Sorry that I have made so few posts lately. My family and I suffered a significant tragedy a couple of weeks ago so I've been out of action. I expect to get back to posting more regularly now.

Here are players with career totals matching the year of 2010.

Career hits:

Career plate appearances:

Career at-bats:

I hope everyone has a happy, safe, and successful year.

Seems to be a slow day here in December. Lets try a little PI Tag.

Question 1:

Which player hit a triple in each of his first 2 major league plate appearances and then never again? (Can't be answered with a single PI link, but it can be found in several different ways using PI)

In recent history and even throughout the annals of baseball, there have been many pitchers who have been used as specialists, brought in only to face a few batters at a time and rarely trusted with extended appearances. Even so, you would be hard pressed to find a pitcher who pitched as little in his appearances than Randy Flores did last season. In his 27 games Flores faced 52 batters for an average of 1.926 batters per appearance.  Since 1916 (when the BF stats are first available) no pitcher has pitched in more than 8 games and faced fewer batters per game.  In fact, the only other pitcher since 1916 to pitch more than 8 games and face less than 2 batters per game was Jesse Orosco who faced 69 batters in 35 innings in 2001. Here are the pitchers since 1916 with the fewest BF/G in at least 25 games.

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Not only did Flores face only a few batters, he also was also rather ineffective when he did pitch. It is therefore no surprise that Flores also staked new ground in the IP/G category. His .44 IP/G was the lowest ratio for any Major Leaguer ever with at least 20 games pitched. Here are the pitchers since 1871 with at least 25 games pitched and a IP/G ratio of less than .5.

I got curious to see what players have the rest ratio of total bases in a season vs. outs made in that same season.

After playing around with the parameters, it seems that 0.8 is an exceptionally good ratio, meaning a player racks up a number of total bases that is 80% of his total outs made.

Here are the players from the last 3 seasons to achieve the 0.8 ratio in a qualified batting season:

It seems that most of these guys make the list due to very high OBP as well as lots of extra-base hits. Some players were also helped by low GIDP totals, which shaves a few outs off that total. I find it interesting that the strikeout totals are all over the map.

Putting the ratio at 1.0 (meaning seasons where a player's total bases matched or exceeded his total outs) yields these 65 qualified seasons:

So these are all seasons with very high OBP and SLG. Like many searches of this type, we see very little since the 1950s except for George Brett's incredible 1980 and a bunch of seasons from the Steroids Era.

Incidentally, the best such qualified seasons since 1901 ranked by TB/outs ratio are Babe Ruth in 1921 (1.309), Barry Bonds in 2001 (1.253), Bonds in 2004 (1.242), Ruth in 1920 (1.298), Bonds in 2002 (1.238), and Rogers Hornsby in 1925 (1.253.)

Every season, there are pitchers who seem to be unable to buy a win. No matter how well they pitch, they seem to end up on the short end of a game more often than not. Other pitchers pitch exceptionally well and still end up with a mediocre winning percentage. Occasionally the are pitchers that have historically frustrating seasons, in which their record belies their quality pitching. Nolan Ryan's 1987 season (8-16 2.76) is a famous example. One easy way that I have found to find such seasons is to compare a pitcher's winning percentage with his ERA+. A low ratio of WL%:ERA+ indicates that a pitcher has suffered through the agony of losing a lot more than we would have expected.

Here are the leaders among ERA qualifiers for 2009:

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The top two pitchers on the list were clearly in different categories, but both were robbed of wins. Aaron Harang had a decent season and typically an ERA+ of 102 would produce a winning percentage in the .520s. Harang however, was not nearly that lucky, posting W-L record of 6-14. Zack Greinke produced a stellar season in 2009 and, as the Cy Young voters understood, his 16-8 record clearly did not represent the quality of his performance. A .750 winning percentage would have been more typical.

While he was tops in '09, Harang was no where near the all time leaders.

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The 1916 Phillidelphia A's were historically bad with a terrible offense, and so it is no surprise that the two pitchers who top the list were both from that team. Jack Nabors and Tom Sheehan combined to go 2-36 for that dreadful bunch.

The list above seems to favor pitchers who had subpar seasons with historically bad W-L records. It might be more interesting to look at the pitchers with the lowest ratios that had ERA+ of 125 or higher. Here are the leaders:

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There is Ryan '87. Certainly a travesty of a season, but not the biggest. In fact, in 1904 Ned Garvin had a better ERA+ than Ryan and a much worse record.

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On the flip side of this are pitchers whose record was much better than their ERA + would suggest. You can read about them here.

In 2009 Bradon Looper went 14-7 despite posting an ERA+ of only 77. Looper's success, which can be attributed to a combination of extreme inconsistancy, run support and luck, was certainly unusual, but not unprecedented.

Yesterday we took a look at a group of pitchers who won a lot despite posting a less than stellar ERA+ . After I posted the list I began to wonder if we could do better. The list from yesterday lumps all the sub 100 ERA+ seasons together and doesn't differentiate between them. Jim Coates's 13-3 season is lumped together with Hooks Wiltse's 13-3 season, despite Wiltses's 96-83 advantage in ERA+. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to look at the players with the best ratio of WL%:ERA+. I realize that there is a certain logical flaw in such a comparison, but I think the list is enlightening none-the -less. (To be included all pitchers must have pitched enough to qualify for the ERA title.)

I have added the ratios to the original list, which is sorted by year. If you click on "ratio", it will sort the list in order.

The top two pitchers on the list were teammates for the World Champion 1913 A's. The best ratio since 1901 belongs to Byron Houck who went 14-6, despite posting an ERA+ of 66. Houck's teammate Joe Bush who went 15-6 with an ERA+ of 72 is second all-time. Both pitchers certainly benefited from their team's tremendous offense, which averaged 5.19 R/G, more than a full run more than any other team in the league.

Looper is 5th all-time, so he is obviously the leader in 2009.

The career leader in this category (min. 100 decisions) is Ferdie Schupp, who went 61-39 in his career despite an ERA+ of  88.

On the flip side of "Unexpected Winners" are "Unexpected Losers". You can read more about them here.

Here's a quick list in which the leader is no surprise, but many of the runner-ups are.

Since 1954, 20 players have hit 35 or more home runs in their first 162 career games. (You can find them by using "Player Batting" Game Finder,  selecting "Find Players with Most Matching Games in Multiple Years",  setting the criteria at HR>=1 and limiting to player's first 162 games. Complete the search and sort by HR.) Here are the leaders.

One the new things that can be done with the new PI Arithmetic filter is to search for players who only played 1 season in the major leagues. This can be done by setting Year of Debut = 1 * Final Year.

Here are the pitchers whose only major league season featured an ERA+ of at least 100 in 50 or more innings. (2009 is not included).

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We can also do the same thing for hitters. Here are the batters since 1901who played only 1 year  and had an OPS+ of at least 100 in 200 or more PA (2009 is not included).

More correctly....who are we?

All regarding career totals:

Player #1: I have the fewest RBI per HR among players with at least 300 HR.

Player #2: I have the most RBI per HR among players with at least 300 HR.

Player #3: I have the fewest runs scored per HR among players with at least 300 HR.

Player #4: I have the most runs scored per HR among players with at least 300 HR.

(Hint: these are all fairly easy to figure out using the arithmetic function on the Batting Season Finder)

Who am I?

I am the only pitcher is baseball history with the same career number of games pitched, hits allowed, strikeouts, and walks.