Boyd Gail Harris, Jr., who played in the majors from 1955-60 and hit 20 HRs as the regular first baseman for the 1958 Tigers, died last week at the age of 81.

My first knowledge of Gail Harris came from a passage in The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book, by Brendan Boyd and Fred Harris. But the Associated Press report of his death noted that Harris hit the last home run by a New York Giant. I thought I’d flesh that out with a few more game details and other notes:

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Which teams have had the most (or least) to be thankful for at holiday time?

Just for fun, here are a list of significant Thanksgiving Day transactions. Not surprisingly, there hasn’t been a lot of activity on this holiday, but there have been a few transactions of note.

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WAR and OPS+ Leader

Buster Posey led the NL in WAR (both Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs; all further cites are to the B-R version). He’s just the 3rd catcher ever to lead his league in WAR (7.2), joining Johnny Bench (7.1, 1970) and Gary Carter (8.3, 1982). No American League backstop has ever led his league in WAR, and no catcher has ever been the MLB WAR leader.

Posey’s 7.2 WAR tied for the 7th-best ever by a catcher. The #1 figure was 8.5, shared by Bench ’72 and Mike Piazza ’97. Half of all 7-WAR years by catchers came from Bench (3) and Carter (2) combined; Joe Mauer, Darrell Porter and Carlton Fisk join Piazza and Posey with one apiece.

Posey is also the 3rd catcher ever to lead his league in OPS+, joining Mike Piazza (1995, ’97) and Joe Mauer (2009). Posey’s 172 OPS+ (tops in both leagues) was the 2nd-best by a catcher in modern history, trailing only Piazza’s 185 from 1997 (and tied with Mike’s 172 in ’95).

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Here is a list of mainly better hitters, including batting champions and several current and future HOFers.

Since 1920, what is the seasonal feat that only these hitters have accomplished before the age of 30?

Congratulations to John Autin and Richard Chester! They teamed up to identify these players as the only under 30 hitters since 1920 with a season scoring less than 100 runs despite a .400+ OBP and 25 or more steals. Here is the list.

As the Steroids Era has faded away, offensive levels have returned quite close to where they were in 1992, The Year Before Everybody Got Jacked. On the surface, the two seasons look pretty similar in terms of numbers:

Stat              1992      2012
BA                .256      .255
AB per game     33.93     34.00
Hits per game    8.68      8.65
Runs per game    4.12      4.32

While those basic numbers are just about mirror images, there are some massive differences as well.

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Dating back to Graham Womack’s Inner Circle Hall of Fame project, Bryan and I have been engaging in a friendly debate regarding a couple candidates where our ballots differed, and who received decidedly different levels of support from the project’s voters. We agreed back then to collaborate on a post where we’d debate the merits of our guy versus the other. That was back in July, so this one has admittedly been a long time coming, but Adam’s recent Hall of Stats unveiling served to rekindle the conversation. Continue reading →

One of the less well-noted happenings prior to the 2012 season was a change in one of the career pitching leaderboards. With the retirement of Tim Wakefield, there was a new active leader in career wild pitches, one Allan James Burnett.

A.J.’s ascension to the top rung was well-deserved, coming on the heels of 3 seasons with the spectacular aggregate total of 58 wild pitches. To put that number in perspective, at least five pitchers, at the time they became active leaders in this category, had compiled career wild pitch totals not exceeding A.J.’s three-year mark. For the curious, those players were Freddie Fitzsimmons (1935, 1942), Bill Hallahan (1935), Bump Hadley (1939), Johnny Allen (1942), and Warren Spahn (1959).

After the jump, a look at where A.J. fits into the pantheon of the game’s wildest hurlers.

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Below are a list of similar hitters. Except for maybe one, that first guy. All but Pepi have had seasons of 40 HRs, over 100 RBI, or over 100 Ks.

So what is it that only this group of hitters has accomplished in a full season (502 PA) since 1901?

Congratulations to Paul E. He correctly identified these players as the only hitters since 1901 having a season (502 PA) with home runs comprising more than 55% of runs scored. Here’s the list.

Out of all the retired pitchers in MLB history, there are 2,191 who logged at least 400 innings through age 34.

Of that group, 317 fared so poorly that they had a career WAR value of less than 1.0 WAR through age 34.

With such a poor performance in a reasonably long trial, it’s no surprise that just 21 of them pitched in the majors from age 35 onward. Most of them were finished before they turned 30.

And of those 21 who did pitch at age 35 or older, only one ever had a season worth at least 3.0 WAR.

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