The Cubs were probably last season’s biggest surprise with 97 wins from a lineup heavy on young position players and experienced pitching. Looking to win 90 games again (a repeat Chicago last accomplished when Al Capone was the city’s most prominent citizen), Chicago has made some nice off-season moves that augur well for keeping the Northsiders at or near the top of the NL Central.
More after the jump.
2015 NL RoY Kris Bryant makes this list of modern batters who were not shy about taking their cuts. What is the unusual seasonal batting feat that only these players have achieved since 1901?
| Rk | Player |
|---|---|
| 1 | Jose Hernandez |
| 2 | Austin Jackson |
| 3 | Kris Bryant |
| 4 | Rick Monday |
| 5 | Mike Napoli |
| 6 | Mark Bellhorn |
| 7 | Jack Cust |
| 8 | Gary Pettis |
| 9 | Ben Grieve |
| 10 | Anthony Gose |
Our readers zeroed in on BABIP as part of the quiz answer, but didn’t get that only these players had a qualified season since 1901 with a .350 BABIP that was one-third higher than their overall batting average. Those seasons are after the jump.
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This post is for voting and discussion in the 121st round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG). This is the second of two rounds of balloting that will bring the Circle of Greats membership to a total of 121, matching the current members of the Hall of Fame elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) in regular (116) or run-off (3) elections, plus the two members (Lou Gehrig, Roberto Clemente) enshrined by special election. This will be the final round of COG balloting until the next Hall of Fame members are elected by the BBWAA. Rules and lists are after the jump.
Or maybe it’s Chris is Ruth. In fact, if your name is (or sounds like) Chris, you can put up some Ruthian OPS scores when you put the first pitch in play, as shown by this list.
| Rk | Player | OPStot | Diff | PA | PAtot | AB | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | TB | GDP | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chris Davis | 1.554 | .923 | .631 | 74 | 670 | 74 | 36 | 10 | 0 | 11 | 23 | .486 | .486 | 1.068 | 79 | 1 |
| 2 | Khris Davis | 1.504 | .828 | .676 | 46 | 440 | 44 | 18 | 3 | 0 | 9 | 23 | .409 | .413 | 1.091 | 48 | 3 |
| 3 | Kris Bryant | 1.466 | .858 | .608 | 75 | 650 | 72 | 36 | 7 | 3 | 7 | 26 | .500 | .493 | .972 | 70 | 2 |
Those are the top 3 OPS scores from 2015 when putting the first pitch in play, based on a minimum 400 total PA and 40 first pitches put in play.
More after the jump.
This post is for voting and discussion in the 120th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG). This is the first of two rounds of balloting that will bring the Circle of Greats membership to a total of 121, matching the current members of the Hall of Fame elected by the Baseball Writers of America in regular (116) or run-off (3) elections, plus the two members (Lou Gehrig, Roberto Clemente) enshrined by special election. Rules and lists are after the jump.
This post was first published early in 2016 to identify batteries (pitcher and catcher) with 200 or more regular season starts together. It is based on the Defensive Lineups pages for each team and season on Baseball-Reference.com. At that time (early 2016), those seasons only went back to 1914, whereas now (in early 2021) there are data for the entire modern era, back to 1901.
As I’ve received several queries about this article, I decided to update it to include the 1901-13 seasons and also, of course, the 2016-20 seasons as well. Doing so has increased the number of qualifying batteries from the original 26 up to 35 for the entire modern era. More on these long-term batteries is after the jump.
This Circle of Greats (COG) vote is not to induct anyone into the Circle, but only to select three players who will be restored back to the main ballot after having been previously dropped from eligibility. As with earlier redemption rounds, this is an opportunity for voters to reconsider past candidates who have previously fallen off the regular induction ballots. This “supplemental” redemption round is being conducted prior to the final two rounds of COG balloting that will consider only holdover candidates already on the COG ballot.
This post is for voting and discussion in the 119th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG). This is the second of two rounds adding to the list of candidates eligible to receive your votes those players born in 1971. Rules and lists are after the jump.
This post is for voting and discussion in the 118th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG). This is the first of two rounds adding to the list of candidates eligible to receive your votes those players born in 1971. Rules and lists are after the jump.
2015 NL Cy Young Award winner Jake Arrieta is one of the twelve pitchers below to record a certain single game pitching accomplishment in the past twenty seasons (since 1996). What is this unusual feat?
Hint #1: Roger Clemens is the only other Cy Young Award winner to accomplish this feat.
Hint #2: Since 1914, no pitcher has accomplished this feat on his birthday.
Looks like this one was a stumper. The key to the solution was observing that these twelve pitchers were born on only 6 dates, two pitchers per date. In fact, only these pitchers have started a game since 1996 in which the the two starters shared a common birth date (i.e. born same day and year). More after the jump.