The last player to appear in a major league game before his 19th birthday was Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod debuted for the Mariners on July 8, 1994, 19 days before turning 19. Since then, just a handful of 19 year-olds have appeared, including such notables as Andruw Jones, Edgar Renteria, Adrian Beltre and Felix Hernandez. The Upton brothers, Justin and B.J., also both debuted just prior to turning 20 (does anyone know if any other brothers have debuted as teenagers?)

But, teenagers weren’t always so scarce. During World War II, and in the bonus baby days of the 1950s and 1960s, there was a relative abundance of teenagers in the majors, with some teams sporting several on their rosters. And, it wasn’t just 19 year-olds – Joe Nuxhall famously debuted as a 15 year-old and a number of 16, 17 and 18 year-old players have also had major league playing time.

With that preamble, I’m following up an earlier post on the oldest batter vs. pitcher matchups with this post, highlighting the youngest such matchups.

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In the final installment of WAR leaders by position since 1961, we look at pitchers and catchers. As with the earlier posts, the methodology is to identify the leader in cumulative bWAR over 5-year periods for players appearing in a designated position for at least 75% of their games. For pitchers, this means that a pitcher must appear in either a starting or relieving role for 75% of their games to be included on the leader board.

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Mel Parnell passed away a few days ago at the age of 89. Parnell was a mainstay in the Red Sox rotation in the late 40s and early 50s. During his 10-year career from 1947 to 1956, all with Boston, the Red Sox compiled a .554 winning percentage. When Parnell started, that shot up to a .647 clip.  

Parnell was among the top major league pitchers during his career, placing 8th in ERA+, 10th in WAR and W-L %, and 3rd in lowest HR/9 for the 1947 to 1956 period. 

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In the second installment of 5-year WAR leaders since 1961, this post looks at players in outfield and DH positions. The methodology is to determine bWAR leaders for each year based on cumulative 5-year bWAR ending in that year. To qualify for the leader board, players must play 75% of their games in the period at the indicated position.

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Birtelcom’s recent post on dynastic succession by teams got me to thinking about succession in terms of players. In particular, does the best player at a position remain the best player for an extended period, or does that honor tend to shift around among the better players during any particular time?

To answer this question, I looked at cumulative bWAR measured over 5 year periods, for every such period since 1961. Since I was focusing on individual positions, I set a high threshold of at least 75% of games played at that position during the period. This approach will exclude players who split time among positions, or around the time of a mid-career position switch. But, I believe those are precisely the reasons why this approach is preferable when evaluating players by position.

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A St. Patrick’s Day Tribute to players born in the Emerald Isle.

Here’s the All-Ireland All-Star team

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Here’s an unusual collection of pitchers. There are starters and relievers. Their careers ranged from two seasons to more than twenty. They pitched in ten decades, from the 1910s to the 2000s. There are players you probably have never heard of – and there’s a HOFer.

But these pitchers, and only these pitchers, have accomplished a feat no other pitcher has achieved. What common thread unites this group?

The quiz has been solved. Congratulations to the team of Richard Chester and Nadig!

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Which starting pitchers have been shelled most often? I’m not talking about guys with careers of only a handful of starts. No, I’m thinking more about established pitchers. Which of those pitchers have most frequently had a tough day at the office?

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In 2011, Jason Varitek caught Tim Wakefield for the final time of their careers. Their combined age was over 84 years. This season, we should see Henry Blanco catch Takashi Saito. Their combined age will be over 82 years. These are just two examples of what I call the “graying of batteries” that has been going on for the past 25 years, and particularly in the past decade. Not sure if you agree? Then consider this: 

32% of all “old” batteries (combined age of batter and pitcher over 80 years) since 1919 have occurred in the past 10 seasons. That number jumps to 57% looking at the past 26 years.  

If those numbers surprise you (or even if they don’t), why not read some more.

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This post is about two players who had unusual run scoring accomplishments in 2011.

Curtis Granderson joined a short list of players since 1961 whose runs scored were more than half their times on base. Conversely, Casey Kotchman joined an even shorter list of players who failed to score over 80% of the time they reached base. That’s quite a range.

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