1970 Topps #62: AL Batting Leaders / Rod Carew, Reggie Smith, & Tony Oliva

The Twins began life in MLB as the Washington Senators, joining the AL in 1901 along with a bunch of other teams. It took until their 24th season in 1924 to make the playoffs, but they won the World Series that year. They made the World Series, losing both times, twice in following 9 years.

In 1961, the franchise moved to Minnesota and renamed itself the Twins.  The team was a force in the late 1960s, finishing first or second 5 times between 1965 and 1970, but losing in the playoffs each year. The Twins won it all in 1987 and again in 1991, and then went into a period of suffering as a small market team. That changed in 2002 when the team posted a 1st place finish (one of 6 between ’02 and ’10) but again the team has lost all 6 times in the playoffs.

In 2011, the Twins turned suddenly dreadful, losing 99 games, and they have been only a bit better so far in 2012.

Let’s take a look at this team’s long list of great players.

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Responding to a reader question, here are the 10 worst seasonal ERAs for pitchers who qualified for the ERA title:

That’s an interesting set, considering that all 10 seasons are from either 1930-1940 or 1994-present.

Let’s look, instead, at the 10 worst ERA+ values, which corrects for overall scoring and ballpark:

So now these guys are all from 1918 or earlier, with the exception of Jose Lima in 2005, who made both lists. This tells you that a lot of bad pitchers were allowed to keep on pitching early in baseball history. (I should mention that both of these lists are 1901-present.)

I think that the first list above basically tells you when the two high-scoring eras of baseball were, and the second list basically tells you that pitchers were used differently (i.e. not allowed to finish out the year if they were horrible) come the 1920s.

1984 Topps #666 Tigers Leaders - Lou Whitaker and Jack Morris

OK…let’s get one of the big franchises out of the way. The Tigers are another team that joined MLB in 1901 (although they were founded in 1894). In 111 years, the Tigers have had only 12 first-place finishes. Three of them came in 1907 to 1909 but they lost the World Series each year. They made 7 more World Series and won it in 1984, 1968, 1945, and 1935. Read the rest of this entry

Josh Hamilton crushes a homer against the Orioles a few weeks ago / Joy R. Absalon-US PRESSWIRE

Let’s take a look at the Texas Rangers, including their years as the second version of the Washington Senators.

When the Senators came into the league in 1961, they were pretty bad. In their first four seasons, they lost at least 100 games every season. They didn’t finish higher than 6th until their 9th season in 1969, and that’s only because the leagues were split into divisions. From 1972 to 1993, the relocated Rangers finished 2nd six times and were in first when the season was aborted in 1994.

The Rangers finally made the playoffs for the first time in 1996 and had a nice run of 3 post-season appearances in 4 seasons, but won only 1 game over all the series. They didn’t make the playoffs again until 2010, when they made the World Series, a feat they duplicated last year. The franchise is at its peak right now.
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1974 Topps #130 Reggie Jackson

Well, we’re back into the truly classical era now, moving to a franchise that was founded in 1901. For our purposes, this poll includes the Philadelphia, Kansas City, and Oakland A’s.

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Here’s a treat for you. Following is a graph of Tony Gwynn‘s rolling batting average throughout his career for each 162-game period. The first data point is at his 162nd-career game and gives his batting average for his first 162 games.

Click on the image for a slightly larger version.

I’ve labeled many of the high and low points. Right away, you’ll notice that Gwynn hit .402 over a 162-game period ending in 1995. From July 27th 1993 through May 13, 1995, Gwynn appeared in 162 games, and had 704 plate appearances. He had 624 at-bats with 251 hits (.402 BA), as well as 15 HR, 100 RBI, 121 runs scored, a .457 OBP and a .563 SLG.

Other notes about the fabulous Mr. Gwynn:

• It’s hard not to think of Ted Williams‘ 1941 at this point. That year, Williams batted .406 while leading the league with 37 HR, a .553 OBP, a .735 SLG, and a 235 OPS+. Gwynn was obviously not the same kind of hitter as Williams, never showing that same kind of power. Still over the 1994 season (all of which was encompassed in his .400 season) Gwynn had an OPS+ of 169, his career high. Gwynn also gets high marks for maintaining his average over 624 at-bats. In Williams’ season, he had only 456 at-bats thanks mainly to his very high walk total (and the fact that he didn’t play 162 games.)
• The lowest “rolling-162″ batting average of Gwynn’s career was .290 (actually .28952), which he had after the game on August 1, 1992. His full stat line for the preceding 162, covering back to June 23, 1991, was 702 PAs, 639 at-bats, 8 HR, 51 RBI, 88 runs scored, with a slash line of .290/.348/.388. Decidedly un-Gwynnish, but a “worst” career line that hundreds of ballplayers would gladly take, especially the .348 OBP.
• Dude closed out his career batting .343 in his final 162 games, slightly higher than his career mark of .338.
• Those 251 hits Gwynn got over his .400 “season”–that’s an extremely high number. Ichiro had 262 in 2004 (with the benefit of 704 at-bats) and before that the last guy to have so many in a regular season (within a single year) was Bill Terry, with 254 in 1930.

Some quick math, 1962-present

Mets: 26 complete-game 1-hitters

All other teams: 467 complete-game 1-hitters

Mets: 8,020 total games

All other teams: 201,898

So all other teams have produced 467 1-hitters in 201,898 games, or a rate of 0.23% of the time.

The Mets have produced 26 1-hitters in 8,020 games, or a rate of 0.32% of the time.

It may not sound like a lot, but it means that the Mets should have had 18 or 19 1-hitters in their existence instead of the 26 they’ve actually had. What does this tell us? What we already knew–they had been overdue for a no-hitter.

Johan Santana frothing at the mouth in excitement after his no-hitter / USPRESSWIRE

Here are 10 facts about The Mets and Johan Santana following his no-hitter for the Mets. Read the rest of this entry

Here’s a great photo of Carlos Gonzalez catching a fly ball yesterday.

Photo credit: Chris Humphreys-US PRESSWIRE

Yesterday’s radio interview is now available online here. Right now it’s playing in the main media player on that page (5/31 show). At some point it will get archived further down that page as the Week 4 show.

My appearance starts around the 39-minute mark.