These are the only pitchers of the past 30 seasons (since 1985) with an unusual single game accomplishment. What is it?

Hint: there is a career context for this single game feat

Looks like I have another stumper! Voomo Zanzibar zeroed in on the main point straight off, that all of these pitchers have recorded an unlikely shutout with zero strikeouts. The extra wrinkle that eluded our readers was that each did so in the first whiff-less CG of his career. More after the jump.
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Yankee rookie Dellin Betances is having a season so far that puts him in the company of some of baseball’s all-time great relievers. What seasonal pitching feat has been achieved only by these players?

Hint: Betances will need to continue his strong performance the rest of the season to remain with this group.

Looks like I’ve stumped the panel on this one. The answer is that these are the only right-handed pitchers since 1901 to have a season with 80% of appearances in relief, 75+ IP and a ratio of ERA+ to WHIP exceeding 300. Betances’s ratio is currently at 347 times WHIP, so he has a good chance to still be on this list at season’s end. If he does, he will likely have the highest IP total for such a season (lefty or righty) since Bruce Sutter in 1977. More after the jump.

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A common and legitimate criticism of using RBI as a measure of a hitter’s effectiveness is that RBI are opportunity-based and, therefore, good RBI totals may simply be an indicator of more RBI opportunities. To address this limitation in raw RBI totals, this post looks at players who are most proficient in driving in runs when they are presented with that opportunity (namely, when runners are in scoring position).

Using this approach, Albert Pujols, Albert Belle and Manny Ramirez emerge as the most proficient expansion era run producers with RISP, with Frank Thomas just a hair behind.

My thanks to regular HHS contributor Richard Chester for suggesting the idea for this post. More after the jump.

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Continuing from an earlier post on the NL, here are some statistical oddities to watch for as the 2014 season winds down.

Betcha didn’t know that …

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As the season rounds the quarter pole and heads into the stretch drive, here’s a compilation of some of this season’s statistical oddities.

Betcha didn’t know that …

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The players in this quiz are mostly from yesteryear, with a couple of exceptions. What is the seasonal batting feat that distinguishes this group among players active since 1901?

Bonus: name the player who is on pace in 2014 to join this group.

Congratulations to John Autin, with some help from Richard Chester and others. They teamed up to identify the quiz players as those with seasons of 50 stolen bases and 25 doubles, with doubles at least as numerous as strikeouts. That combination of speed, contact hitting and a little pop has become very rare with only two such post-war seasons, though Jose Altuve is currently on pace to join this group if he can keep his doubles total level with his strikeouts. More after the jump.

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Today’s All-Star game is the third in Minnesota, and the third in a different stadium. Today’s game will be the first in Minnesota without Pete Rose in the lineup, after Charlie Hustle started the 1965 game and appeared as a pinch-hitter in 1985, the latter appearance at age 44 making Rose the oldest NL All-Star (Satchel Paige was the oldest AL All-Star at age 47 in 1953) . Today’s game will also be the first in Minnesota with the DH, as that innovation made a delayed All-Star appearance only in 1989.

More on Minnesota’s all-star history after the jump.

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Seventy years ago, wartime necessity redefined the possible for big-league catching. That year, two catchers, Ray Mueller in the NL and Frankie Hayes in the AL, achieved a feat unmatched by any player before or since – starting as catcher in EVERY game of the season.

After the jump, more on these two players and the change in catcher usage that they pioneered.

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The players in this quiz are the only catchers with a particular season accomplishment since 1961. What is it?

1. Brian McCann
2. Jason Kendall
3. Einar Diaz
4. Mike Piazza
5. Terry Kennedy
6. Rich Gedman
7. Ted Simmons
8. Bill Freehan
9. Randy Hundley
10. Clay Dalrymple
11. John Romano

Hint #1: McCann and Kendall accomplished this feat in the same season, the first time since 1955 that two catchers had done so in the same year.

Hint #2: A player is currently on pace to join this group in 2014.

Congratulations to Gary Bateman! He correctly identified the quiz players as the only catchers since 1961 to lead their league in the same season in most successful steal attempts against and also most unsuccessful steal attempts against, the latter being an artifact of the former. More after the jump.

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Thus far in 2014, the recent  trend towards lower scoring continues. That trend is now more than 15 years in the making and has resulted in another, that of a higher incidence of shutouts (at least those of the team variety). So far in 2014, more than 15% of games have resulted in a goose egg for the losers, a proportion not seen since 1981, and not seen in a full-length season since 1976.

After the jump, more on declining offense and why it’s been happening.

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