Lou Gehrig’s tragically ironic consecutive-games-played-record was broken by the certainly great, but happily less biographicallly dramatic, Cal Ripken. The famous season and career home run records were broken in the steroids era. With those records now less hallowed, the single most memorable remaining baseball record is surely Joe DiMaggio’s streak of 56 consecutive games with at least one base hit, from mid-May to mid-July, 1941. Lots more on hitting streaks after the jump. Continue reading →

One of the most prominent annual signs that baseball season is almost at hand is the onset of the NCAA college basketball tournament. If you would like to submit a bracket in a High Heat Stats group, I’ve set one up at Yahoo’s “Tourney Pick ‘Em” website.   Choose “Join a Group” and then enter Group ID# 79192 and password highheatstatspck.

(Click here if you missed Part 1.)

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“Justify my WAR”

How can we reconcile John Hiller‘s high WAR value — 4th among career relievers, #2 on the 3-year and 6-year lists — with his 125 career saves, the fewest by far of the top 16 in reliever WAR? Saves don’t factor into WAR, of course, but there is a correlation for the top closers. Out of 9 RPs with 15+ WAR who can match his WAR-to-IP ratio, 8 had more than twice his saves.

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This post is for voting and discussion in the twelfth round of balloting for the Circle of Greats. This round adds those players born in 1958 who were not included in the first 1958 round. Rules and lists are after the jump. Continue reading →

Rickey Henderson, #1 in major league history in career runs scored and stolen bases, and #2 in walks, was a runaway winner in the most recent round of voting for the Circle of Greats. Henderson becomes the 11th inductee into the Circle.  More on Rickey and the voting will miraculously appear if you click on “Read the rest of this entry”. Continue reading →

(I’ve been at this one a while, and it’s just too long — so here’s Part 1. Click here for Part 2.)

One name has been removed from these tables of relief WAR leaders. Most of you will twig it quickly, but let me be coy for now. Where would you rank this guy among the best relievers of all time? (All WAR figures are from Baseball-Reference, unless specified.) Continue reading →

Here’s a very quick post that I still think you’ll find interesting. I found the top 100 players of all time in terms of RBI from low-leverage situations. Hank Aaron is #1, as you might expect, since he’s pretty much #1 in anything RBI-related. Then, I calculated the fraction those low-leverage RBI represented of their total career RBI. Let’s call this the “Alex Rodriguez RBI” stat, since he’s so often accused of driving in runs when they don’t really matter.

Click through for the large table of how these 100 guys stack up. Continue reading →

Below is a list of noteworthy players of the past half-century. Among all players to play their entire careers since 1961, what is the common trait shared only by these players?

Hint: the common trait is a career “accomplishment”.

Congratulations to Ed and Birtelcom! They teamed up to identify these players as the HOFers to player their entire careers since 1961 and who played with 10 or more other HOF teammates. Tops on this list is Gaylord Perry with 17 HOF teammates, approaching half of the 41 HOFers from this period.

As everyone knows from reading the first four posts of my High Heat Stats tenure, I enjoy writing about players and games from the past and this post will be no different, thanks to a gem of a book my brother happened to find in my father’s room.

Now, don’t worry, this will not be a book report – I haven’t written one of those in, well, decades so I probably wouldn’t be any good at it but I will tell you that the book is about 30 players who were touted to be the “Stars of 1960” and the essays written about them shine a spotlight on their 1959 season(s).

For this piece, I will forego writing about the usual suspects like Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Don Drysdale because that’s boring and predictable. Instead, you will read about Roy Face, Sam Jones, and Wally Moon, who were well-known then but who may not be as recognizable to most fans today.

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The true power pitcher has long been the province of the celebrated elite of the pitching fraternity. In its most elemental form, baseball is a competition between the batter and the pitcher, with every pitch a renewal of that contest. Long celebrated are those few pitchers who can, when most needed, blow the ball past the hitter to secure the key out. But those days may now be past.

In today’s baseball of K marks littering the scorecards of most ballgames, what once was a rare pitching skill is now just a commodity. Most every pitcher is now expected to be able to retire at least a handful or more of batters each game without aid of his defense.

After the jump, more on the demise of power pitching as an elite skill.

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