Comments on: Carlos Pena has the best OPS+ for a sub .205 hitter

By: Neil L

Neil L — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 21:52:46 +0000

@33 @36
BSK and Scitea. I have no financial stake in this site, but I recently ponyed up my money to have the PI. It will take me a while to learn how to use it, but the power of the statistical database seems amazing.

@29 @32
Jahiegal, I don't believe there will ever be another Dave Kingman or Rob Deer in the major leagues, even the AL. The optics, for fans and media, of their plate appearances would be too bad. Local press still seizes on BA as the primary measure of offensive value.

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 17:28:08 +0000

I think you should run this search with something like "minimum 250 pa's" just to see what interesting results you get. As you said, players with averages this low don't often get full playing time. The results would have far more outliers with weird stats I would think.

By: Andy G.

Andy G. — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 16:22:48 +0000

Expanding some of the search limitations, you get some interesting results. It's so rare for a player to continue to get playing time if his BA is down around .200. It's clearly become more common in the last few decades as a) more hitters have adopted the three-true-outcomes approach while b) more managers have become open to the idea that a guy can still be a productive hitter without a "respectable" batting average. Including seasons under .210 rather than .205, Pena falls into second place behind Rob Deer's 1990 season in which he posted a 108 OPS+ in 511 PAs. If the limitation is set at 100 games rather "Qualified for Batting Title" (still using .210 as the BA cutoff), Harmon Killebrew jumps way out in front with a 130 OPS+ during the 1968 season, in which he hit only .210 but of course had lots of HRs and BBs. Honestly, I was trying to finagle this so Gorman Thomas would come out top but he never quite met all the conditions. The one fascinating result, which came up when I increased the BA cutoff to .220, was Wes Westrum's 1951 season. With 104 walks but only 79 hits, he managed to post a .400 OBP despite a .219 BA. Westrum was a catcher hitting down in the order so he didn't make the (very short) list of guys that had more runs than hits. I'd never really paid any attention to Westrum but that kind of production surely helped his team (the '51 Giants) pull off a miracle pennant. The guy was incredibly similar to Gene Tenace but I've never heard him mentioned in discussions of such players. I guess we just focus on the more recent models of that type, like Tenace and Tettleton.

By: scitea

scitea — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 15:34:44 +0000

I am just amazed at all of the statistics and trivia you guys have.

By: BSK

BSK — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 13:02:17 +0000

Whiz-

Thanks. It makes sense that, if it happened, it happened for guys with shorter seasons.

By: Whiz

Whiz — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 09:34:49 +0000

BSK@33, McGwire in 2001 (his final year, a partial season), had 29 HR and 56 H. The next closest was Frank Thomas in 2005 with 12 HR and and 23 H.

I also happened to notice while looking at McGwire's page that in 1997 he had 24 HR with 40 H after being traded from Oakland to St. Louis.

By: BSK

BSK — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 05:17:16 +0000

McGwire had 70 HRs and 152 total hits. Can anyone with PI figure out if anyone's HRs >= .5Hs?

By: John Q

John Q — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 04:43:27 +0000

Good Point Jahiegal, I was thinking how odd Kingman's '82 season was in general. That has to be the worst season ever by a player who led the league in Home Runs. I remember that season pretty well and I kind of remember that Kingman was close to the lead in RBI's during the summer of '82 as well.

By: BSK

BSK — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 03:52:27 +0000

I'm just honestly surprised to see that a sub-.800 OPS is above average. I guess offense is down, and has been trending down, more than I realized. I always considered an OPS of .800 to be the cutoff between "good" and "bad", to be completely unnuanced about the whole thing. Interesting stuff. While we're talking about players with absurd ratios, I'm pretty sure McGwire had more HRs than non-HR hits during his 70-HR year, or came damn near close. Has that ever happened? I can't imagine it, out side of Bonds (moreso because of walks), McGwire, or Sosa.

By: DoubleDiamond

DoubleDiamond — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 01:25:55 +0000

The top three in Raphy's list in #3 all appeared at 1B for the 1972 World Series-winning Oakland A's. I wonder if there's something to that. Curt Blefary, whose 1968 season gets him into the original list at the top, also played one game at 1B for the A's in 1972.