Vance Worley / USPRESSWIRE
Vance Worley had a wonderful start to his major-league career with the Phillies.
Through his Age 23 season (2011) he pitched 144.2 innings with 8.1 K/9, a 1.203 WHIP, and a 135 ERA+.
Here are some similar players. These guys all threw between 100 and 190 innings through their Age 23 season and had an ERA+ between 125 and 145: Continue reading
@Nationals 9, Cubs 1: Through Monday, 387 games had been played at Nationals Park, and only one team had ever hit 5 HRs there. Now the Nats have hit 6 HRs in consecutive home games. Bryce Harper hit 2 for the 2nd time in a week (giving him 15 Runs and 15 RBI in his last 16 starts) and Adam LaRoche connected for the 3rd game in a row (2nd time this year, 3rd career) as Washington won their 4th straight, putting them on pace for 100 wins.
Thurman Munson, 1947–1979 (Image via Wikipedia)
When building the Hall of wWAR, the most exhilarating part of the process was seeing who the most overlooked players were in baseball history. Many of these players became pet cases of mine for the Hall of Fame. I wrote about many of them at length at Beyond the Box Score—19th Century stars Bill Dahlen, Deacon White, and Bob Caruthers, ballot holdovers Jeff Bagwell, Edgar Martinez, Tim Raines, and Alan Trammell, and players with cases that are now left to the Veterans Committee in Kevin Brown, Lou Whitaker, Ted Simmons, Bobby Grich, and Dick Allen. That’s a lot of players to support. And to be honest, there’s actually more.
Today, I want to have a little chat about one of those players—Thurman Munson. Munson hasn’t always been near the top of my list of pet cases. But I’ve… evolved my feelings towards him.
I’ve actually been working on a new Hall of Fame-related project that builds on the Hall of wWAR. Through that project, I’ve identified what I believe should be the Hall of Fame borderline. Thurman Munson sits right on that borderline. Of course, that’s significant for a big reason—Munson never got to finish his career. We lost him at age 32 when a small plane he was piloting crashed in Canton, OH. The fact that he sits on the borderline without the opportunity to finish his career says to me that Thurman Munson was a Hall of Famer. Continue reading
UPDATE: We have found 5 new writers, to be announced shortly.
High High Stats is looking to add some new writers. I have a few people in mind, but haven’t approached anybody yet, so if you’re interested, please drop me an email.
Here are some of the details:
We’ve got quite a nice community here, and I am looking to continue to build it. I have an eventual goal of taking this thing to a larger stage, so hop on board if you’d like to be part of it!
The Game Notes hard drive died of a nostalgia overdose after watching music videos from the 1970s & ’80s. Je ne regrette rien….
@Rays 4, Yankees 3: In the slim annals of Yankee lead-blowing, there is no sequence as haunting as the one that put the Rays in front Monday: “Roberts steals 2B … Single (groundball); Roberts scores.”
The Giants have opened up a solid lead in the NL West and have the third best record in the NL. It’s been nearly five full seasons since Barry Bonds, the greatest generator of positive sabermetric statistics since Babe Ruth, was left unsigned by the Giants (or anyone else), after an historic 15-year run in San Francisco. As far as winning games is concerned, the Giants have barely lost a beat since Barry left. Some comparative win-loss numbers and other team stats after the jump. Continue reading
On this date in 1975, according to the Baseball-Reference.com Bullpen entry for today:
On the final pitch of his Hall of Fame career, Cardinals great Bob Gibson gives up a grand slam to Pete LaCock. It will be LaCock’s only bases-loaded homer of his career.
I have heard this fact many times–it’s a sad thing.
But a fellow on Twitter named Al Yellon (@bleedcubbieblue) pointed out to me that this “fact” is not a “fact” at all.
Take a look at the box score for the game.
In the 7th inning of the game, here’s how it went:
Bob Gibson replaces Larry Lintz (PR) pitching and batting 9th Fly ball Walk Single Walk Ground out Wild pitch Intentional walk Home run (by Pete LaCock) Ground out (end of inning)
Mike Wallace replaced Bob Gibson to start the top of the 8th.
So, the grand slam clearly did not come on the last pitch of Gibson’s career, since he recorded a ground out following the home run.
What gives? Why does this story about Gibson persist when it is so obviously false?
A quick rundown of games from today’s NL action involving the leading teams.
Nats 4, Cardinals 3 – Stephen Strasburg went 6 scoreless against the Redbirds, who mounted a comeback immediately Strasburg made his departure. But, the Nats restored their lead for good with back-to-back 2-out RBI singles in the 8th off loser Lance Lynn, making his 3rd relief appearance since his removal from the starting rotation. Strasburg is now at 156.1 IP with two more starts promised before the much anticipated season shutdown, or rather the anticipation of whether that shutdown will actually happen.
A quick rundown of games from today’s AL action involving the leading teams.
Tigers 5, White Sox 1 – Detroit closed to within a game of the AL Central-leading White Sox behind Max Scherzer‘s 9 strikeouts and only one walk over eight scoreless innings. It was Scherzer’s 15th win, matching his career high from last season. Since August 15th, Scherzer has four straight starts of 7 innings or more allowing 1 run or less.
A Wins Above Replacement (WAR) number of 8.2 or more is an excellent season number — that’s an MVP-level season performance. But it’s not exactly rare. From 1962 on, the Baseball-Reference Play Index shows 91 seasons by position players that rose to the 8.2 or more WAR level. On average, that’s about two a year, and with two leagues picking MVPs — well, you can see why I described the 8.2 or over level as MVP-type performance.
OK, now how many of those 91 position player seasons of 8.2 WAR over the 1962-2012 period do you suppose have been produced by a position player for a New York City team? Would you believe there have been only three such player-seasons? In 1985, Rickey Henderson in his first year with the Yankees, at age 26, put together an awesome 9.8 WAR year (that was no fluke, as Rickey had another 9.8 WAR year, and grabbed the MVP award, with the A’s in 1990). And A-Rod has produced two seasons over 9 WAR for the Yankees: 2005 and 2007. But that’s it. Other than those three player-seasons, no Yankee position player from 1962 on has produced more WAR in a season than 7.8, achieved by Robinson Cano in 2010, Derek Jeter in 1999 and Bobby Murcer in 1972.
And then there are the Mets, whose top WAR position-player seasons ever are David Wright’s 8.1 in 2007, Carlos Beltran’s 8.0 in 2006 and Bernard Gilkey’s flukey 7.8 in 1996. No other Met position player has topped 7.3 WAR in a season. It is thus not surprising that no Met position-player has ever led the NL in WAR (baseball-reference version) in any season, which happens to be a timely fact because as of now, with a month left in the season, David Wright is actually leading the NL in b-ref WAR, having nudged ahead of the slumping Andrew McCutchen (.588 OPS in McCutchen’s last 21 games).
