To tide us over for the next couple of days, here’s a quick quiz. Not very hard, but some of the names may surprise you. So, what accomplishment can be claimed only by these players?
| Rk | Player ▲ |
|---|---|
| 1 | Richie Ashburn |
| 2 | Rod Carew |
| 3 | Corbin Carroll |
| 4 | Joe DiMaggio |
| 5 | Mark Fidrych |
| 6 | Ron Hansen |
| 7 | Frank Robinson |
| 8 | George Scott |
| 9 | Fernando Valenzuela |
| 10 | Dick Wakefield |
| 11 | Jerry Walker |
Congrats to Richard Chester and Mark, who combined to determine that these players are the youngest rookies to start an All-Star Game, all appearing in their first midsummer classic before their 23rd birthdays. Corbin Carroll, who started in this season’s ASG, is the first addition to this group since Fernando Valenzuela in 1981. And, yes, Carroll is the only player in this group to play in any ASG in his home town (Frank Robinson, from Beaumont TX outside of Houston, was an All-Star in 6 of 7 seasons from 1965 to 1971; his only miss was in 1968, when the… Read more »
If you’re thinking “what about ________?”, here’s a couple of notes in that regard. — Ted Williams entered the All-Star break in his rookie 1939 season with a .306/.405/.581 slash, 42 XBH and 70 RBI. Somehow, he wasn’t an ASG selection, even as a reserve, as the AL outfield starters were DiMaggio, Doc Cramer and George Selkirk, with Bob Johnson, George Case and Myril Hoag as reserves. Williams finished the year with 86 XBH, 145 RBI and 344 TB, all tops in the AL. — Willie Horton played in the 1965 ASG in his first full season for the Tigers.… Read more »
Richard, Thanks for the research. Supposedly, the 12 team thing was actually done in 1884? Don’t know where they’re getting the boxscores or how they “mined” their findings. Just found this, per CBS Sports: “Prior to Tuesday, the only other days with four games in which both teams scored 10-plus runs were July 4 and July 9 in 1894. The previous Modern Era record was three games in which both teams scored 10-plus runs on May 17, 1996, and May 5, 2000.” If you check the NL in 1894, offense was waaay out of control. IIRC, Phila had four .400… Read more »
Doug, In working on 19th century ball a few years ago, I found data that convinced me that one season’s worth of balls, put in play from early 1894 through early 1895, was manufactured as souped up–perhaps part of the owners’ plan to increase scoring that was first implemented with the 1893 pitching distance change. The ups and downs of the 1893/4/5 seasons would be explained if that theory were true.
All the evidence I could amass is in a comment I wrote in 2018 (near the end of the string, posted by my close personal friend ‘e pluribus munu’).
Thanks, Bob. I knew the 1894 season had been discussed on HHS a few years ago, but I hadn’t remembered the specifics. Reading through it again, I believe your theory is the best explanation for the June, 1894 through June, 1895 offensive surge, especially considering the corresponding regression in error rates. Not long after your June, 2018 post we saw a similar scenario play out with a juiced ball in 2019 leading to the obliteration of half the MLB teams’ home run records.
Hi Scary! Yes, 2019 was another example of how key the composition of the ball can be. There have been others, apart from the lively ball of 1920 on, such as the mini-jackrabbit cork ball of 1911 that briefly inflated offense and the balata ball that crashed offense in 1943. A number of mysteries might be explained by changes in ball manufacture (such as, maybe, 1987). 1911, 1920, 1943, and 2019 were all announced changes in the ball that had dramatic effects. 1894 and 1987 share the characteristic of having brief, dramatic, and unexplained offensive bursts with no announced ball… Read more »
Bob. Happy Old Timer’s Day, from one to another. By my primitive search methods I have identified at least thirty-five players who, in 1987, hit at least 24 home runs and who had their top yearly home run production that season. Thirteen of those thirty-five hit at least seven more home runs that year than in any other, if you discount Mark Mcgwire’s steroid fueled latter years. If you don’t the number is twelve: Wally Joyner, Ivan Calderon, Jack Clark, Andre Dawson, Keith Moreland, Matt Nokes; George Bell, Dale Sveum, Mike Pagliarulo, Wade Boggs, Cory Snyder, Brook Jacoby. Notables among… Read more »
Great list, nsb! Like old times. Boggs seems to me to be the emblem of the year: 24 HRs and never more than 11 otherwise (though that was 1994, so he was on pace for about 16). What’s really emblematic about Boggs in 1987 is that he also won the AL batting title at .363, but came in ninth for MVP, without a single first-place vote, so rich in offensive performances was the AL. (Not that he wasn’t actually competitive–he led in offensive WAR–but gaudy stats were everywhere, blinding the poor sportswriters when they saw their ballots.) I realized that… Read more »
_________________HR__RBI Johnny Bench….40….115 Tony Perez………36….114 Billy Williams……34….105 Hank Aaron……..34….103 Dick Allen…………33….100 Willie McCovey…31…..95 1970 was also a year with increased scoring. This is after 120 team games played in the NL. Bench finished with 45 HR and 148 RBI and an MVP award…..Allen started the All Star game ahead of McCovey and was on pace for 45 HR and 135 RBI but he tore his hamstring and that was the end of that. ML R/G 1968 3.42 1969 4.07 1970 4.34 1971 3.89 Obviously, they lowered the mound and went from 20 to 24 teams in 1969 but that’s a… Read more »
Hi Paul, I didn’t spot your comment till Doug made it visible yesterday. Good eye!–I had never realized that there was a significant further increment in 1970, which does echo 1894 to a degree. I went back to check some numbers and the scale of the effect is somewhat different. I used OPS, rather than R/G. In the “pitcher’s era” of 1963-68, OPS fell from the early ’60s (including two expansion years) norm of .710-20 to .680-90 for four seasons, then .664 in 1967 and .639 in the Year of the Pitcher, which really was a huge outlier. The changes… Read more »
Richard,
Here are the football scores from July 1894:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/?month=7&day=4&year=1894
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/?month=7&day=9&year=1894
On 7/4—- Every team played a doubleheader. This year, the Dodgers and Angels were off on Independence day. Two of those double-double digit games were by the Phillies and Colts. They combined to score 49 runs. 10 or more runs were scored on 13 occasions that day. The league champion Baltimore Orioles were the only team not to have a double figure scoring game, getting held to 3 and 1 runs by Louisville, the worst team in the league (who finished 54 games behind Baltimore). Louisville outscored Baltimore 13-4 in their doubleheader. On the season, Baltimore outscored Louisville by 522… Read more »
Tom,
That Louisville franchise was very bad to mediocre till merging with Pittsburgh in 1900. From there, the Pirates were one of the three NL-dominant teams of the first decade of the 20th century finishing first four times and second four times while never playing worse than .569 baseball
My son alerted me to a post by one Hector Gomez. Here’s what Hector discovered. First 674 career games: Babe Ruth – 160 HR, Shohei Ohtani – 160 HR First 455 career IP: Babe Ruth – 35-18 W-L, Shohei Ohtani – 35-19 W-L Baseball-Reference doesn’t quite agree with Mr. Gomez, recording Ruth’s 160th HR in career game 682, while Ohtani already has 163 HR thru 664 career games. For the pitching lines, B-R agrees with Gomez on Ohtani, but shows Ruth with a 35-18 record thru 65 games pitched and 448 IP (Ruth recorded a 1-0 shutout in 13 IP… Read more »
Michael Lorenzen got off on the right foot with his new home fans, no-hitting the visiting Nationals in his Phillies’ home debut. That feat has been accomplished only once before, by Don Cardwell in his Cubs’ home debut in the second game of a May 15, 1960 double-header. Like Lorenzen, Cardwell was a mid-season acquisition. Lorenzen now has 17 IP in two games as a Phillie. That’s the most in the first two games for a new team since Cliff Lee in 2010 for Texas (Lee had 10 straight starts of 8+ IP that year, including his last 4 for… Read more »
Re Cardwell, Ritchie Ashburn once, during his career as a Phillies’ color analyst/commentator, remarked, “Biggest hands on a player I’ve ever seen.” I believe it was Ron Swoboda who indicated that “Cardy”, a devout conservative, punched him in the mouth when he suggested, “we should listen to what these guys (hippies) have to say” about Vietnam. Maybe in “We Played the Game”? I was watching last night’s Phillies game on a regional hookup thru the Nats. By the time the ninth inning rolled around, all the Nats’ announcers could talk about were Lorenzon’s lack of first pitch strikes, four walks,… Read more »
Nothing in “We Played the Game,” Paul, but there’s mention of the Cardwell/Swoboda incident online, and it was apparently discussed in “Tom Terrific.” And . . . was there talk about urinating in cornflakes? I hate it when no one invites me to the conversation! The MLB.com recap of Lorenzen’s game (showing all 27 outs, one by one) did put me in mind of accounts of Bobo Holloman’s no-hitter in 1953, which Bill Veeck called, “the quaintest no-hitter in the history of the game.” The recap looked as though Lorenzen and the batters were just giving Rojas fielding practice. But… Read more »
It was for the Sox. Unlike Holloman (and Lorenzen), Cowley allowed a run on an SF after walking the bases full. That put me in mind of Don Nottebart’s one-run no-hitter in 1963, which is the earliest such no-hitter I recall. Nottebart only walked three (still more than Lorenzen), and his run scored without a walk, on a two-base error, a Sac, and an SF (tough for Don!).
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TBA/TBA201006250.shtml
Here’s a somewhat ugly 149-pitch, 8-BB gem by Edwin Jackson. To his credit, his teammates scored a single run and he made it stick
Just read that Lorenzen is one of only 4 pitchers to make the majors from Fullerton Union HS. They have all thrown no-hitters. https://larrybrownsports.com/baseball/michael-lorenzens-no-hitter-fullerton-high-school/618867
Last Friday, the Dodgers retired Fernando’s #34. The organization made a point to state that he was only the second non-HoF to get his number retired by LA. Although he is not inducted in Cooperstown, he is a member of the Mexican National Hall of Fame and the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame. His is one of the great what ifs? What if tLA hadn’t abused his arm? Through his age 26 season, he had 84 CG in 200 starts, averaging 256 innings. He averaged 269 innings from his age 22 to age 26 seasons. And he wasn’t a Maddux… Read more »
Tom,
I can remember when Fernando first came up in late 1980. I though he was 35 years old with a fake birth certificate. The Dodgers caught Houston by winning three of three head-to-head in the last weekend of the season. Fernando pitched in games 160, 162, and 163 out of the bullpen giving up 0 runs and a mere 3 hits and 1 walk in 6 total innings of work in the pressure of a pennant race. Alas, Joe Niekro was lights out for the Astros in game 163 and the Dodgers had to wait another year….
I was surprised when you mentioned that there were no pitch count data for that 1984 game, since the Dodgers have been recording pitch counts since the 1940s. Those totals used to be included in the B-R database but, apparently, that is no longer the case. FWIW, Tom Tango’s pitch count estimator puts Valenzuela’s total at 145. Exacerbating the strain of Valenzuela’s workload was his heavy use of the screwball, which almost certainly puts more stress on the arm than any any other pitch. Here is an article from 19 seasons ago arguing (unconvincingly, in my view) that reducing pitch… Read more »
Here’s a strange question: “Since 1901, has anyone stolen 52 (or more) bases in a single season and knocked in 139 (or more) in another season other than Don Baylor?”. There are some 19th century guys that may have done it when stolen bases were credit for taking an extra base on a batted ball but, I couldn’t find anyone in the last 122 years.
Scary Tuna,
Thanks for the confirmation. Those ’76 A’s were slightly “guttted”/certainly altered by the pending free agencies of a few players necessitating Charley Finley mandated trades. Chuck Tanner had taken over for Alvin Dark and had them all stealing bases….. 341 out of 464 (73.49%) and Baylor certainly wasn’t shy with 52. They finished 2.5 games back of the KC Royals but were 2.5 back with 4 (or 5) to play and went 1-3 in their final four games getting shutout by Gura, Tanana, and Nolan Ryan. They never re-scheduled a rainout that would have been game 162
There weren’t many in the 19th century, either. Only Hugh Duffy (145 RBI in 1894, 52/78/85 SB in 1889-91 in the NL/PL/AA) and Ed Delahanty (146 RBI in 1893, 58 SB in 1898).
The closest to doing it in the same season were George Davis (135/65 in 1897) and Hugh Duffy (145/48 in 1894) and, in the 20th century, Ty Cobb (127/83 in 1911). Hughie Jennings is the only player with two seasons of 50+ SB and 120+ RBI, in 1895-96. Ben Chapman (1931) is the last player with a 50/120 season.
Nice breakdown, Tom. Williams is one of a group of lively ball era stars whose careers fell into the obscurity of the Babe’s shadow (and, in Williams’ case, into the Browns’ slough of despond). I went to check up more on Williams at B-R, and discovered that his SABR bio is not properly linked to his page. For anyone interested, it’s at this link. Turns out that while Williams was a late bloomer, the bloom wasn’t quite as late as it seems. World War I took him out of play for what should have been his true rookie year, 1918.… Read more »
All,
Which kind of begs the question, “Who showed the most improvement from his twenties to his thirties based on OPS+ with a minimum of 2,500 plate appearances in each half (2,500 PA in his 20’s; 2,500 PA in his 30’s)? I would think someone like Ken Caminiti (94+ – 129+) would be a likely candidate…or a Brian Downing kind of career.
For what it’s worth here’s what I got for the greatest positive differential between wRC+ for his 30s versus for his 20s. I retrieved my data from Fangraphs which uses wRC+ instead of OPS+.
39.78….Barry Bonds
35.93….Roberto Clemente
33.97….Ken Caminiti
31.38….Mark McGwire
30.92….Augie Galan
27.61….Sammy Sosa
26.57….Jeff Kent
25.67….Jose Bautista
24.94….Pete Runnels
24.41….Larry Walker
Pete Runnels! There’s a conundrum. A singles hitter who played in spacious Griffith Stadium, designed for small ball, and compiled 9.1 WAR over seven seasons in his twenties, then moved to cramped Fenway and compiled over 20 WAR in his next five seasons, still hitting singles (with just a few extra pops) ages 30-34, including two batting championships and one runner-up season. You’d think everything–his age; his home stadium–would move him in the other direction. (Then he goes to the Colt 45s–his home state–and the bottom drops out.)
Julio Rodriguez has become the 13th (and youngest) player with three consecutive 4+ hit games. One more will tie Milt Stock’s 98 year-old record.
Milt Stock is probably not someone who comes to mind – incredible run by Rodriguez. Just a BTW, it appears that Cobb twice had 67 hits in a month; Speaker had 67 in a month once.
Different topic – Cory Abbott got shelled last night in the Nats-Phillies game. Trea Turner homered twice in the 8th inning – both times off Abbott. How many times has a player homered twice in the same inning off the same pitcher? Any input, as always, is greatly appreciated.
Also Magglio Ordonez hit 2 HR off Dallas Braden in the second inning on 8/12/2007. The way to find those players is to logon to baseball almanac and get a list of all players to hit 2 HR in an inning. The date of the game is listed and you have to get the box score of the game from baseball-reference s\and scroll through the play-by-play list.. There are more than 60 players with 2 HR in an inning and I searched about 20 of those players.
Off year for Park in 1999. Turned it around the following year with a league-leading 6.9 H/9. That season, Jose Jimenez went 5-14 but pitched a 93 game score no-hitter and a 91 game score 2-hitter versus AZ. Kind of like Jose DeLeon with some tough luck at times…..
At least it was fantasy team and not a -225 bet on the home team Dodgers 🙁
Current Yankees manager Aaron Boone homered twice for the Reds in the 1st inning off the Padres’ Brett Tomko (08/09/02). Tomko remained on the mound until surrendering Boone’s third homer of the game with one out in the fourth.
Despite trailing 9-1 in the first, the Padres kept the game interesting, scoring three runs in the ninth. The last two came on a pinch hit HR by current A’s manager Mark Kotsay, making the final score 12-10 Reds.
Doug,
Interesting tidbit. Gotta wonder how many of those “might” have been stretched into a triple? I thought Acuna was a runaway for MVP this year but the voters will be splitting hairs between Acuna, Betts, Freeman and, perhaps, Olson. The Dodgers have played well of late and Betts has probably been the bigger catalyst…..IM(NASH)O
“10th player with three GS among his first ten career homers”
That is wild. Way more than I would have guessed. Would have been much less surprised if you had said he was the first player to do that.
If Royce maintains his current BA, he will also become the first Twin to bat .300 in each of his first two seasons of 40 to 350 PA.
Way more than I would have guessed, too, Doug – and similar to the surprise of learning that batters homering twice in one inning off the same pitcher isn’t as extremely rare as I thought it should be. Lewis got his third grand slam just in time to join that select group (even though it seems crazy that nine other players have done so previously). He homered again (a solo shot) in his second at bat Tuesday night, the eleventh in his career. It’s good seeing Lewis in the lineup everyday and having success. The top pick in the 2017… Read more »
By way of comparison, these 105 players with complete or mostly complete PBP data had three or fewer grand slams in careers with 100+ HR and 100+ bases loaded PA.
Pete Rose, Lou Brock, Jim Fregosi, Derek Jeter and Prince Fielder all had ONE grannie in their careers. Thurman Munson and Claudell Washington had NONE.
Quite remarkable. Here’s the list of top OPS with the bases loaded over first two ML seasons, with a minimum 10 such PA. Nobody even close to Lewis’s top mark. Indeed, his 1.833 SLG is almost as high as the second place 1.852 OPS by another Twin, third baseman Rich Rollins.
Right you are. Presumably, Runs would be equal to HR in most instances of this or any other bases occupied state (only time it would be more than home run total is when a player circles the bases with the aid of one or more errors occurring while the batted ball is in play). I’ll report it to Sports-Reference.
Here is the explanation from Sports-Reference, FWIW. The Runs Scored number in the Bases Loaded split is calculated from the point of view of the player as the baserunner in a given situation (such as bases loaded) rather than as the batter (it also includes him as a batter/baserunner if he hit a home run in that situation). So there is no correlation between Runs and Home Runs and Plate Appearances. So, the number of bases loaded HR by the player plus the number of runs scored by the player when someone else is at bat with the bases loaded.… Read more »
While I can’t say I fully understand it, I do see some logic in it and thinking about this more. If it only listed runs scored by the hitter with the bases loaded, then runs would always equal home runs (aside from the rare “Little League home run” scored on errors). Also, when I first looked at the results, I thought it was exceptional how often the first few players listed eventually scored after hitting with the bases loaded. Eventually… so there was already a subconscious expectation that runs included more than just as a direct result of that plate… Read more »
Tough luck for Alex Cobb, losing a no-hitter (and a shutout) with two outs in the 9th. He entered that inning having faced one batter over the minimum (an ROE) and having thrown 113 pitches. Cobb gave up the hit on pitch 125, but retired the final batter for his second CG of the season.
Yes, I saw that. Lorenzen threw a ton of pitches in his recent no-hitter. Generally speaking, I have to believe these guys who stick around for these high pitch counts either don’t pitch so well in their next outing or they end up with another extra day of rest.
How many pitches do you suspect Nolan Ryan threw in this outing? :
According to Tom Tango’s basic pitch count estimator, it would be 242 pitches for Ryan and 201 for Tiant. This game, incidentally, was the second to last time that both starters went 13 IP. The last such game was two years later, also involving the Angels, when Catfish Hunter and Frank Tanana dueled on 1976-08-27. You have to go back to October 2, 1965 to find the last such NL game, when the Phillies’ Chris Short and the Mets’ Rob Gardner each went 15 IP in a game that ended tied 0-0 after 18 innings (game called on account of… Read more »
Doug,
This is the all-timer in recorded history (Cadore and Oeschger go the full 26 IP):
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BSN/BSN192005010.shtml
I gotta believe that’s a record high for game score?
Small sample size for “before”, but here are the two pitchers’ ERAs up to the marathon game, and after. Cadore: 0.87/3.04 Oeschger: 0.49/4.02 This game ended in a tie after mercifully being called on account of darkness. Another game that season ending the same way (after 6 innings) was the final game of the last triple-header, played by the Reds and Pirates on Oct 2nd. After that marathon, both teams played the next day (the final day of the season) in a different city, the Reds making the short trip home from Pittsburgh, but the Pirates having to get to… Read more »
In Friday’s game at Coors Field, players on both teams hit a triple and a home run. My first thought was it wasn’t surprising that it happened at Coors, where the light air and big dimensions mean more balls splitting outfielders and getting to the distant fences. Ergo, doubles in other ball parks can often become triples at Coors. To check my supposition, I looked for all the games since 1993 (the Rockies’ first season) when the same thing happened. As it turns out, Friday was the first time it’s happened in Colorado (at either ballpark). In fact, it’s happened… Read more »
Jose Altuve swatted a pair of home runs in the first game of the Astros series with the Rangers, and continued his hot streak with three more in game two. He becomes the first Astro since Richard Hidalgo in 2000 (first season in their cozy new ballpark) with multiple home runs in consecutive games (props to Dave Rader, the only player with multiple homers in consecutive games at the Astrodome). The only teams that have waited longer for such a “streak” are the Cardinals (Mark McGwire in 1998) and, especially, the Tigers (Willie Horton in 1965). Altuve has quite the… Read more »
Last night, Ozzie Albies hit #29 in a loss to the LAD. I believe the Braves are about to become the first team ever to have 5 (FIVE !) guys with 30 home runs in a season – Olson, Ozuna, Riley, Acuna already having reached 30…..they also have five guys qualified for the batting title with .500+ slugging pct. but, it doesn’t appear the catcher will qualify as a sixth due to his being on pace for less than 502 PA’s. Don’t know if that would be a first as well.
Braves, though, would be the first team with 5 players having 30+ HR and 70+ RBI. Likely, that would become 5 with 30/80, with a shot at 30/90. There have been 11 teams with four 30/80 players, and 7 with four 30/90 players, but none of them since the 2009 Phillies.
Richard,
Thanks for the clarifications. In hindsight, the ball was probably “juiced” in 2019 with a ton of guys hitting career highs in homers, ISO, and slugging percentage. I don’t know what hindsight will reveal about 2023 but thus far:
25 HR 34 batters 250 TB 20 batters (5/6th of the way thru the season) versus:
30 HR 58 batters 300 TB 30 batters (2019 MLB)
2.79 HR/game (2019) vs 2.43 HR/game (2023)
Last night, Marcus Semien garnered four of the five Rangers’ hits in a 12 -3 drubbing by the Astros. Interestingly, coincidentally, Billy Leo Williams set a record with ALL of his team’s four hits in a 9 – 2 drubbing by the Pirates in this one 54 years and one day prior:
https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1969/B09050CHN1969.htm
Further, both Semien and Williams solo-homered twice.
Verlander beat Scherzer in the Texas tilt. Probably not many times that two pitchers who started the season as teammates would later that year have decisions in the same game while both playing for teams other than the one they started the year with. Semien is now .326/.326/.535 in 43 AB against Verlander. Against the 7 pitchers he’s batted against at least 40 times, he’s a combined .296/.349/.469. Excepting the 2020 season, Semien has now joined Nomar, Cano and Brian Dozier as the only middle infielders with 20 HR, 30 2B and 100 R in four consecutive seasons, with only… Read more »
The Red Sox pummeled Oriole pitching for 23 hits on Saturday but still lost the game. Just the 5th time since 1901 that a team with 23+ hits has lost a 9-inning game, and first since 1930.
This game must have been one that the sportswriters had in mind when they voted for Jackie Jensen on the 1958 MVP ballot. He drove in four of the six Boston runs, and his second homer was a one on, two-out walk-off in the tenth. Twenty-two of his thirty-five dingers that year occurred with men on base, a high percentage. To compare see Mantle: 15 out of 42, Colavito: 21 out of 41, Sievers: 15 out of 39. Banks, the NL MVP, 24 out of 47, Mays 14 out of 29, Aaron 12 out of 30. It wasn’t simply that Jensen… Read more »
The Yankees prevailed over the Brewers in 13 innings on Sunday, despite being no-hit through 10 frames. The game is the seventh to go 13+ innings with the winning team collecting 3 or fewer hits. That list includes the famous Pirates/Braves game in 1959 when Harvey Haddix was perfect through 12 innings before giving up a hit and losing the game in the 13th.