SITE NEWS: We are moving all of our site and company news into a single blog for Sports-Reference.com. We'll tag all B-R content, so you can quickly and easily find the content you want.
Also, our existing B-R blog rss feed will be redirected to the new site's feed.
Baseball-Reference.com » Sports Reference
For more from Andy and the gang, check out their new site High Heat Stats.
Archive for October, 2007
Best season by a 35-year-old (or why Jorge Posada is seeing dollar signs)
During the season, I wrote about Jorge Posada's incredible season for a 35-year-old. Now that the season has ended, we can get a little perspective on just how good his season was.
19 Comments | Posted in Season Finders
Worst Hitting Pitchers Ever
Minimum 500 PA. Worst ever was a one-time Cy Young Award winner - can you guess who before clicking on it? Because of the PA requirement, it's tough for modern guys to even quality unless they spend over a decade in the NL. Jason Schmidt is the worst of guys who pitched in 2007, though.
6 Comments | Posted in Uncategorized
Homering in the only post-season plate appearance
From a user suggestion by gswitter, here is a look at players who homered in their only plate-appearance of a post-season series.
4 Comments | Posted in Game Finders, Postseason
Powerless RBIs
I have no idea where this idea came from, but I had an inkling to see who had the most RBIs without hitting many homeruns. I initially set the filter at fewer than 20 HRs after 1980. Here's the list:
Cnt Player RBI HR Year Age
+----+-----------------+---+--+----+---+
1 Tony Gwynn 119 17 1997 37
2 Pedro Guerrero 117 17 1989 33
3 Al Oliver 117 19 1980 33
4 Jeff Cirillo 115 11 2000 30
5 Derek Bell 113 17 1996 27
6 Paul Molitor 113 9 1996 39
7 Marty Cordova 111 16 1996 26
8 Paul O'Neill 110 19 1999 36
9 Kirby Puckett 110 19 1992 32
10 Bill Buckner 110 16 1985 35
11 Tom Herr 110 8 1985 29
12 Rusty Greer 108 16 1998 29
13 Ted Simmons 108 13 1983 33
14 Bobby Abreu 107 15 2006 32
15 Hideki Matsui 106 16 2003 29
16 Joe Randa 106 15 2000 30
17 Keith Moreland 106 14 1985 31
18 Jeff Francoeur 105 19 2007 23
19 Willie McGee 105 11 1987 28
20 Bill Buckner 105 15 1982 32
Lots of professional hitters who didn't take a lot of walks. How could you not have rooted for Rusty Greer, Tony Gwynn, Jeff Cirillo, and Marty Cardova? Those are great names. I'm shocked to see Willie McGee on the list.
How about if we also limit doubles to fewer than 30?
Cnt Player RBI HR 2B G Year Age
+----+-----------------+---+--+--+---+----+---+
1 Joe Randa 106 15 29 158 2000 30
2 George Hendrick 104 19 20 136 1982 32
3 Paul O'Neill 100 18 26 142 2000 37
4 Terry Kennedy 98 17 27 149 1983 27
5 Steve Kemp 98 19 23 160 1982 27
6 Jeff Conine 97 14 23 139 2001 35
7 Eddie Murray 96 19 23 153 1991 35
8 Terry Pendleton 96 12 29 159 1987 26
9 Marquis Grissom 95 19 27 157 1993 26
10 Will Clark 95 19 25 154 1990 26
11 Jose Cruz 95 12 28 160 1984 36
12 Jody Davis 94 19 25 150 1984 27
13 Dave Parker 94 16 28 156 1984 33
14 Will Clark 92 16 27 123 1995 31
15 Lloyd Moseby 92 18 28 158 1984 24
16 Jose Cruz 92 14 28 160 1983 35
17 Jose Cruz 91 11 29 160 1980 32
18 Carlos Baerga 90 15 28 135 1995 26
Obviously, it's hard to knock in 100 runs when you're only hitting singles. Jose Cruz appears three times in the top 20.
Finally, how about the most runs scored with the second set of restrictions: fewer than 20 homeruns and 30 doubles:
Cnt Player R HR 2B G Year Age
+----+-----------------+---+--+--+---+----+---+
1 Paul Molitor 136 19 26 160 1982 25
2 Willie Wilson 133 3 28 161 1980 24
3 Derek Jeter 127 19 25 149 1998 24
4 Derek Jeter 124 18 26 157 2002 28
5 Derek Jeter 122 19 25 159 2005 31
6 Vince Coleman 121 3 14 151 1987 25
7 Tony Phillips 119 12 29 153 1996 37
8 Rickey Henderson 119 10 24 149 1982 23
9 Al Bumbry 118 9 29 160 1980 33
10 Chuck Knoblauch 117 17 25 150 1998 29
11 Chuck Knoblauch 117 9 26 156 1997 28
12 Kenny Lofton 116 1 28 148 1993 26
13 Willie McGee 114 10 26 152 1985 26
14 Chone Figgins 113 8 25 158 2005 27
15 Craig Biggio 113 15 24 162 1996 30
16 Eric Young 113 8 23 141 1996 29
17 Tony Phillips 113 7 27 151 1993 34
18 Rickey Henderson 113 12 26 150 1989 30
19 Rickey Henderson 113 16 27 142 1984 25
20 Brian Hunter 112 4 29 162 1997 26
21 Brett Butler 112 2 13 161 1991 34
Derek Jeter just knows how to win, huh? Brett Butler scored 112 runs in 1991 while only hitting two homeruns and 13 doubles. Yikes.
6 Comments | Posted in Season Finders
Most appearances without a baserunner
Picking up on an idea made in the Suggestions, here are the most appearances in history without allowing a baserunner:
Comments Off | Posted in Game Finders
RESULTS: 2007 World Series Challenge: Game 4
Well, it's all over folks. The World Series, the 2007 baseball season, and of course, the B-R SOTD 2007 World Series Challenge.
First let's look at Game 4:
- Cook had a game score of 50--really pretty good all things considered. Nobody got it exactly but lukemeister was closest at 49. Average guess was a pretty close 43.4.
- Colorado scored 3 runs. The average guess was 5, but lukemeister nailed it at 3.
- Colorado LOB was 7, with an average guess of 8.2. Kingturtle got it exactly, as did Dre17.
- Colorado Home Run Guess - several people got Atkins.
- Lester had a game score of 63--quite impressive all things considered. You all thought he'd do worse and gave him an average of 46.4. ImAShark was closest with a 59.
- Boston scored 4 times, with an average guess of 5.6. Truman got it exactly.
- Boston LOB was only 3, with an average guess of 9.2. The guesses went up after Boston left so many runners on earlier in the series. Lukemeister was by far the closest with a guess of 5.
- Boston managed two homers this game, but nobody guessed either correctly.
The average score for this game was just 90, by far the lowest of all 4 games. You guys got better and better as we went along, it seems.
The leaderboard for Game 4 is quite interesting:
1. Dre17 - 37 points
2. kingturtle - 46
3. ImAShark - 48
4. lukemeister - 53
5. doug730 - 7 1
Firstly, I'm happy to see kingturtle finally make the top 5. He made a lot of correct guesses through the whole competition but didn't put it all together until this game. Secondly, lukemeister got 4th without guessing either pitching decision correctly. Had he guessed Lester/Cook correctly, he would have had a 13, by far the lowest score of the entire Challenge. (Everybody else on this leaderboard got the pitchers right, and did much poorer in everything else than lukemeister.)
With Dre17 winning for the third time, I think there is very little drama in the final standings:
1. Dre17 - 247 points
2. doug730 - 311
3. larryhisle - 385
4. kingturtle - 413
5. zimcity - 419
6. spartanbill - 429
7. lukemeister - 450
8. truman - 455
9. wellspr - 460
You folks are the only 9 to complete all four games, and I listed everybody because you're all winners. Everybody else who had a bad game or two dropped out, and would have finished with much worse scores. So, no joke, I really think all 9 of you did really well. Some just did a little better
So, congrats to Dre17. Now, with that email address of yours, will you finally tell us if you are, indeed, former major leaguer Paul Assenmacher?
Thanks to everybody for participating!
Don't stop reading the SOTD blog just because the season is over. We'll continue to bring you nuggets from the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index all throughout the winter. In fact, now is a good time to email a few of your friends about this blog so they can also keep warm during the hot stove months ahead.
11 Comments | Posted in Uncategorized
Are doubles on the decline for power hitters?
In one of Steve's posts, a short discussion started on whether power-hitters are getting fewer doubles these days than they used to.
I just put together a few bits of data to look at that.
5 Comments | Posted in Season Finders
RESULTS: 2007 World Series Challenge: Game 3
Now we've got ourselves a real game here, even if the World Series itself looks pretty lopsided.
Jumping in:
- Josh Fogg's awful game score of 14 wasn't predicted by anybody. The average guess was a much healthier 50. Closest was Dre17 with 32, which helped him a lot in the standings.
- Colorado actually scored 5 runs, and the average guess was 4.8: not too shabby. Three players, wellspr, doug730, and ToddCoffeysUsernameIsTooLong got it right.
- Colorado LOB was actually 11, with the average guess at 8. kingturtle got it exactly right. If memory serves, I think Oliver has exactly nailed at least one prediction in every game so far.
- Colorado Home Run Guess: hey we finally have a winner. Several people guessed Holliday.
- Matsuzaka's game score was 56, and the average guess was 51 Nobody got it exactly right, but ImAShark guessed 57 and several others were very close.
- Boston scored 10 runs, far eclipsing the average guess of 4.9. Closest, with 8, was Dre17, which also contributed significantly to his score.
- Boston LOB = 7, average guess = 8.7. Three players, Dre17, truman, and doug730 got it exactly right. (Are you starting to see a trend with Dre17 yet?)
- Boston Home Run Guess: once again no homers for Boston. It's amazing that they've scored, what, 25 runs and hit only 1 homer?
So, for this game, the average score was 110.
The top 5 finishers for Game 3 were:
1. Dre17 - 28 points
2. doug730 - 31
3. spartanbill - 56
4. zimcity - 61
5. budcrew08 - 92
That's 2 wins for Dre17 in 3 games--very impressive. So, Doug, you should have done a slightly better job in copying Dre17...heh. Both the top 2 finishers got the smallest scores we've seen so far, edging out wellspr's 38 from Game 2.
Without further delay, here are the overall leaders for Games 1, 2, and 3 of the 2007 World Series Challenge:
1. Dre17 - 210
2. doug730 - 240
3. zimcity - 257
4. larryhisle - 278
5. spartanbill - 311
As it turns out, the 6th place person has 360 points, so anybody not in the top 5 has a fairly poor shot at winning the whole enchilada.
Winning this thing is going to come down to picking the winning pitchers correctly, and in tomorrow's matchup of Aaron Cook and Jon Lester, that's a very tough thing to do.
By the way, looking at what my own ballots would have been had I entered, I would (really) have been in last place at this point!
Thanks everybody for participating. Perhaps there is just one game to go! The Game 4 post is already up, so just make your way back there to post your guesses for tonight's game.
2 Comments | Posted in Postseason
Most RBIs in a Game by a Pitcher vs. the Rockies
Earlier tonight, Dice-K got his first MLB hit - an RBI single against the Rockies. We shoulda seen it coming. History has shown that Asian imports and highly touted pitchers get the most RBIs against the Rockies, and the Red Sox rookie is both.
Please note Josh Beckett is on that list as well.
Comments Off | Posted in Uncategorized
Hitting as a DH vs hitting as a first baseman
Kingturtle posted a suggestion about quantifying whether players truly hit better when playing the field instead of DHing. See his comment here.
I looked into this a little. Click through for the details.
3 Comments | Posted in Season Finders, Splits
