I don't need to tell you that ever since the Yankees won the World Series earlier this month, there's been a lot of renewed discussion about whether or not New York's payroll advantage finally "bought" them a championship, and if a salary cap is needed to restore competitive balance to baseball. That topic has really been talked about to death over the past few weeks, but I feel like a salary cap -- ostensibly designed to prevent the Yankees from spending $50 million more than the next highest-payrolled team -- is only half of the discussion. If all you do is put a cap on team payrolls, you're still going to have cheapskate owners who take their revenue-sharing money and fail to invest it in their teams, owners who have learned to game the system and are content to put a poor product on the field if it means they can keep more cash for themselves.

So, obviously, you need to talk about a salary floor every bit as much as a salary cap. Discussing salary floors, though, leads to the question of whether you should force owners to spend a certain amount of money on their players, whether they have it or not. Opinions on the profitability of MLB teams vary wildly depending on who you talk to -- Bud Selig routinely claims teams are operating at a loss, while Forbes magazine routinely disagrees -- so it's an open question at this point in terms of how high of a floor you can impose on some of the more (allegedly) cash-strapped teams. But here's a fun exercise we can engage in, as long as we're pretending that a salary cap/floor is even a remote possibility...

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:

Here are a fewest of list related to strikes made possible by the new and improved PI.

Most Batters Faced - All Strikeouts 1954-2009:

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Most Pitches thrown-  all strikes 2000-2009:

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Most IP -  no balls thrown 2000-2009:

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Most IP with SO > 3*IP 1954-2009:

A patent lawyer colleague of mine pointed out that MLB is fighting Don Mattingly over a trademark application. Apparently Mattingly's company, Mattingly Hitting Products Inc., has attempted to trademark a logo featuring a left-handed batter wearing the #23 swinging a bat. Here below are the logo that Mattingly is attempting to trademark as well as the classic MLB logo that is the basis of the complaint:

For those unfamiliar with the rules of trademarks, the US Patent & Trademark Office will usually grant a trademark (which can be a name or a logo) unless it feels that the new mark may cause consumer confusion. For example, they would not allow a new soda company to trademark something like "Coka Cola" for fear that it would cause consumer confusion with "Coca Cola." Anyway, MLB has claimed that Mattingly's desire to put the logo on hats, bats, mitts, and other equipment will cause consumer confusion with equipment bearing the MLB logo. The case has been going on for more than 2 years already and is still not decided.

You can see the logo currently in use on the Mattingly Hitting Products website. Note the little "TM" that appears next to the logo--that means that Mattingly intends to trademark the logo but that a trademark has not yet been granted (otherwise the logo would have the ® symbol.)

It's neat to look at all the other trademark disputes that MLB has put up. You can see that many of the disputes have to do with use of the phrase "major league" such as for "major league kickball" and "major league medic." They have even battled the Melbourne Airport Authority in Melbourne, FL over the use of a logo featuring the abbreviation MLB for Melbourne! There is also a dispute with Jewish Major Leaguers over the use of that name to describe a set of baseball cards featuring Jewish ballplayers. Also, perhaps Bank of American really is not the official bank of MLB.

You can read more about the Mattingly case specifically at the TTABlog®.

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?

Most Baseball-Reference.com users are aware of the site's inclusion of Similarity Scores for each player.

By way of example, here are the players tto whom Mark Teixeira is currently most similar:

1. Kevin Mitchell (913)
2. Miguel Cabrera (905)
3. Tony Clark (883)
4. Dick Stuart (868)
5. Geoff Jenkins (861)
6. Gus Zernial (856)
7. Aubrey Huff (855)
8. Richie Sexson (853)
9. Richie Zisk (853)
10. Ripper Collins (853)

This is the similar batter list for career totals. (Each player's page also lists similar players through the current age of the player as well as similar players at past ages for the player.)

So at this point in time, Mark Teixeira's career totals are most similar to Kevin Mitchell's career totals, which is not bad considering that Tex will just be turning 30 around the beginning of the 2010 season. For an explanation of how similarity scores are calculated, see here. I really like the system although I admit I'd prefer if it didn't consider the defensive position of each player so that we could compare based on offensive performance alone.

Anyway, I'd like to try to identify the players who are least similar to any other players.

Here's what I meant. If you look at Teixeira's list above, his top similarity score is 913. However, there are other players whose stats are so unusual that they have a top similarity score that is much lower. Barry Bonds, for example, has Willie Mays as his most similar player but with a score of just 762. By comparison, the guy most similar to Mays himself is Frank Robinson with a score of 830.

I want to find the player with the lowest #1 similarity score. I already know of one star player with such a score much lower than Bonds' but I'll let you, the readers, figure it out.

Let's also create a few categories: lowest similarity score for 1) retired players with at least 1000 games played, 2) retired players with under 1000 games played, 3) active players with at least 1000 games played, and 4) active players with under 1000 games played. I'm talking about only positional players here, not pitchers (or pitchers' similarity scores as batters.)

Go ahead and post whatever you find in the comments. I'll check back on this post at the end of the year (Dec 31) and see who posted the earliest comments with the best answers. Comment as many times as you like.

What are the prizes? As of now, there are none beyond bragging rights. However I am going to add some next week so stay tuned.

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.

To our American readers celebrating today's holiday:

Enjoy your turkey or other kind of bird (such as duck or chicken.)

And don't forget the cranberry sauce, stuffing, and apple pie.

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?