The Power Of Miguel Dilone
Posted by Steve Lombardi on February 22, 2009
Here's a silly and hopefully fun list via Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Season Finder - since "Day One" of the D.H. (1973) how many players have qualified for the batting title (502+ PA), hit zero homeruns that season and yet had a Slugging Percentage over .400? The answer? Just one:
Cnt Player SLG HR PA Year Age +----+-----------------+-----+--+---+----+---+ 1 Miguel Dilone .432 0 566 1980 25 2 Lance Johnson .396 0 579 1993 29 3 Ozzie Smith .383 0 706 1987 32 4 Greg Gross .377 0 676 1974 21 5 Dave Cash .375 0 709 1977 29 6 Willie Randolph .374 0 512 1991 36 7 Harold Reynolds .369 0 677 1989 28 8 Luis Castillo .366 0 563 1999 23 9 Greg Gross .364 0 558 1975 22 10 Juan Pierre .353 0 729 2007 29 11 Frank Taveras .353 0 702 1978 28 12 Omar Vizquel .352 0 527 1992 25
For all his "work" that season, Dilone (the Charlie Hustle of Winter Ball) finished 22nd in the MVP voting. But, in terms of the "Baseball After The Introduction of the D.H." era, he just may have a record that will never be broken.
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:39 am
[...] “The Holly Hill Hot Rod” better Miguel Dilone’s “record“? I sure hope so…as that would be neat. February 22, 2009 | Filed Under Stat Of The [...]
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Great stat. Two things I noticed while looking at the list. One is that there are guys with 700 PA and no homers. Wow. And Greg Gross is on there twice, the only man on the list without great speed. No power and no speed? It made me do another search, for 502 PA and no HR or SB. The perfect combination for a team to succeed, right? But Verban's team actually won the World Series.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/shareit/ttnR
February 22nd, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Verban won the World Series in 1944. Half of the stars of baseball of the time were fighting in World War II. All bets were off for 1944 and 1945 in terms of what we know equals success in baseball.