Richard Chester had a recent guest post concerning George McQuinn, 1st baseman in the 30s and 40s, mostly for the Browns and Yankees. That’s George on the left, with Chet Laabs, Harlond Clift and Wally Judnich, all regulars for the 1940-42 Browns. Looking at McQuinn’s career, specifically his standout 1947 season at age 38 with the World Series champion Yankees, reminded me of something Bill James wrote about in his Abstracts back in the 80s. James called it the “Last Hurrah” phenomenon when aging players, having started their inevitable decline phase, suddenly have a bounce-back year reminiscent of their younger days.

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The Tribe dropped another extended contest to Toronto by 7-4 in 12 innings Saturday, after losing their opener in 16 frames.

But take heart, Indians fans: The last team to start its season with two losses of 12+ innings wound up winning 97 games and easily capturing its division.

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Just looking at Brad Ausmus’ apparent effect on pitchers.

Roy Oswalt in his career: 3.21 ERA, .687 OPS
Roy Oswalt with Ausmus catching: 3.04 ERA, .685 OPS

Shane Reynolds in his career: 4.09 ERA, .742 OPS
Shane Reynolds with Ausmus cstching: 4.16 ERA, .728 OPS

Mike Hampton in his career: 4.06 ERA, .741 OPS
Mike Hampton with Ausmus catching: 3.36 ERA, .709 OPS

Jeff Weaver in his career: 4.71 ERA, .780 OPS
Jeff Weaver with Ausmus catching: 4.86 ERA, .783 OPS

I picked a few pitchers who threw a lot of their career innings to Ausmus. There doesn’t seem to be much of a trend. Obviously these data should be taken very lightly, as they don’t correct for context and the career numbers cover a lot of territory (for example Mike Hampton was a very different guy during the years he teamed with Ausmus).

If you look at specific teams and years, teams have vastly better numbers with Ausmus as the receiver than with other catchers, but this is because other catchers usually caught the 5th starter.

Anyway, I’m curious how a study like this would play out if done fully and correctly, and how much of a difference in ERA or OPS against would be significant.

Thanks to those of you who participated in our first stat challenge. The results are here, with insertnamehere edging me out to win the league.

Our next challenge is for games on Sunday and you have until about 1pm then to enter. It’s free. To enter click here. If you need to create a FanDuel account, please use that same link as High Heat Stats gets a bonus when you do.

Coming soon, we’ll be providing a prize for these Stat Challenges, so get your practice in now.

As it was in the end, so it shall be in the beginning: The Rays walked off winners against the Yankees today, putting themselves six games ahead of last year’s pace. Carlos Pena celebrated his return to the Trop by bookending the pinstripe aces, with a “take-that!” slam off Sabathia in the 1st and a sacks-full bingle in the 9th off Mariano Rivera.

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The first season of the rest of Adam Dunn’s life begins today. Following a year of historic struggles where he hit .159 with an OPS+ of 56, Dunn and his Chicago White Sox start a new season today against the Texas Rangers. By all accounts, the embattled first baseman looks to have a new lease on his baseball life. Dunn played well through spring training, and rookie manager Robin Ventura told the Chicago Tribune that Dunn will hit third thanks to his ability to get on base.

Seemingly, there’s no direction but up for Adam Dunn in 2012, though whether he can rebound at the plate remains to be seen.  If history is any judge, though, Dunn’s best course of action might be to swing away. Throughout baseball history, many great hitters walked less than their lifetime rates among their top five OPS+ seasons.

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Four players have homered in their team’s first game in both 2011 and 2012:

J.P. Arencibia made the most of his homers, especially with that 16th-inning 3-run job last night.

Going back to 1918, here are the guys with the most Opening Day homers:

Scott Rolen is the active leader, with Adam Dunn right behind him.

What were the most notable baseball trades to happen on this day?

With the luxury of hindsight, it’s fun to look back and see what transactions worked out or didn’t, or maybe even changed baseball history.

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– The Mets had a nice pre-game tribute to the late Gary Carter. The video included his game-winning HR in his Mets debut back in ’85. It was a moving moment, then and now, but tell me this: Have you ever seen worse footwork on a home-run swing? Watch his back foot step away from the plate as his body lurches forward to jerk the slow curve over the LF fence. (And is there a term for such back foot movement? Every source I’ve found says that “stepping in the bucket” refers to the front foot only.)

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In 2011, Jose Valverde converted all 49 save tries in the regular season (allowing just 3 runs in the process), and added 3 more without fail in the postseason.

But in his first outing of the new campaign, he blew Justin Verlander‘s 2-0 lead in the 9th, allowing Ryan Sweeney‘s 2-out tying triple.

And this: The number of times during his magical march to the Cy Young & MVP Awards that Verlander left with a lead but didn’t cash a win? Yep, that would be zero.

Still, the Tigers and their fans walked off happy in the 9th on Austin Jackson‘s 3rd hit.