Richard Chester is a regular contributor to the HHS blog and the HHS Twitter feed. Many of the unusual factoids he comes up with are gleaned from his own homegrown game log database (think of it as Play Index or Stathead on steroids). For your enjoyment, here are some statistical nuggets he has recently unearthed.
Let’s get it out of the way: batting average is not one of the five most important offensive stats. It’s not one of the ten most important. It might be in the top 20. But regardless, we all grew up knowing “.300 hitter=good,” and we still talk about the batting average leader as the “batting champion.” So even though it’s not “important,” batting average can still be fun and interesting. So I’ve been looking into some batting races to see if there’s anything “there” for me to post about. I’ve come up with a few that might be worth discussing.
But as is my wont, I feel a need to learn as much as possible about a topic before I’m ready to write about it. In this case, that meant analyzing batting races. So one of the questions that was burning in my mind was the counterpoint to which batting races were interesting: which batting races were the most lopsided in history?
While researching my latest post, I came across a name that loomed large in my childhood, about whom I haven’t thought in a long time. Andres Galarraga is probably, at this point, the second-most-famous “A. Galarraga” in your baseball encyclopedia/brain. But while Armando may be more famous today, the Big Cat belongs to a couple specific groups. I’m hoping you can figure out what they are in these trivia questions.
Note: I’ve never done one of these trivia things before, as you know, so they’re not going to be as hard or clever as Doug’s… or maybe they’ll be too hard. I genuinely don’t know, but I hope it’s fun either way.
Christian Yelich launched home run number 14 on Saturday, a blistering start to this season that is much like the way he finished last year. After the jump, find out which other power hitters have followed a hot finish to one season with a hot start to the next.
Chris Davis earned some unwanted notoriety this month with the longest oh-fer in majors history, racking up 54 consecutive hitless AB before finally snapping the streak with a 3 for 5 game on April 13, leading the Orioles to a 9-5 win over the defending champion Red Sox. The other members of the 0 for 40 club are after the jump.
After an opening act in Japan, the 119th season of the modern era is now fully underway. Here are some game notes from today’s action.
More frivolity to lighten the mid-winter blues. As there seemed to be some interest in my Christmas post on teams of players sharing a common birthday, I’ll add this little study to the mix.
A few years ago, regular contributor Richard Chester alerted me to a claim on Twitter to the effect that there had been only a very small number of occasions (I don’t recall the exact claim) when opposing starting pitchers had shared the same birth date, as in same birthday and same birth year. Richard and I quickly debunked that claim, identifying a considerably larger number of such games, which were the subject of a January 2016 Quiz post. I’ve expanded that study since then and added a bit of narrative on the protagonists. So, if you missed the quiz, here’s another chance to indulge in this bit of trivia. Continue reading
Merry Christmas everyone. For some holiday frivolity, here’s the best starting lineup among players born on Christmas Day.
| P | C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | LF | CF | RF |
| Pud Galvin | Gene Lamont | Walter Holke | Nellie Fox | Gene Robertson | Bill Akers | Rickey Henderson | Ben Chapman | Jo-Jo Moore |
Strength on the mound, at second and in the outfield. The rest of the team is after the jump. Continue reading
As the regular season reaches its conclusion, here’s a look at various statistical accomplishments of the 2018 season for players on each of the 30 teams. You may already know some of them, but for many, I think, you’ll read them here first. More after the jump. Continue reading
Thanks to Richard Chester for providing this fun assortment of odd statistical facts.