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ShareThisArchive for May, 2009
When The Going Gets Tough
This is not via Play Index, but, rather from one of the fun Baseball-Reference.com toys that can be found in the Frivolities section of the site. It's from the Team Game Log Reports - an area which is a series of tools that slice and dice game-by-game results from 1901 to the present in a wide variety of ways. The tool used here was Situational Reports For Teams' Wins and Losses - which is a form that will create a report showing the won-loss record and the number of runs scored and allowed in various situations.
I was curious about how teams did when playing someone with a winning percentage of .600+ during the 5 year period prior to this season. So, I set the controls for "From 2004 To 2008 and Greater Than or Equal to a .600 Opponent's Season W-L%" and this is what I got:
Rk Tm G W L W-L% RS RA pythW-L% 1 ANA 28 15 13 .536 146 120 .589 2 CHC 41 21 20 .512 177 176 .503 3 PHI 25 12 13 .480 128 125 .511 4 HOU 51 24 27 .471 210 229 .460 5 TEX 49 23 26 .469 255 269 .476 6 SFG 22 10 12 .455 89 99 .451 7 CHW 29 13 16 .448 135 137 .493 8 BOS 38 17 21 .447 182 218 .418 9 MON 21 9 12 .429 67 89 .373 10 MIN 38 16 22 .421 138 150 .462 11 MIL 49 20 29 .408 201 251 .400 12 FLA 20 8 12 .400 69 94 .362 13 STL 15 6 9 .400 62 66 .471 14 NYY 38 15 23 .395 179 198 .454 15 NYM 28 11 17 .393 121 150 .403 16 OAK 49 19 30 .388 243 258 .473 17 BAL 58 22 36 .379 310 332 .469 18 SDP 29 11 18 .379 120 154 .388 19 ATL 24 9 15 .375 96 132 .358 20 CLE 41 15 26 .366 189 190 .498 21 LAD 35 12 23 .343 128 160 .399 22 CIN 50 17 33 .340 221 287 .383 23 TOR 59 20 39 .339 233 310 .372 24 TBD 59 20 39 .339 246 344 .351 25 ARI 25 8 17 .320 97 136 .350 26 DET 42 13 29 .310 146 209 .342 27 SEA 49 15 34 .306 207 261 .396 28 COL 29 8 21 .276 126 185 .331 29 KCR 41 11 30 .268 169 220 .382 30 PIT 51 13 38 .255 192 318 .284
It's pretty hard to play .500-ball, or better, when facing a team with a winning percentage of .600+, huh? Well, at least, over the last five years, overall, many teams have not been able to do it.
What I find interesting here is that, from 2004 through 2008, teams like the Angels and Cubs have broken-even when they have played tough teams whereas other teams who have posted many wins over the last 5 years, like the Yankees and Mets, have not be able to win as much as they lose when facing stronger teams.
Aren't New Yorkers supposed to be tough? (I say this...joking...in case anyone thinks I'm dissing New York. As a native New Yorker, I don't mean to offend anyone from the area too.)
2 Comments | Posted in History
Best H/9IP, minimum 300 IP
On yesterday's post we've talked a lot about Bob Gibson's 1968 season in which he pitched 304.2 innings and allowed only 198 hits. Would you believe that this is NOT the best hit rate for a guy with at least 300 IP?
Cnt Player **H/9** IP Year Age Tm Lg G GS CG SHO GF W L W-L% SV H R ER BB SO ERA ERA+ HR BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk BK WP BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ Pit Str +----+-----------------+---------+-----+----+---+---+--+---+---+--+---+--+--+--+-----+--+---+---+---+---+---+------+----+--+----+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+----+ 1 Sandy Koufax 5.79 335.2 1965 29 LAD NL 43 41 27 8 2 26 8 .765 2 216 90 76 71 382 2.04 160 26 1297 1205 29 7 4 5 13 3 13 16 4 1 0 11 .179 .227 .280 .507 52 2 Bob Gibson 5.85 304.2 1968 32 STL NL 34 34 28 13 0 22 9 .710 0 198 49 38 62 268 1.12 258 11 1161 1075 23 0 6 7 15 2 18 6 5 0 0 4 .184 .233 .236 .469 47 3 Ed Walsh 5.89 369.2 1910 29 CHW AL 45 36 33 7 7 18 20 .474 5 242 90 52 61 258 1.27 189 5 1386 4 2 6 0 4 Nolan Ryan 5.98 332.2 1974 27 CAL AL 42 41 26 3 1 22 16 .579 0 221 127 107 202 367 2.89 118 18 1392 1165 38 6 3 9 12 4 24 28 21 3 0 9 .190 .313 .279 .592 76 5 Vida Blue 6.03 312 1971 21 OAK AL 39 39 24 8 0 24 8 .750 0 209 73 63 88 301 1.82 185 19 1207 1103 28 3 3 4 9 3 23 7 7 0 1 10 .189 .251 .272 .523 55 6 Walter Johnson 6.03 346 1913 25 WSH AL 48 36 29 11 11 36 7 .837 2 232 56 44 38 243 1.14 259 9 1305 9 0 3 0 7 Pete Alexander 6.05 376.1 1915 28 PHI NL 49 42 36 12 7 31 10 .756 3 253 86 51 64 241 1.22 225 3 1435 10 0 2 0 8 Mordecai Brown 6.17 312.1 1908 31 CHC NL 44 31 27 9 12 29 9 .763 5 214 64 51 49 123 1.47 160 1 1180 5 0 6 0 9 Sandy Koufax 6.19 311 1963 27 LAD NL 40 40 20 11 0 25 5 .833 0 214 68 65 58 306 1.88 159 18 1210 1135 28 6 7 3 13 1 9 11 1 0 1 6 .189 .230 .271 .501 54 10 Walter Johnson 6.32 369 1912 24 WSH AL 50 37 34 7 13 33 12 .733 2 259 89 57 76 303 1.39 242 2 1426 16 0 11 0 11 Jack Coombs 6.32 353 1910 27 PHA AL 45 38 35 13 6 31 9 .775 1 248 74 51 115 224 1.30 182 0 1388 7 0 10 0 12 Rube Waddell 6.33 328.2 1905 28 PHA AL 46 34 27 7 11 27 10 .730 0 231 86 54 90 287 1.48 179 5 1300 10 2 10 0 13 Walter Johnson 6.37 370 1910 22 WSH AL 45 42 38 8 3 25 17 .595 1 262 92 56 76 313 1.36 183 1 1402 13 0 21 0 14 Eddie Cicotte 6.39 346.2 1917 33 CHW AL 49 35 29 7 9 28 12 .700 4 246 76 59 70 150 1.53 174 2 1288 3 2 1 0 15 Babe Ruth 6.40 323.2 1916 21 BOS AL 44 41 23 9 3 23 12 .657 1 230 83 63 118 170 1.75 158 0 1300 8 1 3 0 16 Gaylord Perry 6.42 322.1 1974 35 CLE AL 37 37 28 4 0 21 13 .618 0 230 98 90 99 216 2.51 144 25 1262 1127 34 7 7 6 19 12 27 12 6 3 0 2 .204 .269 .313 .582 67 17 Addie Joss 6.42 325 1908 28 CLE AL 42 35 29 9 6 24 11 .686 2 232 77 42 30 130 1.16 205 2 1244 2 0 6 0 18 Denny McLain 6.46 336 1968 24 DET AL 41 41 28 6 0 31 6 .838 0 241 86 73 63 280 1.96 154 31 1288 1206 38 5 2 6 10 3 19 19 5 1 0 3 .200 .243 .317 .560 72 19 Mordecai Brown 6.46 342.2 1909 32 CHC NL 50 34 32 8 15 27 9 .750 7 246 78 50 53 172 1.31 193 1 1302 7 0 9 0 20 Claude Hendrix 6.51 362 1914 25 CHI FL 49 37 34 6 12 29 10 .744 5 262 91 68 77 189 1.69 174 6 1371 5 0 9 0 21 Bugs Raymond 6.55 324.1 1908 26 STL NL 48 37 23 5 8 15 25 .375 2 236 116 73 95 145 2.03 116 2 1247 14 0 9 0 22 Nolan Ryan 6.57 326 1973 26 CAL AL 41 39 26 4 2 21 16 .568 1 238 113 104 162 383 2.87 122 18 1355 1172 53 5 2 7 7 7 24 37 10 4 0 15 .203 .302 .303 .605 77 23 Christy Mathewson 6.57 390.2 1908 27 NYG NL 56 44 34 11 10 37 11 .771 5 285 85 62 42 259 1.43 168 5 1499 3 0 2 0 24 George McQuillan 6.58 359.2 1908 23 PHI NL 48 42 32 7 6 23 17 .575 2 263 87 61 91 114 1.53 157 1 1409 6 0 5 0 25 Gaylord Perry 6.64 342.2 1972 33 CLE AL 41 40 29 5 1 24 16 .600 1 253 79 73 82 234 1.92 170 17 1345 1235 43 9 16 12 15 1 27 5 8 0 0 11 .205 .261 .296 .557 68
Nope, Koufax gets the top slot on this particular list. Notice that the only pitchers on here to approach modern day are Koufan, Gibson, Ryan, and Perry. Of course, that's mainly due to the fact that nobody pitches 300 innings in a season any more (plus hit rates are too high...)
Do you know who pitched the most recent 300-inning season? Most fans will know right off that it was Steve Carlton in 1980:
Cnt Player Year IP Age Tm Lg G GS CG SHO GF W L W-L% SV H R ER BB SO ERA ERA+ HR BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk BK WP BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ Pit Str +----+-----------------+----+-----+---+---+--+---+---+--+---+--+--+--+-----+--+---+---+---+---+---+------+----+--+----+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+----+ 1 Steve Carlton 1980 304 35 PHI NL 38 38 13 3 0 24 9 .727 0 243 87 79 90 286 2.34 162 15 1228 1114 50 13 12 2 14 8 14 14 16 9 7 17 .218 .276 .327 .603 69 2 Phil Niekro 1979 342 40 ATL NL 44 44 23 1 0 21 20 .512 0 311 160 129 113 208 3.39 120 41 1436 1290 50 6 8 11 14 7 25 40 11 2 4 18 .241 .306 .384 .690 88 3 Phil Niekro 1978 334.1 39 ATL NL 44 42 22 4 1 19 18 .514 1 295 129 107 102 248 2.88 142 16 1389 1254 42 10 5 13 13 6 13 34 12 4 3 11 .235 .298 .323 .621 71 4 Jim Palmer 1977 319 31 BAL AL 39 39 22 3 0 20 11 .645 0 263 106 103 99 193 2.91 132 24 1269 1148 42 9 1 3 10 9 22 15 30 1 0 7 .229 .290 .344 .634 77 5 Steve Rogers 1977 301.2 27 MON NL 40 40 17 4 0 17 16 .515 0 272 122 104 81 206 3.10 122 16 1235 1121 44 10 3 5 18 9 23 24 13 4 1 14 .243 .294 .343 .637 77 6 Dave Goltz 1977 303 28 MIN AL 39 39 19 2 0 20 11 .645 0 284 129 113 91 186 3.36 120 23 1253 1149 41 14 4 2 7 5 26 18 16 6 1 9 .247 .302 .367 .669 82 7 Phil Niekro 1977 330.1 38 ATL NL 44 43 20 2 1 16 20 .444 0 315 166 148 164 262 4.03 111 26 1428 1236 44 9 12 8 11 8 26 47 32 4 3 17 .255 .344 .368 .712 88 8 Randy Jones 1976 315.1 26 SDP NL 40 40 25 5 0 22 14 .611 0 274 109 96 50 93 2.74 120 15 1251 1173 40 3 9 4 15 9 34 15 3 2 1 0 .234 .265 .311 .576 74 9 Jim Palmer 1976 315 30 BAL AL 40 40 23 6 0 22 13 .629 0 255 101 88 84 159 2.51 130 20 1256 1140 35 8 5 8 10 14 20 33 15 3 0 5 .224 .278 .321 .599 80 10 Gaylord Perry 1975 305.2 36 TOT AL 37 37 25 5 0 18 17 .514 0 277 127 110 70 233 3.24 116 28 1248 1159 45 7 6 4 11 3 15 12 17 2 0 5 .239 .284 .362 .646 82 11 Jim Palmer 1975 323 29 BAL AL 39 38 25 10 1 23 11 .676 1 253 87 75 80 193 2.09 169 20 1268 1172 37 10 4 2 10 4 32 29 11 1 0 4 .216 .266 .316 .582 68 12 Jim Kaat 1975 303.2 36 CHW AL 43 41 12 1 1 20 14 .588 0 321 121 105 77 142 3.11 125 20 1279 1172 51 6 0 9 11 10 31 4 12 2 2 0 .274 .321 .379 .700 95 13 Andy Messersmith 1975 321.2 29 LAD NL 42 40 19 7 2 19 14 .576 1 244 92 82 96 213 2.29 149 22 1276 1148 29 3 2 5 20 7 24 14 7 2 0 8 .213 .275 .301 .576 67 14 Catfish Hunter 1975 328 29 NYY AL 39 39 30 7 0 23 14 .622 0 248 107 94 83 177 2.58 144 25 1294 1191 38 5 4 5 7 8 17 15 14 0 0 7 .208 .261 .312 .573 62
From 1966 to 1975, it was common for at least 4 guys to do it per year, including 9 in 1969.
3 Comments | Posted in Season Finders
Most conseuctive starts 7+ IP to start a season
Roy Halladay did it again last night, pitching 7 innings in the Blue Jays' eventual 12-10 loss (their 9th straight--ouch!) He's gone at least 7 innings in every one of his 11 starts so far this year, but as you might except he's a long way from the record for most starts with 7+ IP to start a season:
StreakStart Streak End Games W L GS CG SHO GF SV IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA HBP WP BK Teams +-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Bob Gibson 1968-04-10 1968-09-27 34 22 9 34 28 13 0 0 304.2 198 49 38 62 268 11 1.12 7 4 0 STL Tom Seaver 1970-04-07 1970-08-15 27 17 7 27 18 2 0 0 231.2 163 65 62 60 226 19 2.41 2 3 0 NYM Gaylord Perry 1972-04-15 1972-06-13 15 10 5 15 11 3 0 0 131.2 93 28 26 29 90 5 1.78 5 4 0 CLE Roger Clemens 1992-04-07 1992-06-16 14 9 4 14 6 3 0 0 112.1 80 24 22 24 104 5 1.76 3 0 0 BOS Curt Schilling 2001-04-04 2001-06-06 13 10 1 13 4 1 0 0 100.1 86 30 29 12 108 16 2.60 0 1 0 ARI Mark Fidrych 1976-05-15 1976-07-20 13 11 2 13 12 2 0 0 120.1 93 26 23 28 50 5 1.72 1 2 0 DET Phil Niekro 1969-04-08 1969-06-16 13 9 4 13 11 3 0 0 112 78 28 23 22 80 4 1.85 3 5 0 ATL Ron Darling 1988-04-06 1988-06-04 12 6 3 12 3 2 0 0 93 66 24 23 23 60 6 2.23 1 1 2 NYM Jack Morris 1984-04-03 1984-05-28 12 10 1 12 7 1 0 0 100.1 65 26 21 32 68 5 1.88 2 6 0 DET Rick Langford 1981-04-10 1981-06-10 12 5 7 12 11 0 0 0 103 93 41 33 38 49 5 2.88 0 0 0 OAK Nelson Briles 1968-04-11 1968-06-08 12 7 4 12 5 1 0 0 97.2 99 27 25 19 61 6 2.30 1 1 0 STL Bill Singer 1968-04-11 1968-06-05 12 5 5 12 5 2 0 0 97.1 68 24 19 24 94 2 1.76 2 4 1 LAD Bob Shaw 1962-04-16 1962-06-18 12 9 2 12 8 1 0 0 105.2 96 29 23 14 59 8 1.96 2 1 0 MLN Ned Garver 1954-04-17 1954-06-16 12 4 3 12 6 1 0 0 101 78 25 17 25 27 6 1.51 2 0 0 DET Roy Halladay 2009-04-06 2009-05-27 11 8 1 11 1 0 0 0 82 76 26 24 11 68 6 2.63 2 1 0 TOR Pedro Martinez 2000-04-04 2000-06-08 11 9 2 11 3 2 0 0 85.1 45 10 9 16 114 3 0.95 7 1 0 BOS Curt Schilling 1998-03-31 1998-05-23 11 5 5 11 4 1 0 0 85.2 57 22 19 20 117 6 2.00 0 3 0 PHI Kevin Brown 1993-04-11 1993-06-04 11 5 3 11 6 1 0 0 89.2 73 28 19 19 52 5 1.91 4 1 0 TEX Bill Wegman 1992-04-06 1992-05-29 11 5 4 11 2 0 0 0 90.1 80 27 26 18 39 10 2.59 5 0 1 MIL Chris Bosio 1988-04-06 1988-05-26 11 6 5 11 8 1 0 0 90 83 27 22 15 35 5 2.20 2 1 2 MIL Dave Stieb 1984-04-07 1984-05-30 11 7 1 11 2 1 0 0 86 58 21 20 28 63 5 2.09 3 0 0 TOR Kip Young 1978-07-24 1978-09-17 11 6 5 11 6 0 0 0 89.1 80 26 25 21 40 8 2.52 2 0 0 DET Jerry Augustine 1977-04-09 1977-05-28 11 6 5 11 7 0 0 0 91.2 77 36 33 31 27 9 3.24 2 1 0 MIL Steve Busby 1975-04-07 1975-05-25 11 7 3 11 7 2 0 0 92.1 70 26 25 29 61 3 2.44 2 3 0 KCR Ken Holtzman 1973-04-08 1973-05-22 11 9 2 11 9 1 0 0 96.2 63 20 14 19 55 6 1.30 1 5 0 OAK +-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ StreakStart Streak End Games W L GS CG SHO GF SV IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA HBP WP BK Teams +-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Don Sutton 1972-04-15 1972-06-09 11 8 1 11 5 3 0 0 93.2 53 18 13 18 66 4 1.25 1 1 0 LAD Dave Giusti 1968-04-13 1968-06-02 11 4 5 11 6 1 0 0 90 61 20 18 25 60 6 1.80 1 3 1 HOU Bob Friend 1960-04-12 1960-06-01 11 6 2 11 5 3 0 0 90 68 22 21 12 66 5 2.10 0 1 0 PIT Warren Spahn 1958-04-15 1958-05-31 11 8 1 11 9 1 0 0 98.2 83 28 26 27 45 7 2.37 0 1 0 MLN Bob Keegan 1954-04-17 1954-06-09 11 9 1 11 9 2 0 0 96.1 86 27 23 33 26 5 2.15 0 0 1 CHW
A note on Bob Gibson's incredible 1968 season. Those 34 starts to start the season with 7 IP? Those were all of his starts that year. Yeah, that's right...the guy threw at least 7 innings in every start. In fact, he completed 28 of those 34 games (and also won the Cy Young, MVP, ERA and strikeout titles, and threw 13 shutouts.)
So Halladay has a long, long way to go to approach that post-1954 record (don't hold your breath.) But the only guys ahead of him from the last 20 seasons are Roger Clemens, 14 in 1992, and Curt Schilling, 13 in 2001.
11 Comments | Posted in Streak Finders
Draft Tool Updated and Cleaned Up
Amateur Draft: 1999 St. Louis Cardinals Picks in the June Draft - Baseball-Reference.com
We spent a lot of time and money going through all 60,000 lines in our draft database, cleaning up errors and making the school and city names consistent from year to year. This was a large undertaking and I'm sure there are still dozens if not hundreds of errors or corrections that will still need to be made, but I'm confident we have the best normalized DB out there. A big thanks to Jay Virshbo for getting this work done. Please report any errors you find.
I also matched up all pre-2009 debuts to their draft record, so those are now updated as well. Next steps are to match this to our minor league db and then we can get these updated daily with the new 2009 debuts.
Comments Off | Posted in Announcements
Homers leading off the game: more or less likely?
When Jimmy Rollins homered on the first pitch of the Phillies game with the Yankees on Friday, I got to wondering whether leadoff homers (not necessarily on the first pitch) happen more or less freqeuently than all homers in the game.
Here's what I mean.
In 2008, there were 52 leadoff homers. This counts only the visiting team batting in the top of the first, and not the home team batting in the bottom. In 2008, there were 2428 games. That means that 52/2428 = 2.14% of games featured a leadoff homer, and since each game has exactly one leadoff plate appearance, there was a 2.14% chance of a player hitting a leadoff home run in 2008. Now, checking out the major league batting totals for 2008, we see that there were a total of 187,614 plate appearances and 4878 home runs. That works out to 2.60%, meaning any plate appearance (including the leadoff spot) had a 2.60% chance of ending up as a home run.
That means that, very roughly, the leadoff batter of a game has roughly a 20% lower chance of hitting a homer than for any other average batter during the game. This result is not surprising given that leadoff hitters usually want to try to simply get on base by any means possible and swinging for the fences is usually not the first choice.
By comparison, let's look at walks in 2008. There were 165 walks to lead off games in 2008. Coming in those 2428 games means the leadoff batter waked 6.80% of the time. Looking back at the league-wide data, we see that there were 16,337 walks in those 187,614 plate appearaces. That means that on average, batters walked 8.70% of the time. So, again, leadoff batters were about 20% less likely to walk.
Incidentally, on the league-wide page, you can see data on the first batter of the game right here. In this case, that's first batter of the game for each team, so it includes the guy batting first in the bottom of the first inning.
3 Comments | Posted in Event Finders, Game Finders
Rudy Seanez has played for a lot of teams…
...or more correctly, he's played for some teams a lot of times. Check out his career transactions:
June 2, 1986: Drafted by the Cleveland Indians in the 4th round of the 1986 amateur draft. Player signed June 7, 1986.
December 10, 1991: Traded by the Cleveland Indians to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Mike Christopher and Dennis Cook.
November 17, 1992: Traded by the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Colorado Rockies for Jody Reed.
July 16, 1993: Granted Free Agency.
July 22, 1993: Signed as a Free Agent with the San Diego Padres.
November 18, 1993: Released by the San Diego Padres.
January 14, 1994: Signed as a Free Agent with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
October 15, 1996: Granted Free Agency.
January 14, 1997: Signed as a Free Agent with the New York Mets.
May 30, 1997: Sent to the Kansas City Royals by the New York Mets as part of a conditional deal.
October 17, 1997: Granted Free Agency.
December 15, 1997: Signed as a Free Agent with the Atlanta Braves.
November 2, 1999: Granted Free Agency.
December 12, 1999: Signed as a Free Agent with the Atlanta Braves.
October 30, 2000: Granted Free Agency.
February 25, 2001: Signed as a Free Agent with the San Diego Padres.
August 31, 2001: Traded by the San Diego Padres to the Atlanta Braves for . The Atlanta Braves sent Winston Abreu (September 6, 2001) to the San Diego Padres to complete the trade.
November 5, 2001: Granted Free Agency.
February 1, 2002: Signed as a Free Agent with the Texas Rangers.
October 28, 2002: Granted Free Agency.
December 15, 2002: Signed as a Free Agent with the Texas Rangers.
May 3, 2003: Released by the Texas Rangers.
May 6, 2003: Signed as a Free Agent with the Boston Red Sox.
July 29, 2003: Released by the Boston Red Sox.
August 2, 2003: Signed as a Free Agent with the Chicago Cubs.
October 15, 2003: Released by the Chicago Cubs.
February 12, 2004: Signed as a Free Agent with the Kansas City Royals.
July 31, 2004: Traded by the Kansas City Royals to the Florida Marlins for Abraham Nunez.
October 28, 2004: Granted Free Agency.
November 24, 2004: Signed as a Free Agent with the San Diego Padres.
October 27, 2005: Granted Free Agency.
December 20, 2005: Signed as a Free Agent with the Boston Red Sox.
August 19, 2006: Released by the Boston Red Sox.
August 31, 2006: Signed as a Free Agent with the San Diego Padres.
October 30, 2006: Granted Free Agency.
January 22, 2007: Signed as a Free Agent with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
October 30, 2007: Granted Free Agency.
February 4, 2008: Signed as a Free Agent with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
March 26, 2008: Released by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
April 2, 2008: Signed as a Free Agent with the Philadelphia Phillies.
If I've counted correctly, here are his tours of duty:
Padres four times
Dodgers three times
Red Sox, Braves, and Royals two times
Phillies, Marlins, Cubs, Rangers, Mets, and Indians one time
2 Comments | Posted in Uncategorized
Most 5-hit games in a season
A reader asked so here is the answer. Most 5-hit games in a season since 1954:
Year Games Link to Individual Games +----+-----+-------------------------+ 2008 42 Ind. Games 2004 41 Ind. Games 1999 39 Ind. Games 2000 38 Ind. Games 2007 37 Ind. Games 2005 35 Ind. Games 1996 35 Ind. Games 1970 31 Ind. Games 1991 30 Ind. Games 1986 29 Ind. Games 1980 29 Ind. Games
Well well well....the record was set last year.
That's not such a surprise since A) there are more teams now so it would have to be a recent season and B) more run-scoring means more plate appearances per game, making it easier to get 5 hits in a single game. To some degree, this list would be more meaningful if I at least normalized it by total number of games played each year.
So far in 2009, we've had 10 such 5-hit games. With just over a quarter of the season gone, that means tings are on pace for roughly a typical year from the last several years of 35-40 such games.
Also, in a shameless plug for my external blog, I've got a contest going on with a bonus prize of a whole mess of packs of baseball cards. If you are your kids are into that, you might want to enter it.
1 Comment | Posted in Game Finders
Eric Gagne
I heard a bit on ESPN radio about how Eric Gagne was historically much better in save situations than in non-save situations.
That's easy to see from his splits.
In 216 games comprising save situations, he had an ERA of 2.31. In 138 games comprising non-save situations, he had an ERA of 3.06. While both numbers are good, that's a pretty significant difference. Note that the non-save situations excludes game starts which, although clearly a situation in which a save can not be earned, doesn't really apply to what we're looking at. Early in his career, Gagne was a starter, and it's helpful that the "non-save situation" already excludes game starts.
As a reliever, his career OPS against was .573, which is excellent. In save situations, that figure is .524 while in non-save situations it was .639. Again, both figures are good but that is a very large difference over so many innings (over 370 total.)
Eric Gagne's highest similarity score is to Bobby Thipgen, who had an even more stilted set of splits in favor of save situations. Thigpen's ERA was more than 1.5 runs higher in non-save situations.
I wonder why this is. I've heard managers reference that their closers do best when pitching one inning (the 9th usually.) But is this cause or effect? Clearly Gagne and Thigpen both did better when pitching in save situations, but was it their mentality or the hitters' mentality, or something else?
For a bit more data, I checked Mariano Rivera's splits, and he's much closer, although still a little better in save situations. Ditto for Trevor Hoffman.
I also notice that the K/BB ratios for all these guys are significantly higher in save situations. I wonder if that has to do with eagerness of the batters, knowing that they need runs and perhaps are more likely to swing, and therefore more likely to swing and miss.
Thoughts on this?
8 Comments | Posted in Splits
Die Hard McClain
Which big league pitcher, since 1954, has the longest streak of pitching at least 7 innings in a game from the start of his career? According to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Streak Finder, here's the answer:
StreakStart Streak End Games W L GS CG SHO GF SV IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA HBP WP BK Teams +-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Joe McClain 1961-04-14 1961-06-01 9 5 3 9 3 1 0 0 72 59 23 21 13 21 3 2.63 2 1 0 WSA Steve Rogers 1973-07-18 1973-08-18 7 4 2 7 4 2 0 0 59.2 36 8 8 19 27 3 1.21 0 0 0 MON Tom Browning 1984-09-09 1985-04-21 6 3 0 6 1 0 0 0 47.1 41 6 5 8 28 0 0.95 0 1 0 CIN Steve Gromek 1954-04-13 1954-05-14 6 5 1 6 5 1 0 0 54 47 14 14 5 25 5 2.33 2 1 0 DET Curt Simmons 1954-04-14 1954-05-12 6 4 2 6 6 1 0 0 54 46 14 9 21 28 1 1.50 0 0 0 PHI
Amazing. If not for this game, the streak would have been 14 games for McClain. For more on Joe, click here.
4 Comments | Posted in Streak Finders
Jobs @ SR: User Affairs Coordinator
User Affairs Coordinator: Jobs @ Sports Reference
Title says it all.
Comments Off | Posted in Announcements
