Comments on: Most games played at cleanup

By: 2008 Twins Feats | cabintwelve.com

2008 Twins Feats | cabintwelve.com — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 23:10:44 +0000

[...] interesting bit of trivia - baseball-reference.com has a list of the most starts batting 4th since 1954 in it’s Stat of the Day [...]

By: ' + title + ' - ' + basename(imgurl) + '(' + w + 'x' + h +')

' + title + ' - ' + basename(imgurl) + '(' + w + 'x' + h +') — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:27:00 +0000

[...] be overstated. Baseball-Reference.com has a wonderful feature called Stat of the Day, and it recently noted that Morneau was the first player since 1956 to bat cleanup in 163 games. Only six others had batted cleanup in [...]

By: Raphy

Raphy — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:33:09 +0000

kingturtle - Manny is the active leader. You also forgot Greg Luzinski.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/QKX7

By: gerry

gerry — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:35:45 +0000

kingturtle is using "all-time" in the sense of "since 1957." I reckon Lou Gehrig, for one, ought to be pretty high on the "since 1871" list.

By: kingturtle

kingturtle — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 01:33:38 +0000

As far as I can tell, Eddie Murray is the all-time leader in games batting cleanup, and Delgado is the active leader. Are my numbers here anywhere near being correct?

* Eddie Murray (2041)
* Fred McGriff (1826)
* Willie McCovey (1622)
* Willie Stargell (1534)
* Dave Winfield (1484)
* Albert Belle (1448)
* Frank Robinson (1409)
* Tony Perez (1401)
* Carlos Delgado (1328)
* Ron Santo (1284)
* Jeff Kent (1277)
* Bobby Bonilla (1252)
* Manny Ramírez (1250)
* Harmon Killebrew (1148)
* Dave Kingman (1121)
* Andre Thornton (1107)
* Cecil Fielder (1058)
* Magglio Ordóñez (1045)
* Mike Schmidt (1027)

By: gerry

gerry — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:46:10 +0000

There may have been seasons before 1956 with players in the 154 game schedule that beat the numbers for 5th and 8th, too (although it's unlikely). The record number of games played in a 154 game schedule is 162.

By: whiz

whiz — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:22:26 +0000

This piqued my interest about other lineup spots. The complete list:

1st: 164, Maury Wills, 1962
2nd: 162, Felix Millan 1975
3rd: 163, Jim Rice 1978
4th: 163, Justin Morneau 2008
5th: 157, Robin Ventura 1998
6th: 141, Vinny Castilla 1997
7th: 132, Larry Parrish 1979
8th: 156, Ed Brinkman 1971
9th: 160, Alfredo Griffin 1983

Wills actually played in 165 games in 1962 thanks to a 3-game playoff with the Giants. In his one non-leadoff game he was sitting out the second game of a double-header but came in in the 8th spot in the bottom of the ninth as part of a double switch.

It's interesting spots 6 and 7 especially were apparently changed more often throughout the season. Since the Game Finder only goes back to 1956, there may have been seasons before then with players in the 154 game schedule that beat the numbers for 6th and 7th.

Ed Brinkman was a notoriously bad hitter (lifetime OPS+ of 65!) so it's not surprising he batted 8th a lot. He actually played in 159 games in 1971, but batted 7th once and lead off twice (!).

Of course the record for 9th spot occurred after the advent of the DH.