Comments on: Trivia time: most hits in first 10 seasons, 1975-1995, by position

By: Stat of the Day » 1975 to 1995 hits leaders

Stat of the Day » 1975 to 1995 hits leaders — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:05:29 +0000

[...] couple of days ago. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should probably read that post first, then click [...]

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 01:36:23 +0000

Dustin, in case you are still wondering, the reason Carlton did not top the list is because, in fact, the search count years before 1975 against the search, and since Carlton played a full 10 years (1965-1974) before the period of interest, he gets a big fat zero for this particular list. Sorry about the mis-direction on my part.

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:55:02 +0000

Yup 142 for Doc and Fernando. Not sure why it's inconsistent with your findings...I need some time to look into it. It appears that both pitchers and DHs are screwy with this query for some reason.

By: dustininminny

dustininminny — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 18:41:01 +0000

I know you said you would put up a post with the individual leaderboards, but could you tell me the totals for Gooden/Valenzuela? Looking at their profile pages, Gooden only had 145 career hits, 142 of them coming from 1984-1993. Valenzuela had 1 AB in 1980 according to his profile page. His 1980-1989 hit total would have been 142 as well. I get it that that is a tie. I wanted to see how my 2 guesses did and found that, according to his B-R page, Phil Neikro had 150 hits from 1975-1983. As for Steve Carlton, his B-R page shows 191 hits between 1975-1984. Am I reading the question wrong or was my assertion that Carlton had to be the answer correct?

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:42:53 +0000

Well, you get a gold star.

By: gswitter

gswitter — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 16:46:45 +0000

I actually didn't use the PI. Sandberg was already listed at 2B when I saw the post, but I was curious about a few contemporaries. I only checked Sax (and Lopes) because I was living in LA during the period. After running a few totals with a calculator (ugh), I did switch to an old version of the Sabermetric Baseball Encyclopedia for the addition.

The Franco guess came from your suggestion to check the all-time hits leaders. Until I saw his name there, I wouldn't have even considered him (forgot he had that many hits), but having had my baseball card collecting peak in the early eighties, I definitely remember him as an SS.

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:17:15 +0000

Hal McRae is the answer--remember that the years before 1975 don't count as hits, but also don't count as years against the 10.

I'll make a detailed post about this in the next couple of days showing all the leaders for various positions.

By: wellspr

wellspr — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 15:00:19 +0000

How about Hal McRae or Harold Baines? They both had a lot of hits and played a lot of DH. McRae may had had too many years before the 1975.

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:35:37 +0000

gswitter got 2B...now since you noticed earlier that Sandberg and Sax were tied, I am suspicious that you figured that out on your own without looking at the PI.

As for Franco, that's also correct, and I'm surprised you got that too...

Can anybody out there get the DH? It's really tough, again, based on the rules of this search.

By: gswitter

gswitter — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 01:53:14 +0000

...and the other 2B is Sax.