The year was 1989: In a 26-team universe, 25 men logged 20 Saves or more, goosing the year-old record by more than one-third, and topping the total of all individuals with a 20-Save season through 1964. Another mark was set as 10 reached the once-historic 30-Save plateau.

And lefties were in the vanguard of the closer revolution, setting southpaw records with seven 20-Save years and four of 30+. They nailed down the year’s highest total (with bonus hardware), along with nos. 3 and 5. One team even boasted two southpaws with more than a dozen Saves, a truly unique occurrence.

But time marches on. The big question now is … Will any lefty reach 20 Saves in 2013?

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Since 1901, twenty-one pitchers have reeled off at least three straight years of 7+ rWAR. One pitcher has a chance to crash the list in 2013.

The 7-WAR “triples,” arranged by age:

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As noted by Raphy in the previous post, Baseball-Reference’s Play Index Split Finder is out of beta and now available in more polished form to the general Play index subscribership. One quick use of that new tool produces the following list of the players with the most career, regular-season major league home runs in a single ballpark: Continue reading →

I’ve been having a lot of fun playing around with the new PI tools.  Here are some of the things I have found.

• The only pitcher of any significance to wear #1: Matt Young 
• In 2012 the Mets scored 43.5% of their runs with 2 outs, the most in baseball. 
• Yankee killers: Players who smacked the Yanks around much better than they hit  everyone else. #1 Richard Hidalgo, #5 Luis Tiant! 
  
• Here are 19 players whose only career HR was a grand slam. The list includes Felix Hernandez , Shaun Marcum and Jake Westbrook
  
• Player with the most career HR all solo shots (among those available in the PI) : Todd Dunwoody 
• Watch for AlexeiRamirez to start slow. His career OPS is .725, but only .561 early.This is the 8th worst difference: among players with 3000 PA 
• On the other hand Matt Kemp is a fast starter.  His career OPS in March/April is 1.024, but overall it’s .853  That difference is the 4th most on record.
• Ryota Igarashi faced 351 batters in his career, 31 with bases loaded. This 8.8% rate is the most on record (50+ IP)
  
• Rockies starters only pitched 53.8% of the teams’ innings in 2012; by far the lowest on record. 
  

When it comes to allowing unearned runs, are pitchers masters of their own fate, or innocent victims of circumstance (or, perhaps, not so innocent)? That is the question I’ll look at in this second installment on unearned run prevention.

In Part 1 of this series, I looked at what evidence there might be to support the hypothesis that unearned run avoidance was a skill that some pitchers could consistently demonstrate over their careers. The major conclusion was that, since 1961, team ERA and team unearned run prevention showed positive correlation. That is, of those teams successful in limiting unearned runs, the proportion with better pitching (i.e. lower ERAs) was higher than for groups of teams having less success in preventing unearned runs. This conclusion also seems intuitively correct – pitchers who are good at preventing earned runs are probably also good at preventing unearned runs.

In Part 2, I’ll take the next step and try to identify those pitchers who seem most and least adept at the skill of preventing unearned runs. Yes, I called it a skill because, while some errors lead immediately and unavoidably to runs scoring, many times the consequences are not so dire, affording pitchers the opportunity to work out of jambs caused by their defense. Whether because of temperament or determination, some pitchers seem to do this quite well, while others … well, not so much.

After the jump, more on pitchers and unearned runs.

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Who would you say is the best player in MLB history? Well, before answering, you might ask me to specify an age. If you’re looking for someone under 25, it would have to be Ted Williams, right? Somebody in their early 30’s? That must be Babe Ruth. How about the best player in their late 30s to 40s? Clearly it’s Barry Bonds.

But what if you didn’t have to choose? What if we picked the best year by any player at each age, and put them all together to build the perfect player? That’s just what we do after the jump.

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Towards the end of this coming season, we may see something that hasn’t ever happened before. At least not involving players on the same team.

This something (whatever it is) has occurred involving players on opposing teams only rarely, including in the following games.

Cardinals 4, Nationals 2 – Aug 27, 2010

Yankees 4, Braves 3 – June 28, 2006

Mariners 5, Rangers 2 – June 27, 1999

Orioles 6, Twins 5 – July 2, 1966

Giants 11, Braves 10 – Sept 19, 1961

So, what is this something?

Hint: if it doesn’t happen this year, it won’t happen next year, either.

Congratulations to ATarwerdi96! He correctly identified that, with a 40 home run season this year, Prince Fielder would join Tiger teammate Miguel Cabrera in the 300 HR club and do so when both are aged 30 or younger.  As far as I can tell, it would be the first time a team has had two such players. The closest so far has been the 1962 Braves, with Eddie Mathews, aged 30, at 399 home runs, and 28 year-old Hank Aaron with 298 round-trippers.

After the jump, more on precocious home run hitters, including the players represented in the box score clues.

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Here is a list of well-known ballplayers, all connected by a common seasonal batting achievement.

Your job: find that common batting feat, and identify the missing ballplayers needed to complete this list.

Note: there is no significance to the multi-column list; a single column list would have worked just as well

Congratulations to Ed on identifying these hitters as the record holders for home runs in a season at a specific age. After that, it was a true team effort to identify the remaining mystery players, shown in red above. So, thanks to everyone for playing.

Interestingly, there is a single HR  record-holder for every age – no ties. See the complete list of these record HR seasons after the jump.

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This Circle of Greats vote is not to induct anyone into the Circle, but only to select two players who will restored back on to the main ballot after having been previously been dropped from eligibility. The intent is to help assure that deserving guys who have may have been dropped during a particularly talent-heavy era get another chance in a different context where they might be more competitive. Continue reading →

This post is for voting and discussion in the tenth round of balloting for the Circle of Greats. This round adds players born in 1959. Rules and lists are after the jump. Continue reading →