These players in this quiz have the distinction of being the only pitchers since 1916 with an unusual (and very unexpected) game accomplishment. What is it?

Hint: this feat has been accomplished only by starting pitchers. None of these players has done it twice.

No fooling quiz solver extraordinaire Richard Chester. He correctly identified these players as the only pitchers to be credited with a win when surrendering 5 or more home runs. More on winning when you shouldn’t after the jump.

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This one’s a bit dry, but Andy fed me a good lead-in, so here goes.…

What happened to the plate appearances once taken by the 14th and 15th hitters on a roster, now that those spots have gone to relievers? Have they been spread evenly among regulars and remaining bench players, or what?

That question arose when I noticed that only 140 players qualified for the batting title last year, the lowest full-season total since 1992. That surprised me. Yes, the number of qualifiers tends to fall when scoring does, but I thought that would be offset by the roster shift: Surely some of the 200+ PAs from the 14th and 15th hitters would have gone to regulars.

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The players in this quiz had an unusual game accomplishment, made more unusual in the context of their careers. What is the quirky game and career feat achieved by no other retired players since 1916?

Hint: figuring out what HOOT means may help you solve this quiz.

Congratulations to John Autin! He correctly identified that some of these players hit for the cycle in their only 4-hit game (ergo, it Happened Only One Time). The others hit for the cycle and had a namesake with only one 4-hit game. See the comments for my mea culpa.

Here’s a simple plot showing, by year, the percentage of all plate appearances given each year to any non-starter, as well as the percentage given to pinch-hitters specifically.

The pinch-hitter data goes back only to 1945 (the limit of full play-by-play availability) and happens to coincide with a dramatic increase in the use of the pinch-hitter in baseball. From 1945 until 1960, nearly 3% more of all plate appearances went to pinch-hitters, singlehandedly accounting for the same increase among all non-starters.

Since that time, pinch-hitter use has tapered off slowly, falling about 1 percentage point over the 50 or so intervening years, while overall non-starter plate appearances have dropped by more than double that amount. The reason is likely a drop in defensive substitutions. It’s clear that defense is better now than ever and fewer teams carry defensive specialists, instead opting in most cases to keep good reserve bats on the bench. The effect may also be due to the overall emphasis on offense, with teams seemingly more likely to keep a good player in the game because of his bat, rather than removing him for a better glove man.

This post is for voting and discussion in the 45th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG).  This round completes the group of players born in 1934.  Rules and lists are after the jump.

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Henry Aaron won the voting this round by a significant margin, despite competing against several other great stars. Sort of the way he took over the career home run title with his steadily great performance from the 1950s through the 1970s, passing by other renowned stars of his era.  Hank becomes the 44th player inducted into the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats.  More on Aaron and the voting after the jump. Continue reading →

Earned Run Average (ERA) is, of course, the standard measuring stick of pitcher effectiveness, based on the inescapable logic that the pitcher’s ONLY job is to prevent runs from scoring (while the more elemental Runs Allowed Average would presumably be the metric that most closely correlates to run prevention, in the interests of being “fair” to pitchers and not judging them based, in part, on the errors made by their defense, I will defer to convention and concede that ERA is THE “go to” measurement).

But, how does a pitcher compile a low ERA? Firstly, of course, by limiting the runners who reach base and, then, limiting the baserunners who score. This post will break down those two attributes of pitcher skill and look at the pitchers of the past 5 decades plus who have been most proficient in each.

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Buster Olney musing about Billy Hamilton‘s upcoming rookie year:

… given his incredible prowess on the bases, it may not be necessary for Hamilton to produce within the standard models for leadoff hitters. If Hamilton has a .300 on-base percentage, for example — and that may be what the Reds could reasonably expect in Hamilton’s first year in the big leagues — he could still score a whole lot of runs because his singles and walks tend to lead to him standing on second or third base shortly thereafter.

A whole lot of runs, with a .300 OBP — really? The Reds averaged 4.3 R/G last year, and they’ll be lucky to match that after losing their second-best hitter, Shin-Soo Choo. Is there a precedent for what Buster suggests?

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No, not that Shrek. This one is catcher Ossee Schrecongost (I ran into Ossee in my last quiz, by dint of his 3 qualifying seasons with matching HR and triples: one with deuces; and two with singletons). Ossee played around the turn of the 20th century (and happily also went by the shorter “Schreck”). As I scrolled down his player page, I was struck by this:

So, six straight seasons leading AL catchers in putouts (i.e. mostly catching his pitchers’ strikeouts) despite ranking mostly in the middle of the pack in games caught (excepting his one season leading the AL, Schreck played between 16 and 29 games fewer than the catcher placing first in games caught).

More on strikeout-dominant pitching staffs after the jump.

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This post is for voting and discussion in the 44th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG).  This round begins to add those players born in 1934.  Rules and lists are after the jump. Continue reading →