Posted by Andy on August 25, 2009
On ESPN Radio this morning, Jayson Stark posed the following trivia question.
Pete Rose has 10 career seasons with 200 hits and a .300 batting average, the most of all time.
A quick PI search confirms this:
From To Ages Seasons Link to Individual Seasons
+-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+------------------------------+
Pete Rose 1965 1979 24-38 10 Ind. Seasons
Stark's question was this: among active players, only 3 guys have as many as 5 such seasons. Can you name them?
Answers are after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Season Finders | 10 Comments »
Posted by Sean Forman on August 25, 2009
Baseball Reference (baseball_ref) on Twitter
I hear that all of the kids these days are into tweets and re-tweets, so we've linked our blog to a twitter account. Please follow us @baseball_ref.
All of the blog posts will be mentioned on twitter and we may add some updates as appropriate.
Posted in Announcements | 1 Comment »
Posted by Andy on August 25, 2009
Derek Jeter. What more can be said about this guy? I think he might be both the most overrated and underrated player of all time. The guy has benefited from playing in many post-seasons and has also made a handful of spectacular defensive plays that left the average fan thinking he was a much defender than he actually was.
But just when you start thinking the guy is overrated, you see a list like this. All-time hits by a Yankee, 1901-present:
Cnt Player **H** From To Ages G PA AB R 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Positions
+----+-----------------+--------+----+----+-----+----+-----+-----+----+---+---+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+----+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+
1 Lou Gehrig 2721 1923 1939 20-36 2164 9660 8001 1888 534 163 493 1995 1508 0 790 45 106 0 2 102 101 .340 .447 .632 1.079 *3/976
2 Derek Jeter 2701 1995 2009 21-35 2103 9647 8525 1553 433 58 222 1059 861 32 1441 142 75 44 208 296 79 .317 .387 .459 .846 *6/D
3 Babe Ruth 2518 1920 1934 25-39 2084 9197 7216 1959 424 106 659 1975 1852 0 1122 35 94 0 0 110 117 .349 .484 .711 1.195 *97/831
4 Mickey Mantle 2415 1951 1968 19-36 2401 9909 8102 1677 344 72 536 1509 1733 126 1710 13 14 47 113 153 38 .298 .421 .557 .978 *8397/645
5 Bernie Williams 2336 1991 2006 22-37 2076 9053 7869 1366 449 55 287 1257 1069 97 1212 39 12 64 223 147 87 .297 .381 .477 .858 *8D/97
6 Joe DiMaggio 2214 1936 1951 21-36 1736 7671 6821 1390 389 131 361 1537 790 0 369 46 14 0 130 30 9 .325 .398 .579 .977 *8/793
7 Don Mattingly 2153 1982 1995 21-34 1785 7721 7003 1007 442 20 222 1099 588 136 444 21 13 96 191 14 9 .307 .358 .471 .829 *3/D97584
8 Yogi Berra 2148 1946 1963 21-38 2116 8355 7546 1174 321 49 358 1430 704 49 411 52 9 44 146 30 26 .285 .348 .483 .831 *279/35
9 Bill Dickey 1969 1928 1946 21-39 1789 7060 6300 930 343 72 202 1209 678 0 289 31 51 0 49 37 29 .313 .382 .486 .868 *2
10 Earle Combs 1866 1924 1935 25-36 1455 6507 5746 1186 309 154 58 632 670 0 278 17 74 0 0 96 71 .325 .397 .462 .859 *87/9
That's right...barring an injury or major slump, by the end of the season, Jeter is going to have the most career hits by a Yankee. Just think about that for a second. More than Gehrig, more than Mantle, more than DiMaggio....and he's had a long career but he's not going to get this record just through longevity. He has a career batting average of .317 and in this, his 14th full major league season, he's batting .332 with a 127 OPS+. The lowest batting average he's ever had in a full season in .291 and he's never had an OPS+ that was average (or below average.)
His career ranks among Yankees: 5th in batting average, 4th in runs scored, 5th in total bases, 10th in RBI, and 2nd in stolen bases.
Posted in Season Finders | 19 Comments »
Posted by Neil Paine on August 25, 2009
From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a small piece on Michael Young's resurgent 2009 season. Finally healthy again, Young is very much on pace for his 6th 200-hit campaign in 7 years, after a performance in 2008 that made many (myself included) question whether he'd ever be an elite hitter again. If he does reach 200 hits and maintains his current rate stats, he'd become just the third thirtysomething 3rd baseman ever to accomplish that feat and post an OPS+ of greater than 135 in a season.
Posted in Bloops | 2 Comments »
Posted by Neil Paine on August 24, 2009
Sometimes it can be easy to miss some of the coolest features on our site because there's just so much information assaulting your senses (in a good way, that is). One of the best tools on the site, in my opinion, is one of the most underrated for this very reason.
I'm talking, of course, about the team batting order and lineup pages that you can access from each team's main page under the "Other [+]" tab. I'm sure more than a few of you have seen these pages and are acutely aware of them, but a surprising number of users don't know they exist. Personally, I love them because they can represent in a very visual way how a team's personnel tendencies have changed as the year goes by. For instance, at the beginning of the year, the Red Sox were batting David Ortiz third; then, as Ortiz's play became more and more excruciating to watch, the team put Kevin Youkilis in the 3-spot and slotted Big Papi either 5th or 6th. Now they're batting newcomer Victor Martinez 3rd most often and having Youk bat cleanup.
I like being able to see these kinds of patterns in teams, especially as the season goes on, because in concert with the team's schedule page, it lets you get a feel for why a team's record had certain ebbs and flows. The same goes for the lineup pages, which shows who's injured or who has fallen out of favor with the manager. All of these aspects of the pages can be valuable tools when researching a team for an upcoming regular-season matchup, and especially for the playoffs or at the beginning of a new season.
Posted in Site Features, Tutorials | 3 Comments »
Posted by Andy on August 24, 2009
Cliff Lee is now tied with Jorge de la Rosa for the longest streak in 2009 with wins in consecutive starts:
StreakStart Streak End Games W L GS CG SHO GF SV IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA HBP WP BK Teams
+-----------------+-----------+-----------+-----+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Cliff Lee 2009-07-16 2009-08-19 7 7 0 7 4 0 0 0 58 40 8 7 6 48 2 1.09 1 0 0 CLE-PHI
Jorge de la Rosa 2009-06-21 2009-07-30 7 7 0 7 0 0 0 0 46.2 35 14 14 16 40 3 2.70 1 1 0 COL
Matt Cain 2009-05-17 2009-06-14 6 6 0 6 3 0 0 0 41.2 34 9 8 14 36 3 1.73 0 3 0 SFG
Zack Greinke 2009-04-08 2009-05-04 6 6 0 6 3 2 0 0 45 30 3 2 8 54 0 0.40 1 1 0 KCR
Lee's streak spans his time with the Indians and first 4 starts with the Phillies, and is current.
After the Brewers got amazing output after acquiring C. C. Sabathia last year from the Indians, the Phillies seem poised to get the same production from another Cleveland castoff this year. One big difference is that Lee will still be under contract with the Phillies next season as well.
Posted in Streak Finders | 1 Comment »
Posted by Steve Lombardi on August 23, 2009
The Yankees A.J. Burnett, with 77 walks, 17 wild pitches, and 9 batters plunked this season has been a bit of a wild child on the mound this year. So, what if we used some numbers close to these (...say, BB>=77, WP>=11 and HBP>=7) just to see how many other pitchers in baseball history have been this wild? Via Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Pitching Season Finder, here's the pitchers who have done it at least three times:
From To Ages Seasons Link to Individual Seasons
+-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+------------------------------+
Nolan Ryan 1972 1989 25-42 7 Ind. Seasons
Matt Clement 1999 2004 24-29 5 Ind. Seasons
A.J. Burnett 2002 2009 25-32 4 Ind. Seasons
Charlie Hough 1984 1987 36-39 4 Ind. Seasons
Phil Niekro 1976 1979 37-40 4 Ind. Seasons
Larry Cheney 1912 1916 26-30 4 Ind. Seasons
Chuck Finley 1995 1999 32-36 3 Ind. Seasons
David Cone 1992 2000 29-37 3 Ind. Seasons
Gaylord Perry 1969 1972 30-33 3 Ind. Seasons
Sam McDowell 1967 1970 24-27 3 Ind. Seasons
Jean Dubuc 1912 1915 23-26 3 Ind. Seasons
Vic Willis 1902 1905 26-29 3 Ind. Seasons
Of course, the trick here is that you have to be doing something else, that's good, for teams to keep giving you a chance to pitch. Otherwise, guys like Daniel Cabrera and Jaime Cocanower would own a list like this one.
Posted in Season Finders | 2 Comments »
Posted by Steve Lombardi on August 21, 2009
Posted in Game Finders | 1 Comment »
Posted by Neil Paine on August 21, 2009
If you're a Baseball-Reference addict, chances are you've seen the link for our Game Day Previews on the front page of the site. And who knows, perhaps you've checked them out on the odd occasion, or maybe you even use them religiously like I do. But I get the feeling that they're somewhat underexposed in comparison to the rest of the features we provide, and I'd hate to see such a useful tool go unnoticed by a lot of people because they don't really know about it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Site Features | Comments Off on Feature Watch: Game Day Previews
Posted by Neil Paine on August 21, 2009
Courtesy of Sporcle, here's a quiz that should be near and dear to the heart of every OBP-lover out there: Can you name the batters with the most career bases on balls?
Posted in Bloops | 5 Comments »
