Sometimes it's just nice to play with Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index and see where it takes you. For example, let us look at which team, since 1954, had at least one triple in a game the most games in a row. Thanks to PI's Team Batting Streak Finder here's that answer:

Ah, so, the 1979 Phillies are the leaders here.  Let's look at their Team Batting Page at B-R.com and see who had more than one triple for them that season:

Bowa and McBride leading the pack here, huh? Yeah, I can just see those two slashing balls into the gap on the turf at the old Vet; and, then, taking off, scooting around the bases. Seeing this, I next wondered how many teams in the "D.H. Era," had at least two players on their team with 10+ triples in a season. Thanks to PI's Batting Season Finder, here's that answer:

In the 2009 season there were 4 players who came to the plate at least 300 times and struck out more than they reached base.

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Hall (1.277) and Davis's (1.261)  ratios of strikeouts to times on base  were the second and third highest in baseball history (min. 300 PA). The only player with with a higher ratio was pitcher Frank Meinke, who struck out 89 times, while only reaching base 62 for the 1884 Detroit Wolverines (ah,  the memories) . (Meinke also had a W-L record of 8-23 that year.)

Meanwhile, Olivo became the 12th player to strikeout more often than he reached base and still post an OPS+ of 100 or higher. As Gerry and I mentioned in the PI Tag thread, only Dave Nicholson has done so while qualifying for a batting title.

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Most of the players listed were young. Oliva however, is not. In fact, with the exception of Mark McGwire, Oliva is the oldest player to ever accomplish this feat.

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In terms of career numbers, only 4 players in history have posted an OPS+ of at least 100 with more strikeouts than times on base in at least 200 career PA. Three of those players are active.

Today I was wondering about which starting pitchers were consistent in terms of taking a regular turn and providing innings pitched - but who were also not stellar or terrible that season. Who did this most often? So, I turned to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Season Finder and set the controls for:

For single seasons, from 1901 to 2009, requiring GS>=30, IP>=200, ERA+>=90 and <=110, sorted by greatest number of seasons matching criteria

and, I got this leader board:

Some of the names here are the ones that you may expect. But, I didn't think Kevin Gross would be so high on the list.  Anyone here that surprises you?

Stores across the US are gearing up to begin selling gifts staring this evening.  Here are some prolific gift receivers, players (since 1955 when IBB became a stat) who were walked more intentionally then unintentionally. Only players with at least 15 walks are included.

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I got curious to see what players have had a lot of RBI without scoring all that many runs. Here is a list of players since 1901 to have more than double the number of RBI as compared to runs scored, ranked by most RBI in a season.

 
It's unsurprising that none of these guys had big HR totals. If a player hits 30-40 HR, he automatically scores 30-40 runs and, when adding in other runs scored will usually get a pretty decent total.

What I found somewhat more surprising is how many of these guys are catchers. Of the top 20 seasons, 13 of them saw the guy play significant time at catcher.

I know what you're thinking---duh Andy, catchers are usually slow and slow players don't score as many runs. While it's true that catchers are slow, I wonder why their plodding path around the bases causes fewer runs to be scored. I don't think it's just because slower runners take the extra base less often and therefore score less often. I think it has more to do with where these guys bat in the lineup. The fastest guys on the team, as long as they are decent at getting on base, usually bat leadoff. The 2-5 hitters are usually good hitters and fairly rarely are very slow. But if a manger has a good hitter who is slow, I think he tends to put that guy in the 6th or 7th hole more often. That means that he has the weakest hitters in the lineup following him, and that means he scores fewer runs.

Here's what I'm trying to say by way of example. Let's imagine two identical hitters except that hitter A is an average runner (speed-wise) and hitter B is a slow runner. If they both bat 3rd in the same lineup over the course of 150 games, my guess is that hitter A would score 10-20 more runs. So maybe he finishes with 100 RBI and 80 runs scored, while hitter B finishes with 100 RBI and 60 runs scored. I don't think this is enough of a difference to account for the performances we see on the list above. But in reality, a manager wouldn't bat hitter B in the 3-hole unless he was an incredibly good hitter, like Mike Piazza. Instead, the decent but slow hitter bats 6th or 7th, has fewer RBI chances but scores MANY fewer runs.

That's my guess--anybody have a different theory?

Current Free Agents with 1500 PAs over the last three years sorted by OPS+ - Baseball-Reference.com

We've entered the 255 major league free agents into the database, and you can now search the season finders on just these players. The 2009 Free Agent checkbox option is in the second column for both of these finders.

At the end of every game, no matter the result, the two pitchers who pitched last have a tally added to their stat sheet. If the pitcher started the game it is  called a "complete game" and if the pitcher entered in relief it's called a "game finished."  With the exception of baseball's very early years, it is very rare for a pitcher to complete all of his starts. Yet, even among relief pitchers  it is extremely uncommon  for a pitcher to relieve a significant number of games and  finish off  every single one of them.

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Recently, I was involved in some debate about Rich Harden. On one side, the case was being made that he might/should be a pitcher that teams should look to acquire for 2010. And, the point on my side was that he cannot be counted on to give you a regular turn for a full season - despite how well he may pitch when he does take toe to the rubber.

And, this whole thing got me wondering: Which starting pitchers were the ones that you could least rely on to give you a full season of taking a regular turn?

This is where Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Season finder comes in handy. Using it, and setting the filters for "For single seasons, From 1901 to 2009, (requiring GS>=5, IP<=150, GS<=25 and At least 100% games started), sorted by greatest Seasons matching criteria" for each league, I came up with these lists:

American League:

National League:

Granted, this is far from being very scientific. It doesn't really factor in partial seasons that are the result of a pitcher breaking into the major leagues, for example. But, it's a nice, fun, quick way to look at this question.

It's interesting to see names here that you would expect - like Aaron Sele, Jason Bere, Juan Guzman, Sid Fernandez and Randy Wolf.

It's worth noting that Pedro Martinez makes the N.L. list because of his seasons from 2006 through 2009. Clearly, the Red Sox made the right call after the 2004 season by letting him go elsewhere.

In fact, many of the leaders on these lists had these types of seasons come towards the end of their career.

The one thing, above all others, that stands out to me here is that it's such a "modern" event to have pitchers post these types of seasons. You don't see any names on these leader boards of guys who pitched before 1984.

Of the four types of hit in baseball, triples are by far the rarest. In 2009, there were 949 triples out of 43,524 total hits (2.18%). I went back and calculated historical values for some past years:

1999: 931/45,327 (2.05%)
1989: 868/36,293 (2.39%)
1979: 1,066/37,911 (2.81%)
1969: 849/32,581 (2.61%)
1959: 591/21,636 (2.73%)
1949: 761/22,168 (3.43%)
1939: 916/23,371 (3.92%)
1929: 1,166/24,642 (4.73%)
1919: 1,048/19,624 (5.34%)
1909: 1,002/19,655 (5.10%)

As you can see, triples used to be more than twice as common as they are today. Although many factors are involved, the single-biggest is the much smaller size of ballparks today as compared to back then. These days, outfielders cover a lot less territory and many balls that could have once gone for hits are either caught or go over the fence for homers. A typical triple requires a certain amount of open space on the field where the ball can get to a position in fair territory that's somewhat far away from all of the fielders. That's a lot rarer these days than it used to be.

Anyway, once upon a time, there were lots of guys who had more triples than doubles in a season.

Here are players from the 40-year period 1901-1940 who had more triples in a season than doubles, ranked by triples:

Notice too that all of these players had more triples than homers.

Now here is the same list compiled from the 40 most recent seasons (1970-2009):

As might be expect, these guys have much lower totals for extra-base hits and played in many fewer games than their counterparts from about 70 years earlier.

Here are the career leaders (1901-present) for most triples with a fewer number of doubles:

As it turns out, #3 Frank Shugart is a bogus entry because most of his career came before 1901 and he finished with 79 career triples and 110 career doubles.

Among active players, the only guys with more triples than doubles are as follows:

Slim pickings there, folks. And before anybody asks, B-R.com lists guys as active until they officially announce their retirement.

Among players with more career triples than homers, the leaders 1901-present include many of the greatest players of the early 20th century:

Even the list of leaders among active players is somewhat impressive:

I'm inclined to guess that Carl Crawford will eventually fall off this list. Generally speaking, he's hit fewer triples in recent seasons while his homers have remained fairly constant. (That's a very rough analysis.) If he loses a little speed in the coming years, which is likely, I'd expect his triples to drop even more. However, I think Juan Pierre is safe

As a final tidbit, there are six players in baseball history to finish their career with more than 1 triple, and also more triples than singles. Limb McKenry leads the way with 7 career hits that included 4 triples. It was done most recently by Gary Moore of the 1970 Dodgers. Moore had 3 career hits: a single and two triples.

Just a quick hit from me today:

Oakland Rookie Pitcher Vin Mazzaro set a record this season for most PAs in a season without recording an AB. Over the course of 2 inter-league games Mazzaro came to the plate 4 times, each with a runner on first, and successfully sacrificed the runner over each time. Here are the most PAs without an AB:

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