Trivia: Rare stat combo |

In 2011, a player in the NL East had a two-piece statistical combination that had only been done twice before in MLB history.

Both stats are basic counting stats that you would have found on the back of a 1950s baseball card.
Both stats are of the “more is better” variety; the combination was a “good news, bad news” story.
One of the two previous players did it as a rookie; the other was a grizzled veteran.

Who did what?

(Note: The mystery has been solved — congrats to jsg — click “Read the rest…” for the answer.)

Answer:

Anibal Sanchez had 202 strikeouts and just 8 wins, tying Nolan Ryan (1987) and Bob Johnson (1970) for the fewest wins with 200+ Ks:

Rk	Player	Year	SO	W	ERA+	WAR	IP	Age	Tm	Lg	G	GS	CG	SHO	GF	L	W-L%	SV	H	R	ER	BB	ERA
1	Anibal Sanchez	2011	202	8	106	3.4	196.1	27	FLA	NL	32	32	3	2	0	9	.471	0	187	85	80	64	3.67
2	Nolan Ryan	1987	270	8	142	5.5	211.2	40	HOU	NL	34	34	0	0	0	16	.333	0	154	75	65	87	2.76
3	Bob Johnson	1970	206	8	121	4.1	214.0	27	KCR	AL	40	26	10	1	7	13	.381	4	178	82	73	82	3.07

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 2/19/2012.

0 0 votes

Article Rating

15 Comments

Oldest

Newest Most Voted

Inline Feedbacks

View all comments

Bix

12 years ago

The Nationals’ Mike Morse had 36 doubles and 36 walks….

Author

John Autin

Reply to Bix

Nice try, Bix. That is a rare combo, but it’s been done 4 times previously, including by Joe Torre 1964 and the immortal Joe Stripp in 1932.

I’ll add that the combination is a “more than X / no more than Y” deal, rather than exact numbers.

Dr. Doom

Does it perchance have something to do with Jose Reyes’ huge disparity between Runs (101) and RBI (44)? Like over 100 R, but less than 50 RBI?

Reply to Dr. Doom

Never mind, can’t be that. Apparently, that happens WAY more than I thought it did.

Hartvig

See the 1899-1911 version of Roy Thomas- he had a career full of ’em

This is a position player?

Reply to Ed

Drat! That was my thought, too. I had all the team pages for the NL East open, and was looking over them for like 20 minutes. Stupid pitchers. Always mucking stuff up.

jsg

K > 200, W < 9? Anibal Sanchez 2011, Nolan Ryan 1987, and some other guy.

Reply to jsg

WE HAVE A WINNER!!!
(And once again I fail to stump the panel into double-digit comments….)

Anibal Sanchez had 202 strikeouts and just 8 wins, matching Nolan Ryan ’87 and Bob Johnson ’70 for the fewest wins with 200+ strikeouts.

Congratulations, jsg! Is this your first time commenting?

Reply to John Autin

I have no memory at all of the 70’s pitching version of Bob Johnson- in fact when I saw the name and year I wondered if the 60’s infielder had switched and became a pitcher.

Reply to Hartvig

This Bob Johnson was the other player the Mets sent to KC along with Amos Otis in the debacular (if that’s not a word, it should be) trade for Joe Foy. Johnson had a very fine rookie year, despite his 8-13 record — at the time, he was just the 9th rookie (by the modern definition) to reach 200 Ks, and his 4.1 WAR was 8th best among AL pitchers. He was dealt to Pittsburgh after 1970, and had a couple of solid years for them as a swingman. He got a start in the 1971 NLCS and beat Marichal,… Read more »

Ted B

Ryan Howard had 115+ RBI and 170+ Ks

Reply to Ted B

… that being the 5th time Howard alone had done that in a span of 6 years.

Done by 8 other players; 3 times by Sammy Sosa, 2 by Jim Thome. Gorman Thomas was the first, in 1979.

nightfly

Wow, I had no idea that of those three that it would be RYAN without a SHO, or even a CG. It was his first season since he was 19 that he failed to get a CG… and he only threw 3 innings that year. This would only happen to him again when he was 46, in his final, 13-start season.

Latefortheparty

I saw a lot of Ryan between ’86 and ’88. The strikeouts tell the story: the guy was a monster.