WHIP
That bad of a WHIP with so many IP has been done 241 times since 1901. But in the last decade, with lower IP for starters, not so much.
Worst WHIP in a qualifying season since 2007:
1.765 … Ian Snell
1.760 … Scott Olson
1.674 … Brandon Backe
1.674 … Ricky Romero
1.667 … Livan Hernandez
1.660 … Nate Robertson
1.630 … Kenny Rogers
1.623 … Kip Wells
1.622 … Kevin MIllwood
1.613 … Ubaldo
1.606 … Daniel Cabrera
1.604 … Bad Game James*
And most of those are from ’07 or ’08
Same list since 2009:
1.674 … Ricky Romero
1.613 … Ubaldo
1.604 … Bad Game James*
1.601 … Joe Saunders
1.585 … Edinson Volquez
1.565 … Paul Maholm
1.563 … Livan
1.563 … Brad Penny
1.557 … Kyle Davies
______________________
Since 2009, his 5.84 is the worst in a qualifying season
5.84 … Bad Game James*
5.77 … Ricky Romero
5.73 … Luke (make me a reliever) Hochevar
5.71 … Edinson
5.53 … Jeremy Bonderman
5.44 … Livan
5.40 … Ubaldo
5.40 … Edinson (2016*)
_______________________________________
And his era+ is 69, due to some pitcher-friendly home ballparks. Again, since 2009 in a qualifying season:
60 … Edinson (2013)
68 … Tim Lincecum (2012) (what happened to you?)
69 … Bad Game James*
70 … Saunders
72 … Ubaldo
73 … Hochevar
73 … Romero
74 … Ervin Santana
74 … J. Hellickson
One thing I’ve never understood is how many teams simply release a veteran player who is underperforming. There are so many bad contracts out there, surely a GM can find another GM in a similar situation who would be happy to trade.
For example, the Athletics released Billy Butler, eating about $12 million.
The Pale Hose are on the hook for $22 million over the next two years for Shields (Padres are paying the other half). Surely there was something there for both clubs.
No, the Sox dont need another DH, and Oakland doesnt want an SP who might have lost his way, but neither needs to light money on fire, either.
That’s just an example.
I understand why Oakland wanted to move on from Butler, but it’s inconceivable how a small-market team could make that move. Now the Yankees can have him next year for the league minimum. !
Shields has had a VERY strange season.
On the one hand, he’s made 17 quality starts, including 6 in a row as a member of the White Sox. There are lots of pitchers having decent seasons who have a similar number.
On the other hand, he’s also had 8 “disaster starts” which I’m defining as 5 or fewer innings pitched, 6 or more earned runs allowed. That number of disaster starts in a single season is the tied for the second most ever. (someone had 9 in 2000 but without a PI subscription, I’m not sure who).
Highest ERA with at least 17 Quality Starts:
5.84 … Shields*
5.51 … Jason Jennings
5.44 … Livan
5.41 … Kirk Rueter
5.38 … Aaron Sele
5.32 … Jeff Suppan
5.30 … Pat Rapp
____________________
Highest WHIP
1.630 … Juan Nieves
1.615 … Waite Hoyt
1.604 … Shields*
1.597 … Phil Niekro
1.595 … Livan
1.592 … Bump Hadley
1.590 … Rick Mahler
1.588 … Doug Davis
1.587 … Bill Bonham
1.585 … Chan Ho Park
1.583 … Bill Bonham
Bonham did that in back-to-back years wile being an almost league average pitcher.
And on his bad days, Chan Ho must have had a rot of… never mind.
John Danks was underperforming when the Sox were overperforming. Then they released him, and the Sox have underperformed the rest of the season. There’s a chance they could salvage something, but they were 13 over .500 at one point this season (and 11 over when they released him); they just won their last two (before Saturday night’s game) to pull back to 3 under.
Update on Trea Turner after his 3-4, 2 HR, 1 SB effort.
He’s played 59 games.
Here’s his current numbers, extrapolated over 162:
129 R
247 H
35 Dubs
16 Trips
30 HR
93 RBI
74/10 SB
406 Total Bases
.356 / .377 / .585 / .962
9.88 WAR
Some historical significance of what Turner is doing…
He has 265 PA.
Likely to get another 50.
But, min 265 PA
Age 23 or younger,
Highest BA
Since 1946:
.359 … Pujols
.358 … Alex Rod
.356 … Turner*
.347 … Mauer
.346 … Tommy Davis
.345 … Mays
.343 … Pinson
.343 … Mattingly
.342 … Cano
.342 … Matt Kemp
.340 … Kaline
____________________
He has 27 steals and a .962 OPS
Same criteria as above, with
highest OPS with 20+ SB:
1.046 .. Kal Daniels
.988 … Trout
.963 … Trout
.962 … Turner*
.959 … Canseco
.948 … Hanley Ram
.947 … Strawberry
.943 … Alex Rod
.921 … Cesar Cedeno
.919 … Alex Rod
.913 … Cesar Cedeno
On top of all that, Turner also seamlessly transitioned from a middle infielder in the minors to centerfield in the majors. He’s not great out there but with his speed he’s above average. The only thing that gives me pause, Voomo, is that Trea has only drawn 9 walks thus far in over 250 PA. Not a concern when you’re hitting .350 but something to watch down the line.
Turner has double the WAR of Bryce Harper right now.
Hard to know what the walks and SO mean.
In the minors he struck out once every 5 PA.
Walked once every 10.
But right, who cares about walks when you’re doing this leading off the game:
.471 / .491 / .745 / 1.236
Leading off any inning:
.417 / .429 / .667 / 1.095
Putting the first pitch in play:
.387 / .387 / .645 / 1.032
1-0 Count:
.636 / .583 / 1.091 / 1.674
2-0 Count:
.692 / .692 / 1.231 / 1.923
Full count:
.405 / .488 / .568 / 1.056
The Orioles beat the St. Petersburg baseball team 2-1 last night.
Again, all of their runs came via the long ball.
Anyone know of a handy way to search for how many times they’ve done that this year… and if they’ve set some kind of historical record?
Just scanning the boxscores every day it sure feels like an oddly-regular event.
And they have:
6 triples !
17 steals !
and are 13th in both SH and SF
_________________________________
2nd Basemen with more home runs than walks:
39/23 … Soriano
36/33 … Soriano
31/17 … Odor*
28/19 … Jorge Cantu
25/24 … Jose Lopez
24/19 … Johnathan Schoop*
21/18 … Alexi Ramirez
19/10 … Carlos Baerga
16/09 … Rex Hudler
16/13 … Schoop
15/09 … Schoop
There are almost no good+ players at C or LF in the AL…
Wins Above Average by Position, American League
Catcher:
0.7 … KCR
0.3 … NYY
0.2 … TEX
0.1 … OAK
Left Field
0.5 … NYY
0.2 … CHW
0.1 … BOS
0.1 … CLE
Meanwhile, in the NL, right field is where the “problem” is.
1.0 … MIA
0.7 … PIT
0.7 … STL
0.3 … SFG/COL
BTW, Cleveland has used 8 different left fielders this year, none of whom has more than 184 PAs. The cast of characters include:
Two players who missed part of the season due to PED suspensions (Abraham Almonte and Marlon Byrd)
Two players acquired in mid-season trades (Coco Crisp and Ben Guyer)
Their current starting 3rd baseman who continues to lead them in left fielder PAs months after shifting to 3rd base (Jose Ramirez)
One player who’s out for the season with an injury (Michael Brantley)
One player whose played far more in Center than in Left (Rajai Davis)
One player who played briefly for Cleveland before being sold to the Red Sox. Less than a month later, Cleveland re-acquired him from the Red Sox via the waiver wire (Micheal Martinez)
And now I’m seeing that Cleveland is hardly unusual in this regard. Texas has used 10 different left fielders and the Angels have used 9 different ones with none having more than 144 PAs.
In fact, the only teams with regular left fielders (400+ PAs as a left fielder) are the Yankees (Gardner), the White Sox (Cabrera), the Royals (Gordon), the Blue Jays (Saunders), and the Tigers (Upton).
The Dodgers have used 12 players in LF.
10 as starters.
Their leader is a 2nd baseman (Kendrick).
Only one player has started more than 74 games at ANY outfield position. That is their resident Joc, and he’s at just 105.
The Mets also have only one player with 75 games played (not starts) at any one of the outfield positions.
Just did an eyeball check, but it would appear that only the 1936 Yankees and 1948 Indians won a pennant with just one player having 75 games at one of the outfield positions. That outfielder on the ’36 Yanks was George Selkirk, as DiMaggio’s rookie season was split between left (64), center (55) and right (20).
The Cardinals’ opening day starter in Left Field got his second plate appearance of the season on June 18th.
The man who replaced him in left that game is currently disabled.
They seem to have only had 7 left fielders this season (so far).
Russell Martin has a 1.8 WAR for the Blue Jays, and Michael Saunders is at 1.6 while playing the majority of his games (102 of 119) in left.
Martin’s Rfield scores seem to be strongly skewed to the league he’s playing in. For his career, he’s got 59 Rfield in the NL, but -3 in the AL. His last 5 years look like this:
– 2012 NYY -6
– 2013 PIT +16
– 2014 PIT +12
– 2015 TOR -1
– 2016 TOR -3
Those season-to-season changes, from 2012 to 2013 and 2014 to 2015, are pretty substantial. It would seem that defensive success as an AL catcher requires a different approach from what works in the NL, and Martin hasn’t made that adjustment (either that or the defensive prowess of catchers as a whole has been much better in the AL than in the NL).
Martin did have a +7 Rfield in 2001, his first season with the Yankees. The drop-off may be tied to an increase in his passed balls; 19 last year to lead the majors, and 9 more this year (matching his 2012 total). He only had a combined 7 in his two Pirate seasons.
Also, last season he threw out an MLB-best 44 percent of would-be base stealers, but that has plummeted to 17% this year, with a league-worst 53 steals against him.
Do those numbers enter prominently into the Rfield equation, Doug? I’m always a little mystified how they calculate it.
There’s a great book called BIg Data Baseball by Travis Sawchik which documents how the Pirates transformed their team by embracing data analysis. They deliberately targeted Martin as a free agent because of his skill for pitch framing. Their analyses showed how valuable/important this skill is and they knew that it was an underrated ability…hence they could get Martin for less than what he was truly worth (critically important for a small market team like the Pirates). Pitch framing, by the way, isn’t included in the WAR calculations so my guess is that Martin’s defensive contributions aren’t completely accounted for.
Actually pitch framing is included in Rfield for catchers, per this extract from B-R.
Fielding Runs: Defensive Runs Saved
Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) is the most sophisticated public system available. It includes 8 factors:
– Fielding Range Plus/Minus Runs Saved based on BIS-trained scorer observations and batted ball timing to determine the velocity of each batted ball.
– Outfield arm runs saved based on exact counts of baserunner advancements and kills and the velocity of the hit ball.
– Infielder double plays based on opportunities and rates they were turned based also on batted ball velocity.
– Good play-bad play values which include 28 positive play types. For example: HR-saving catches, backing up a play, blocking a pitch in the dirt, and 54 misplays like missing the cutoff man, failing to anticipate the wall and allowing extra bases, not covering a base, pulling a foot off the bag, etc…
– Bunt Fielding
– Catcher SB/CS data (which is tweaked by the pitchers caught)
– Pitcher SB/CS data (which is tweaked by the catchers behind the plate)
– Catcher handling of the pitching staff via things like pitch framing and pitch calling
See the Fielding Bible Volume III for a full run-down of the system.
I’m not sure Doug. I found a couple of recent articles that say BR doesn’t include pitch framing.
Fangraphs definitely doesn’t include pitch framing and has him at +31 runs saved during his career.
Baseball Prospectus definitely does include pitch framing and has him +236 runs saved during his career (no, that’s not a typo!).
Baseball Reference, meanwhile, has him at +56 runs saved which is much closer to Fangraphs than it is to Baseball Prospectus.
This WAR comparison chart says B-Ref, since it uses DRS for fielding, does in fact include pitch framing in its catcher defensive number. (Look under “Fielding Details”). That page hasn’t been updated in a couple years, though.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained_comparison.shtml
I had also bookmarked a comment from a 2014 BBThinkFactory thread where a poster quotes directly from The Fielding Bible in regards to this issue:
[emphasis mine]
“From the Fielding Bible website:
How do you measure Adjusted Earned Runs Saved?
Much more than simple Catcher ERA, Adjusted Earned Runs Saved accounts for the quality of the pitching staff the catcher works with. There are still many other variables in play and some noise in the results, so we regress the final data to a more reasonable scale.“
I think what they’re doing is folding pitch framing and game calling into a better version of cERA. I bolded that part because it appears whatever credit these catchers are getting isn’t much. Aren’t/weren’t Jonathan Lucroy and Jose Molina considered the best pitch framers in the game? Look at their Rfield totals. Lucroy is only +11 over six seasons and Molina was -9 Rfield over his last five seasons before retirement. So, if they’re getting any credit for framing, it’s not much.
Well that beats the Indians whose leader in outfield games started is Lonnie Chisenhall with 92 (91 in right, 1 in center).
I was just looking at Steve Rodriguez’ stats. In mid-September, 17 HR and 51 RBI don’t jump out at you, but he’s done so in only 260 AB. That led me to note that he’s actually played in 128 G, so barely 2 AB / G. Then I saw that 2014 was even odder…only 224 AB in 139 G (1.6 AB / G). I haven’t dug further, but it seems very unusual for a utility player / defensive replacement to get in so many G. He’s started 52 G, and at six different positions, so he’s entered a game in-progress 76 times (after doing so 105 times last year).
JDV – I think you mean Sean Rodriguez. The only Steve Rodriguez got 46 PAs for Boston and Detroit in 1995.
Of course, I have to admit that I’ve never heard of Sean Rodriguez before, even though he’s in his 9th major league season.
Sean Rodriguez
___________________
Fewest PA, minimum 130 games played:
129 … Jerry Martin
180 … Mike Squires
206 … Del Unser
223 … Rich Reese
240 … Sean Rodriguez (2015)
244 … Ryan McGuire
246 … Quinton McCracken
252 … Nate Schierholtz
255 … Pepe Frias
262 … Willie Harris
265 … Tommy Harper
267 … Mark Sweeney
268 … Skip Schumaker
268 … Rowland Office
278 … Wes Helms
278 … Wes Helms (yes, twice)
284 … Greg Gross
286 … Daryl Boston
287 … Abraham Nunez
288 … John Vander Wal
____________________________
Jerry Martin was an outfielder, who performed PR and LIDR duties, mostly for Greg Luzinski (144 G / 61 CG).
Martin appeared in 59 games with zero PA.
Most Games Played (non-pitcher), with more Games than Plate Appearances:
130 … Martin
107 … Tom Hutton
106 … Jack Reed
105 … Chuck Diering
105 … Gene Stephens
104 … Mike Squires
102 … Bobby Clark
99 … Dave Collins
98 … Sammy Esposito
98 … Ross Moschitto (28 PA – LIDR for The Mick)
98 … Mike Hegan
95 … John McDonald
95 … Mike Jorgensen
94 … Charles Gipson
94 … Cesar Geronimo
92 … Herb Washington (0 PA)
92 … Tim Harkness
91 … Rafael Belliard
90 … Matt Alexander (47 PA)
I am amazed that I haven’t heard of Ross Moschitto before this. 1965 was around the apex of my early fascination with baseball and “my” team at the time was still the Yankees (since my dad had no interest in sports and my brother was 8 years older than I and only interested in cars and girls at the time I had no one to tell me that once you pick a team you stay loyal to it for the rest of your life even if they never send you so much as a thank you note. So when I started to get interested in sports around age 6 in the early 60’s I liked the winners- the Yankees, the Green Bay Packers, the Boston Celtics &-for reasons I cannot explain- the Bruins. My switch to the Tigers came about over a couple of years once the Yankees fell on hard times.). All we had in those days were the box scores in the newspapers, the Game of the Week on Saturday (often missed because we were outside actually playing baseball) and the Minnesota Twins radio broadcasts (a treasure I didn’t come to fully appreciate until later years).
But that I don’t remember him from the box scores can only mean that when the Yankee fortunes went south so did my loyalty, much quicker than I recall.
Seems that Moschitto inherited his role on the Yankees from Jack Reed, who was a late inning defensive replacement outfielder and pinch-runner for three seasons (1961-63). Both played only for the Yankees but, unlike Moschitto who never started a game, Reed had 18 outfield starts (and 18 CGs) among his 191 career games.
Being a Minnesotan (I think you mentioned that in the past), you might possibly remember Bill Tuttle who finished his career with the Twins in the early 60s and ranks second to Moschitto for the seasonal record most games played in the field without a PA (see list below @214).
Thank you for this list. Not nearly as unusual as I had thought. And yes I was mistaken about Rodriguez’ first name. Steve was an Olympian. I remember his USA card from back then.
Also, most games played in a season with zero PA, non-pitchers, excl. PR only appearances.
Generated 9/20/2016.
The number 2 guy on the list, Tuttle, was LIDR to Harmon Killebrew. Killer would come out, Lenny Green would move from CF to LF, Tuttle would take CF.
So that year, Killer led the league with 48 HR, and played only 71 complete games. 73 including his few times at 1B.
The amazing play index does not appear to have a search mechanism for that detail.
It looks like Killebrew played 71 CG that year, including his starts at 1B. There were 81 games in which he started and did not finish. He PH in 2 games and played in 1 game from the 2nd to 8th innings.
The PI can be used to determine a player’s CG and partial games. Use the Batting Game Finder and run it for Started and Finished Game for Most Matching Games in a Season and again for Game Started and did not Finish Game. Run the PI for 1 year at a time.
Reply to my post #268. There’s an easier way, I’ll explain after I eat my lunch. First things first y’know.
Reply to my post #269.
Open the PI and type in the name of the player you’re searching.
Click on the Batting Game Finder.
Follow the procedure of my post #268 but you do not have to run 1 year at a time, do them all at once.
Richard Chester,
What I meant was that I dont think there’s a way to search for
Most HR
in fewest number of CG played.
Killer’s CG stats are easy enough to see right on his player page.
That 1983 Season from Mike Squires saw him play 122 games (450 1-3 innings) at first base — only 27 games started. But since fielding percentage titles were based on games played, his 515-40-2 (.996) was good enough to win it [Cecil Cooper had 1452 PO (3) to lead the league]. Tom Paciorek led the Sox with 66 starts at 1B (Greg Walker had 57, and Greg Luzinski had 2 while getting ready for the World Series which had no DH). The Sox had only 62 complete games from their first basemen (and 34 from their pitchers).
Squires played one game at 3B that season and 13 games at the hot corner the next year, quite an accomplishment for a left-handed thrower. The only other left-hander of the live ball era with more than one game at 2B, 3B or SS is … Don Mattingly with 3 games at 3B in 1986.
Adam Wainwright now has
1.0 Pitching WAR
0.8 Batting WAR
His 4 RBI last night give him 18 on the season, the most by a Pitcher since Gary Peters’ 19 in 1971.
Fergie Jenkins’ 20 in 1969 is the record for the Division era.
Wainwright has 65 PA
Peters had 107
Fergie 132.
_____________
Most RBI by a Pitcher, all-time, in less than 75 PA;
18 … Waino*
18 … Schoolboy Rowe
15 … Tommy Byrne
15 … Micah Owings
_______________________
Pitchers with more Batting WAR than Pitching WAR (min. 1 WAR of each).
– Johnny Lindell (1953)
– Early Wynn (1953)
– Bob Lemon (1947)
– Red Lucas (1930, 1933)
– Red Ruffing (1931)
– Sloppy Thurston (1927)
– Al Orth (1907)
There are 40 seasons since 1901 with a pitcher recording 1 Batting WAR and less than 1 Pitching WAR, most recently these players.
– Travis Wood (2014)
– Mike Leake (2010, 2012)
– Dontrelle Willis (2007)
– Jason Marquis (2005)
– Mike Hamption (2001, 2002)
– Livan Hernandez (2001)
But, between Livan and Gary Peters in 1971, there is only one such season, by Fernando Valenzuela in 1990.
Most seasons with 1 Batting WAR and less Pitching WAR are three by Red Ruffing and Chubby Dean. Dean is one of a small group of players since 1901 with 150 games pitching and 150 games at another position:
P/C – none
P/1B – Chubby Dean
P/2B – none
P/3B – Bucky Walters
P/SS – Bob Smith
P/LF – Babe Ruth
P/CF – Johnny Cooney, Hal Jeffcoat
P/RF – Babe Ruth, Smoky Joe Wood
Russell Martin and Michael Saunders, the two Canadians on the Blue Jays, both homered in the same inning on Tuesday. It was the second time this season that that had happened. Martin hit his 20th to make the two the first Canadian teammates to each hit 20 home runs in a season.
Another Blue Jay, B.J. Upton, has hit 20 home runs this season as has his brother Justin. They also did that in 2011, so now join the Boones as the only brothers to do so twice. Other brothers to hit 20 homers in same season.
– 2016: Kyle/Corey Seager (probably the first of several times)
– 2002,2003: Aaron/Bret Boone
– 1973: Carlos/Lee May
– 1941: Joe/Vince DiMaggio
– 1925: Bob/Irish Meusel
Any others I missed?
Dom DiMaggio’s best season for HR was 14 in 1942 before he joined the service.
Felipe is the only Alou brother with a 20-HR season; Bengie (2009) and Yadier (2012) Molina both have 20-HR seasons, but not in the same year. Billy Ripken and Garth Iorg each had 20 HR in their career, which is more than Tommie Aaron , Dane Iorg, or Ken Brett ever had.
Stephen (21) and J.D. (19) Drew came close in 2008. J.D. had five 20 HR seasons, but that was the only one for Stephen.
Honorable mention to the Waner brothers. Lloyd had 27 lifetime HR’s, and 118 Triples. Paul (Big Poison) 113 HR and 191 Triples (and 605 2B). In 1929, Paul had 73 EBH (43/15/15) while Lloyd led the league in triples (20)
J.A. Happ improved to 20-4 last night, in his 30th start of the season. At this juncture, he’s won two-thirds of his starts without a complete game, something no starting pitcher has yet accomplished in a qualified season. With two more starts likely, he’ll need to win both (and complete neither) to maintain that distinction.
Happ had win no. 21 in his sights on Monday, but the Toronto bullpen coughed it up big time, allowing a 5-run Yankee comeback in the 9th.
Tanaka just gave up 4 home runs in the same innings to the Rays! He’s now surrendered 8 home runs this year to the Rays but only 1 to the rest of the AL East. (5 starts against the Rays, 7 against the other teams).
This is not an oddity from this season, but is unique:
Hal Hudson, who died this summer, is the only pitcher to have a season with exactly 1 BF and more than 0.1 IP (he forced a GIDP for the CHW in 1953).
WAR leaders (non-pitcher) since 2010:
48.1 … Mike Trout
46.2 … Rob Cano
45.2 … Adrian Beltre
43.0 … Migueal Cabrera
38.4 … Joey Votto
35.8 … Andrew McCutchen
35.4 … Ian Kinsler
34.7 … Dustin Pedroia
34.6 … Evan Longoria
34.4 … Jose Bautista
33.9 … Ben Zobrist
33.0 … Buster Posey
32.5 … Jason Heyward
32.1 … Josh Donaldson
31.8 … Ryan Braun
___________________________
Since 2010, ages 31+
45.2 … Adrian Beltre
25.5 … David Ortiz
22.0 … Ian Kinsler
21.9 … Chase Utley
20.6 … Ben Zobrist
20.0 … Albert Pujols
19.4 … Jose Bautista
Jon Gray struck out 10 in a 4 inning effort last night.
That has been done 5 times (since 1913), all in the last 4 years:
2016-09-23 … Jon Gray
2015-06-02 … Noah Syndergaard
2014-04-23 … Michael Wacha
2014-04-10 … Danny Salazar (3.2)
2013-09-22 … Felix Hernandez
Interesting that will all the striking out lately that no one has broken Reggie’s all-time career record.
You have to be really good and healthy and popular for a long, long time to get there.
2597 … Reggie Jackson
2548 … Jim Thome
2379 … Adam Dunn
2306 … Sammy Sosa
2287 … Alex Rodriguez
2003 … Andres Galarraga
__________________________
Using Bill James’ Projection Tool, here are the active players who have a shot:
Current / Projected
1631 / 2156 … Mark Reynolds
1558 / 2352 … Melvin Upton
1508 / 1961 … Miguel Cabrera
1360 / 2098 … Matt Kemp
1356 / 2447 … Justin Upton
973 / 1997 … Giancarlo (injuries skew his numbers down)
973 / 2217 … Giancarlo (using 3 healthy years as baseline)
865 / 2026 … Chris Carter
807 / 1848 … Freddie Freeman
778 / 2043 … Mike Trout
______________________________
Justin Upton has been healthy, he’s a corner outfielder now in the DH league, and has 5 more guaranteed contract years.
Good for Mark Trumbo!
Looks like he’s cashing in this winter.
Plenty of GMs out there who salivate over the first stat while disregarding the 2nd.
Lowest OBP in a 45+ HR season:
.312 … Mark Trumbo*
.318 … Jose Canseco
.328 … Andre Dawson
.339 … Ryan Howard
.342 … Richie Sexton
.343 … Kong
.345 … John Bench
.347 … Greg Vaughn
.347 … Andruw Jones
.349 … Killer
Oh!
Congratulations also to Khris Davis and Todd Frazier.
Lowest OBP in a 39+ HR season:
.300 … Tony Armas
.304 … Juan Gone
.305 … Todd Frazier* (39)
.306 … Khris Davis* (40)
.307 … Tony Batista
.312 … Dick Stuart
.312 … Mark Trumbo*
Kershaw now has 142 IP
Lowest WHIP, min 140 IP:
.711 … Clayton Kershaw*
.737 … Pedro
.780 … Big Train
.806 … Addie Joss
.811 … Maddux
.820 … Ed Walsh
.827 … Mathewson
.827 … Ferdie Schupp (140.1)
Oh wow, nowhere to put this but Jose Fernandez has died in a boating accident. Wow, speechless. RIP Jose.
This floored me. I can’t believe it. RIP Jose.
When a young Major League pitcher’s name is mentioned on the national (non-sports) news, it just about has to be either a no-hitter or death. I remember listening to the news during a tornado warning deep in Twins Territory the night Jose Jimenez threw his no-hitter in 1999 — wondering which it was.
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1999/B06250ARI1999.htm
Royals led off today’s game against the Tigers by hitting for the cycle. First four batters went single, triple, double, home run. From what I’m reading, it’s the first time that’s happened since April 17, 2002 when the Cubs did it against the Expos.
In that 2002 Cubs game the first 6 batters went HR, 1B, 1B, BB, 2B and 3B. It took 6 batters to hit or the cycle. On 9-30-2006 the first 4 batters for the Royals went 2B, 3B, 1B and HR.
Thanks Richard. I saw on Twitter that the Cubs-Expos game was the last time a pitcher gave up the cycle before recording an out, and obviously misinterpreted what that meant. And whoever posted that must have missed the Royals game from 2006.
Here’s another one. On 7-23-77 the Indians started the game with 1B, 3B, 2B and HR.
The Twins did it to Ralph Terry and the Yankees on 5-20-64 with 1B, 3B, HR, 2B. Terry then struck out Jimmie Hall before giving up a second home run to Killebrew (who was inexplicably batting sixth?).
The Mets’ Dennis Ribant walked the first Reds batter on 9-23-66 and then allowed 2B, HR, 1B, 3B to the next four.
Doug @ 247, Killer couldn’t hit Terry. Lifetime .208/.329/.347 in 85 PA.
Mike L – I don’t think that was the reason though. Through the first 50 games that season, Killer batted almost exclusively 5th or 6th. In fact. that game was his 6th straight game batting 6th.
My guess for why Killer was batting 6th is that he got off to a terrible start that season. Through his first 21 games, his triple split line was .167/.255/.321. By the time that Yankee game rolled around, he was still only at a .710 OPS.
Here’s a couple more with the cycle allowed to four consecutive batters in the first inning. Both came after the starter had retired the first two batters of the game, and both resulted in the starter being relieved after allowing the last of the cycle hits.
– Bob Owchinko (HR, 3B, 1B, 2B), Padres vs Cubs 6-17-79
– Luis Tiant (2B, 1B, HR, 3B) Red Sox vs Mariners 5-13-77
Yanks, who had only intentionally walked 12 batters all year, just intentionally walked 3 in one innings against the Red Sox.
The Orioles’ Hyun Soo Kim delivered a 9th inning PH home run to beat the Blue Jays Wednesday. Kim is now 6 for 9 as a pinch-hitter this season, a .667 BA tied for the best season mark since 1913 in 9+ pinch-hit ABs. Among those tied with Kim is Pirate rookie Josh Bell whose first career home run was a pinch grannie against the Cubs earlier this year, in the second PA of Bell’s career.
Bell is tied with the immortal Red “Porky” Howell (played only as a pinch hitter, with 2 hits and 4 walks in 11 career PAs) by reaching base in four successive PH appearances in the first four games of a career. I’ll add D-Back outfielder Alex Romero to that list; he had those four successful PH appearances (two hits, a sac bunt and a sac fly) in his first 5 games, with the extra game a PH appearance in which he was pinch-hit for.
ERA, more than 60 IP:
0.55 … Zach Britton*
0.60 … Fernando Rodney
0.61 … Dennis Eckersley
0.90 … Ferdie Schupp
0.92 … Jonathan Papelbon
0.94 … Wade Davis
0.95 … Chris Hammond
0.96 … Dutch Leonard
0.98 … Eric O’Flaherty
With four games to go, Britton is one of 5 pitchers without a blown save in a 25 save season. Take a look at that ERA+ – it’s the best, by over 150 points, in any 60 IP season.
Generated 9/29/2016.
Rod Beck must have been using mirrors or something to not have a blown save with a 107 OPS+ against.
Rodney Beck, in the 115-game 1994 abortion:
Save Situations:
.229 / .289 / .356 / .645
1.71 ERA
1.168 WHIP
Non-Save Situations:
.314 / .329 / .643 / .972
4.76 ERA
1.471 WHIP
Michael Fulmer currently leads the AL in ERA at 3.06, the second highest mark ever for the junior circuit, after Lefty Grove’s 3.08 in 1938. Fulmer is not scheduled to pitch again until a potential game 163 which, if it doesn’t happen (or doesn’t involve the Tigers) , would mean Fulmer wouldn’t qualify for the ERA title, unless Detroit gives him the 3 innings he needs in relief. Right behind Fulmer though is Aaron Sanchez, also at 3.06. Sanchez is scheduled to pitch the last game of the season so Grove’s mark might still fall depending on how Sanchez (or Fulmer) does, with Tanaka, Verlander and Porcello also all within .05 of the leader and still having a shot.
In the NL, Kyle Hendricks leds with a 1.99 ERA. The difference between the league leaders of 1.07 runs in the second largest ever, after the 1.09 difference between Greg Maddux (1.56) and Steve Ontiveros (2.65) in 1994. Looks like Hendricks will get another start so, again, that spread could widen by the end of the season.
Still possible that Fullmer will pitch game 162 for the Tigers. With yesterday’s rainout, there’s a tentative makeup scheduled with the Indians on Monday (which I’m 99% sure would be Fullmer’s turn). The game will be played if there are playoff implications: Tigers are currently 1.5 games out of the final wild card spot, Indians are 0.5 games behind the Red Sox for ALDS home field.
I believe Early Wynn led the AL in ERA with 3.20 in 1950.
You are correct, Richard. My mistake.
Pretty sure that Wynn’s mark is safe.
Sanchez did indeed take the AL ERA title with exactly 3.00, the fifth highest AL league leader after Wynn (1950), Grove (1938), Freddy Garcia (2001) and Jon Lackey (2007). Sanchez also led in W-L% (.882, 15-2) and HR/9 (0.703).
Hendricks’ ERA ballooned to 2.13 with his last start but still led the NL. The 0.87 difference between the two league leaders is the 7th highest since 1901.
Don’t know how to research this by an easy method but if Mark Teixeira has no more PA this year I assume he would be the first player to hit a WO GS in his final ML appearance.
Hard to believe that the Yanks wouldn’t give some more PAs to Teixeira, particularly since they’re at home. No doubt the fans will want to give him a send off.
Never mind sentiment. Tex is hot right now – 5 for 11 with 2 HR and a double in his last 3 games. Put him in.
Tex reached 400 HR and 400 doubles on Aug 2nd, one day after teammate Carlos Beltran, also in the 400/400 club, was dealt to Texas (which had its own 400/400 player in Adrian Beltre). Thus, the Yankees just missed becoming the first team with three such players, with A-Rod, of course, being the third. So there are two teams this year with a pair of 400/400 teammates:
– 2016 Rangers: Beltran/Beltre
– 2016 Yankees: Teixeira/A-Rod and Beltran/A-Rod
Which are the other four teams to have two players who were then in the 400/400 club?
Last night Ryan Merritt became the first lefty to start for the Indians since Bruce Chen on May 15th of last year, a span of nearly 290 games.
The record belongs to the Dodgers. They went almost 5 years between starts by a left-hander, from Sep 25, 1992 to Jul 12, 1997, a run of 681 regular season games.
How did you find that Doug? I didn’t see anything in the PI that would allow such a search.
I have figured out a roundabout way of doing it involving the PI and manual searching but I will wait to see Doug’s explanation which is probably much simpler.
I did a Pitcher Season search for Teams with left-handers having at least one start with the search results in ascending order. Kept only the teams with zero such pitchers, and sorted them by Team to find teams who did so in consecutive seasons. Dodgers were the only team with three consecutive seasons (they actually had four) so they were obviously the team.
Then, I went to Pitcher Game search for left-handed LA starters for the seasons 1992 to 1997, ordered chronologically. That’s it.
Tigers could end up playing 5 different teams, in 5 different cities, in 5 different days. Here’s how that could happen:
Sunday in Atlanta
Monday in Detroit against Cleveland (make-up game to be played if there are playoff implications)
Tuesday in Toronto (assume they are tied with the Blue Jays for final wild card spot, Blue Jays have the tiebreaker against the Tigers to host the game)
Wednesday in Baltimore (win against Toronto and they will head Baltimore for the wild card game)
Thursday in Texas (win against Baltimore and they head to Texas for the ALDS)
Of course, if there are more than two teams tied for the final wild card spot, things could get even more complicated.
The AL wild card game is scheduled for Tuesday night, so I’m not sure what MLB would do in that scenario; perhaps they’d push it back to Wednesday, the same day as the NL wild card game. What is the precedent for these situations?
Ryan Howard could become the 10th player with a batting average below .200, an OPS over .700, and at least 250 plate appearances. He is at .199 and .718, respectively, and his OPS of .259 is by far the worst of anyone on the list.
This feat never occurred until 1971 (by the immortal Roger Repoz of the Angels), and was finally matched 20 years later by Rob Deer (natch). If Howard maintains his futility today, it will have happened six times since 2010, and in three consecutive seasons.
Michael Pineda will tie Cliff Lee’s (2012) all-time record for fewest Wins (6) in a 200-Strikeout season. Next lowest…Jeff Samardzija with 7 in 2014. Nolan Ryan (1987) and Bob Johnson (1970) had shared the record with 8, but that has been matched, or worse, seven times since 2011. New trend.
Most Wins, age 43+
18 … Jack Quinn
17 … Phil Neikro
16 … Phil Neikro
16 … Phil Neikro
16 … Jamie Moyer
15 … Jack Quinn
15 … Bartolo Colon*
14 … Jamie Moyer
_____________________
Pitching WAR, Age 43+
5.2 … Nolan Ryan
5.0 … Jack Quinn
4.6 … Phil Neikro
3.6 … Jack Quinn
3.6 … Nolan Ryan
3.5 … Roger Clemens
3.4 … Satchel Paige
3.3 … Holt Wilhelm (in 94 IP)
3.3 … Bartolo Colon*
3.2 … Randy Johnson
3.1 … Phil Neikro
3.0 … Satchel Paige
WAR, position players, 42+
Luke Appling – 5.0
Carlton Fisk – 4.8 (1990)
Barry Bonds – 3.4
Joe Start – 2.9 (1885)
Cap Anson – 2.9 (1894)
Honus Wagner – 2.6
Anson – 2.2 (1896)
Anson – 2.1 (1895)
Deacon White – 1.9 (1890)
Fisk – 1.9 (1991)
Tony Perez – 1.7
Sam Rice – 1.6
Ichiro – 1.5*
I’m pretty sure that somewhere in the archives of HHS I’m on record as saying after last year that the only way Ichiro gets to 3000 hits is if the Marlins are so far out of it and so desperate to put bodies in the stands that they’d be willing to play a guy who has no business being on an MLB roster just so he could reach a milestone.
I stand corrected.
I figured it out…the ultimate finish for a life-long Orioles fan who has not enjoyed this year’s beer-league softball team….
5:45pm – Blue Jays defeat Red Sox; Blue Jays clinch (stay with me);
5:50pm – Orioles hit six solo home runs, but lose to Yankees 7-6 (stay with me);
5:55pm – Nick Markakis’ walk-off two-run double beats Tigers; Orioles clinch!
As a Tigers fan allow me to say:
Congratulations to the O’s & the Jays.
Now I need a drink.
Hartvig, my condolences to you
(Braves ended the season 13-2, how-bout-that?).
I was rooting for the Tigers once my Bronxians put up their triple goose egg and dropped out of the race. Thought Verlander and Fulmer would give them a good chance in a playoff series.
The Braves swept the Cardinals in three shutouts last season.
José Abreu joined the short list of players with three 100-RBI seasons to start a career. I believe the Sox broadcast said there were now 7 such players. Ted Williams, Albert Pujols, Pinky Whitney, Joe DiMaggio, and two other guys — the Play Index isn’t showing anyone in the top 9 no non-subscribers.
If you’re handy with fangraphs and spreadsheets you can circumnavigate the PI and come up with the answers.
Whoops, make that circumvent.
The PI were a problem for Magellan when he tried to circumnavigate the globe. He died in the Philippine Islands, if I recall correctly.
😎
Hidecki Matsui and Al Simmons are the other two players.
This showed up in my twitter stream, retweeted by a Cardinals beat writer:
Joe Trezza @JoeTrezz 11h11 hours ago
Another gem: Jedd Gyorko hit 30 HR on just 97 hits. It’s only the seventh time anyone has hit 30 HR with fewer than 100 total hits.#STLCards
(Rob Deer, Mark McGwire [2x], Barry Bonds, Jose Valentin, Mark Reynolds, Mark Teixeira, and now Gyorko)
He’s also the first to do it with 10 GP at each of the four infield positions, according to @MLBRandomStats.
Lowest WHIP, 70+ IP:
.565 … Koji Uehara
.614 … Eck
.665 … Mo
.686 … Andrew Miller (2016)
.692 … Gagne
.698 … Putz
.725 … Kershaw (2016)
___________________________
Toronto led the majors in IP by its starters, while recording zero complete games, a major league first.
Among the 10 teams to qualify for the postseason, Toronto tied with the Cubs with 152 games from their top five starters, and tied with the Giants with 160 from their top six.
I can’t seem to find where the comment about this was, but this season did indeed blow away the record for most players hitting 20 home runs, with 111 reaching that mark, eight more than the previous record high in 1999.
How many players had 100 or more strikeouts, and is that also a record? In 1952, admittedly a down year for HRs, there were 20 players with 20 or more HRs and 4 players with 100 or more Ks. Only sixteen teams, yeah, but HRs and Ks are largely devalued now, so 111 players with 20 HRs? No big deal.
So . . . in 1952 there were 1.25 20+ HR guys per team, and in 2016 there were 3.70.
And . . . in 1952 there were .125 guys with 100 strikeouts or more per team, and in 2016 there were (according to Richard @ 302) 4.63.
Walks? in 1952, teams averaged 548.6. In 2016 they averaged 502.9.
Seems to me like there are only two true outcomes in the running anymore.
In 2016 there were 139 players with 100+ strikeouts, easily breaking the record of 117 players in 2014.
The game is in big trouble. These numbers are insane, and make for a nauseatingly boring product. We should have an off-season post on how to fix it.
Chris Davis (219 SO … .221 BA)
in the first year of a $161 million dollar contract.
Ratio of SO/BA > 990 (400 PA min.)
Adam Dunn……..1113 in 2011
Adam Dunn……..1088 in 2012
Mark Reynolds…1066 in 2010
Chris Davis………..991 in 2016
Two qualifying batters in 2016 had more walks than strikeouts:
96/82 … Ben Zobrist
50/47 … Joe Panik
______________________
2015 … 5
2014 … 2
2013 … 4
2012 … 4
2011 … 9
2010 … 4
2009 … 13
2008 … 10
2007 … 14
2006 … 14
2005 … 12
2004 … 17
2003 … 22
2002 … 22
2001 … 16
2000 … 26
1999 … 27
1998 … 23
1997 … 15
1996 … 29
1986 … 27 (26 teams)
1976 … 30 (24 teams)
1966 … 12 (20 teams)
1956 … 36 (16 teams)
1946 … 42
1936 … 63
1926 … 66
1916 … 38
1906 … 35
From 1901 through 1964 there was a total of 132 players with 100+ seasonal strikeouts.
In 2016 52 out 75, or 69.3%, of all AL players with 500+ PA had 20+ HR. That’s the highest such percentage except for 1981 in which the only player with 500+ PA, Dwight Evans, hit 22 HR. The next highest such percentage is 59.7% in 1987.
Josh Tomlin posted an excellent 5.90 SO/BB
… with a mere 6.1 SO/9.
Min 150 IP
Highest SO/BB with a SO/9 under 6.3:
7.89 … Carlos Silva
7.00 … Cy Young
6.90 … Cy Young
6.17 … Christy Mathewson
6.16 … Dennis Eckersley
5.90 … Josh Tomlin 2016
5.88 … Phil Hughes
5.67 … Jon Lieber
5.67 … Bartolo Colon
5.60 … Cy Young
5.50 … Brad Radke
What’s really odd about Tomlin’s season is that he gave up 1.86 home runs per nine innings, the 18th highest rate for a qualified season. All of the other seasons in the top 20 worst HR/( were done with a SO/BB of 2.6 or less.
There have been 3 qualifying seasons with
BB/9 under 1.5
HR/9 over 1.5
1.04 / 1.69 … Brian Anderson (208)
1.24 / 1.53 … Rick Reed (188)
1.03 / 1.86 … Josh Tomlin (174)
…
0.93 / 1.68 … Phil Hughes (155)
1.44 / 1.63 … Lew Burdette (144)
1.21 / 1.56 … Josh Tomlin (104)
His HR allowed was 1.80x his BB.
…
Two Q seasons with at least 1.75x HR to BB:
1.19 / 0.43 … Carlos Silva (188)
1.86 / 1.03 … Josh Tomlin (174)
…
1.68 / 0.93 … Phil Hughes (155)
1.13 / 0.56 … Bill Fischer (128)
1.81 / 0.78 … Edward Mujica (70)
1.25 / 0.70 … Edward Mujica (65)
2.10 / 0.98 … Josh Towers (64)
1.01 / 0.57 … Tom Morgan (63)
2.10 / 0.60 … Evan Scribner (60)
Let’s just say that as an Indians fan I’m REALLY looking forward to game 3 of the playoffs, when Tomlin faces Boston in Boston. NOT!!!
Sure, easy, but here it is: Since Opening Day 2016, the Rangers are 27 games over .500 … and have scored one fewer run than their opponents.
And if you include last year (counting the playoffs), Rangers are 40 games over .500 and have only scored 10 more runs than their opponents.
Marco Estrada went 8.1 IP in the ALDS opener, the second longest post-season start in Blue Jays history (Jack Morris has Toronto’s only post-season CG, in the 1992 ALCS). But, the longest current streak without a post-season CG belongs to the Red Sox at 44 games, compared to Toronto’s 36.
Boston has had one CG in its last 89 post-season games, going back to 1995. The Yankees have had three CG in their last 183 post-season games, going back to 1980.
Clayton Kershaw and his reliever beat the Cubs 1-0 in Chicago. The last pitcher to do that in a game that counted was Babe Ruth, at Comiskey Park in 1918. (Ted Lyons beat Bill Lee 1-0 in the first game of the 1942 City Series, which was the last City Series, in what was considered a home game for the Cubs.)