Playing around with Play Index today, I applied a bunch of filters in order to be able to look at Trevor Hoffman and Jeff Nelson, side by side, during the period where Nelson was at his peak.  Granted, Hoffman did not pitch in 1992.  But, if you just look at innings pitched and batters faced during this snapshot in time, these two were pretty equal in terms of opportunity to perform.  And, check it out, in terms of relative pitching results, they were not too far from each other as well.  Note the marks in OPS+ and ERA+.  Yes, Hoffman was better – but, not by a ton.  The stats:

  Cnt Player            **OPS+**   G   GS   IP   From  To   Ages  CG SHO  GF  W   L   W-L%  SV   H    R   ER   BB   SO    ERA  ERA+  HR   BF  IBB HBP  BK  WP Teams         BA   OBP   SLG   OPS   SH  SF  2B  3B GDP  SB   CS  Pk
+----+-----------------+--------+----+---+------+----+----+-----+---+---+---+---+---+-----+---+----+----+----+----+----+------+----+---+-----+---+---+---+---+-----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+---+---+---+---+---+----+---+---+
    1 Trevor Hoffman        64    641   0  710   1993 2003 25-35   0   0 527  45  44  .506 352  533  243  219  217  808   2.78  146  66  2861  43   6   0  40 TOT-SDP      .205  .266  .334  .600  20  22  97  20  38   37  10   2 
    2 Jeff Nelson           75    714   0  721.2 1992 2003 25-36   0   0 210  46  39  .541  31  581  295  266  382  771   3.32  136  48  3118  58  60   2  33 SEA-NYY-TOT  .223  .333  .329  .662  44  27 109  12  57   85  19   2 

 Seasons/Careers found: 2.

Since 1957, there have been 11 games where one player had at least 3 homers and at least 1 stolen base in the same game. Only one player has done it twice. NAME THAT PLAYER!

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Since 1957 there have been 97 games in which a pitcher has started, despite the fact that he had pitched the day before. The most recent of these was by Elizardo Ramirez in 2006. The most dominant of those starts include 4 shutouts and a seven inning, 11 strikeout , 3 hit performance by Calvin Schiraldi.

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Do you know who holds the record since 1901?

It's Tommy Glavine.

Here is the full list of most game starts since 1901, led by Nolan Ryan, Don Sutton, and Phil Niekro.  You can see their total number of games a few columns over, and the difference tells you how many relief appearances they had. #10 Tom Glavine is the only guy in the top 200 to have zero relief appearances. Five other guys had just one relief appearance. Here they are, along with number of career starts in parentheses: Mike Mussina (502), Frank Viola (420), Steve Trachsel (409), Brad Radke (377), and Livan Hernandez (350.)

I would imagine that there is a different record-holder prior to 1901, when most starts were complete games and teams usually used just 1 pitcher per game.

Here's a simple game finder search, setting the position to pitcher and specifying "sub" rather than "starter".

There have been 171 shttp://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/7kDj such games since 1957.

The three most recent were by Carlos Marmol, Jorge Sosa, and Adam Wainwright, all in 2006. It's been done the most times (4) by Ken Tatum, Lou Sleater, and Mickey McDermott.

I got the idea for this from a comment about Greg Minton, who did it in this game, over at 88 Topps Cards.

Last year might've been Barry Bonds' last year.   He had  99 RC.  How does that rank up?

Pretty well.  I had to limit it to 1871-2006 because everyone who played in 2007 had their last season then.  Bonds would be near the top, but he's no Shoeless Joe.

How 'bout that David Orr?

Here are the longest careers (in terms of at-bats) since 1901 with no career homers or RBI (pitchers excluded.)

  Cnt Player              **AB**   HR  RBI From  To   Ages   G    PA    R    H   2B  3B  BB  IBB  SO  HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB   CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions Teams
+----+-----------------+---------+---+----+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+----+---+---+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+----+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+-----------+
    1 Gene Good             119     0    0 1906 1906 23-23   34   135    4   18   0   0   13   0    0   2   1   0   0    2   0  .151  .246  .151  .397 /*78      BSN         
    2 Bill Schwartz          86     0    0 1904 1904 20-20   24    88    5   13   2   0    0   0    0   0   2   0   0    4   0  .151  .151  .174  .325 /*35      CLE         
    3 Frank Manush           77     0    0 1908 1908 24-24   23    82    6   12   2   1    2   0    0   1   2   0   0    2   0  .156  .188  .208  .396 /*54      PHA         
    4 Doug Saunders          67     0    0 1993 1993 23-23   28    73    8   14   2   0    3   0    4   0   3   0   2    0   0  .209  .243  .239  .482 /*456     NYM         
    5 Duke Reilley           62     0    0 1909 1909 24-24   20    71   10   13   0   0    4   0    0   0   5   0   0    5   0  .210  .258  .210  .468 /*78      CLE         
    6 Eric Reed              61     0    0 2006 2007 25-26   60    68    9    6   0   0    3   1   16   2   2   0   1    4   1  .098  .167  .098  .265 /*87      FLA         
    7 Bill Gannon            61     0    0 1901 1901 28-28   15    63    2    9   0   0    1   0    0   0   1   0   0    5   0  .148  .161  .148  .309 /*9       CHC         
    8 Milo Allison           60     0    0 1913 1917 22-26   49    78   15   13   0   0   15   0    9   0   3   0   0    4   0  .217  .373  .217  .590 /897      CHC-CLE     
    9 Alexis Infante         55     0    0 1987 1990 25-28   60    62   11    6   1   0    2   0   12   1   4   0   3    1   0  .109  .155  .127  .282 /564      TOR-ATL     
   10 Wayne Graham           55     0    0 1963 1964 27-28   30    58    2    7   1   0    3   0    6   0   0   0   0    0   0  .127  .172  .145  .317 /57       PHI-NYM     
   11 Billy Reed             52     0    0 1952 1952 29-29   15    55    4   13   0   0    0   0    5   1   2   0   2    0   0  .250  .264  .250  .514 /*4       BSN         
   12 Pete Elko              52     0    0 1943 1944 25-26   16    56    3    9   1   0    4   0    5   0   0   0   2    0   0  .173  .232  .192  .424 /*5       CHC         
   13 Charlie Beamon         51     0    0 1978 1981 24-27   45    54    8   10   2   0    3   0    8   0   0   0   1    1   0  .196  .241  .235  .476 /3D7      SEA-TOR     
   14 Kid Durbin             51     0    0 1907 1909 20-22   32    57    6   14   1   0    4   0    0   1   1   0   0    0   0  .275  .339  .294  .633 /8197     CHC-TOT     
   15 Art Lopez              49     0    0 1965 1965 28-28   38    51    5    7   0   0    1   0    6   0   1   0   0    0   0  .143  .160  .143  .303 /97       NYY         
   16 Tom Runnells           46     0    0 1985 1986 30-31   40    53    4    8   2   0    3   0    6   0   4   0   2    0   0  .174  .224  .217  .441 /645      CIN         
   17 Chick Keating          45     0    0 1913 1926 21-34   30    51    4    4   1   1    6   0   13   0   0   0   0    1   0  .089  .196  .156  .352 /*645     CHC-PHI     
   18 Bull Smith             43     0    0 1904 1911 23-30   15    44    2    6   0   1    1   0    0   0   0   0   0    0   0  .140  .159  .186  .345 /*79      PIT-CHC-WSH 
   19 Tim Pyznarski          42     0    0 1986 1986 26-26   15    47    3   10   1   0    4   0   11   1   0   0   2    2   0  .238  .319  .262  .581 /*3       SDP         
   20 Robbie Wine            41     0    0 1986 1987 23-24   23    44    3    6   2   0    2   0   14   0   1   0   0    0   0  .146  .186  .195  .381 /*2       HOU         
   21 Skeeter Shelton        40     0    0 1915 1915 27-27   10    43    1    1   0   0    2   0   10   0   1   0   0    0   0  .025  .071  .025  .096 /*8       NYY         
   22 Steve Rodriguez        39     0    0 1995 1995 24-24   18    46    5    7   1   0    6   0   10   0   1   0   1    2   2  .179  .289  .205  .494 /*46D     TOT         
   23 Eddie Feinberg         38     0    0 1938 1939 20-21   16    42    2    7   1   0    2   0    1   0   2   0   0    0   0  .184  .225  .211  .436 /6497     PHI         
   24 Hank Perry             36     0    0 1912 1912 25-25   13    40    3    6   1   0    3   0    0   0   1   0   0    0   0  .167  .231  .194  .425 /*8       DET         

More on #20 Robbie Wine here.

I thought it might be interesting to look at the players who have gone an entire season without walking or being hit by a pitch. Here are the leaders in terms of plate appearances: Read the rest of this entry »

Following up on my post a while back about pitchers, here are batters with a lifetime OPS+ between 99 and 101, ranked by most career plate appearances.

  Cnt Player              **PA**  OPS+ From  To   Ages   G    AB    R    H   2B  3B  HR  RBI  BB  IBB  SO  HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB   CS   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  Positions Teams
+----+-----------------+---------+----+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+----+---+---+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+----+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+-----------+
    1 Bill Buckner        10033     99 1969 1990 19-40 2517  9397 1077 2715 498  49 174 1208  450 111  453  42  47  97 247  183  73  .289  .321  .408  .729 *379D     LAD-CHC-TOT-BOS-KCR
    2 Pee Wee Reese        9470     99 1940 1958 21-39 2166  8058 1338 2170 330  80 126  885 1210   3  890  26 157  19 176  232  45  .269  .366  .377  .743 *65       BRO-LAD
    3 Tony Fernandez       8793    101 1983 2001 21-39 2158  7911 1057 2276 414  92  94  844  690  48  784  64  67  61 161  246 138  .288  .347  .399  .746 *654/D    TOR-SDP-TOT-CIN-NYY-CLE-TOR-TOT
    4 Jay Bell             8525    101 1986 2003 20-37 2063  7398 1123 1963 394  67 195  860  853  25 1443  57 159  58 165   91  60  .265  .343  .416  .759 *64/53D   CLE-PIT-KCR-ARI-NYM
    5 Lloyd Waner          8326     99 1927 1945 21-39 1993  7772 1201 2459 281 118  27  598  420   0  173  26 108   0  57   67   0  .316  .353  .393  .746 *87/945   PIT-TOT-PHI-PIT
    6 Willie McGee         8188    100 1982 1999 23-40 2201  7649 1010 2254 350  94  79  856  448  58 1238  15  30  46 157  352 121  .295  .333  .396  .729 *897/3D6  STL-TOT-SFG-BOS-STL
    7 Charlie Jamieson     7488    101 1915 1932 22-39 1779  6560 1062 1990 322  80  18  552  748   0  345  35 145   0   0  131 110  .303  .378  .385  .763 *79/813   WSH-TOT-PHA-CLE
    8 Bret Boone           7432    101 1992 2005 23-36 1780  6683  927 1775 366  28 252 1021  552  32 1295  69  55  73 168   94  53  .266  .325  .442  .767 *4/5D     SEA-CIN-ATL-SDP-SEA-TOT
    9 Gee Walker           7211     99 1931 1945 23-37 1784  6771  954 1991 399  76 124  997  330   0  600  44  66   0  82  223  70  .294  .331  .430  .761 789/5     DET-CHW-WSH-CLE-CIN
   10 Tommy Harper         7164    101 1962 1976 21-35 1810  6269  972 1609 256  36 146  567  753  30 1080  35  76  31  87  408 116  .257  .338  .379  .717 7958D/43  CIN-CLE-SEP-MIL-BOS-TOT-BAL
   11 Jason Kendall        7098    100 1996 2007 22-33 1682  6225  897 1848 327  31  71  615  588  36  538 218  18  49 149  162  77  .297  .375  .394  .769 *2/79D    PIT-OAK-TOT
   12 Curt Flood           6958    100 1956 1971 18-33 1759  6357  851 1861 271  44  85  636  444  22  609  52  72  33 117   88  73  .293  .342  .389  .731 *8/5749   CIN-STL-WSA
   13 Phil Garner          6860     99 1973 1988 24-39 1860  6136  780 1594 299  82 109  738  564  74  842  34  67  59 131  225 105  .260  .323  .389  .712 *45/6     OAK-PIT-TOT-HOU-SFG
   14 Eddie Joost          6783     99 1936 1955 20-39 1574  5606  874 1339 238  35 134  601 1043   2  827  33 101   0  83   61  31  .239  .361  .366  .727 *64/53    CIN-BSN-PHA-BOS
   15 Garry Maddox         6775    100 1972 1986 22-36 1749  6331  777 1802 337  62 117  754  323  60  781  36  25  60  99  248  92  .285  .320  .413  .733 *8/79     SFG-TOT-PHI
   16 Juan Samuel          6664    101 1983 1998 22-37 1720  6081  873 1578 287 102 161  703  440  38 1442  74  27  42  81  396 143  .259  .315  .420  .735 *48/D3975 PHI-TOT-LAD-CIN-DET-TOR
   17 Hubie Brooks         6476    100 1980 1994 23-37 1645  5974  656 1608 290  31 149  824  387  62 1005  38  12  65 163   64  56  .269  .315  .403  .718 956/D347  NYM-MON-LAD-NYM-CAL-KCR
   18 Billy Goodman        6446     99 1947 1962 21-36 1623  5644  807 1691 299  44  19  591  669   7  329  29  89  15 121   37  30  .300  .376  .378  .754 435/796   BOS-TOT-CHW-HOU
   19 Cesar Tovar          6177    100 1965 1976 24-35 1488  5569  834 1546 253  55  46  435  413  23  410  88  73  34  58  226 108  .278  .335  .368  .703 87549/D6321 MIN-PHI-TEX-TOT
   20 Mark Loretta         6057    100 1995 2007 23-35 1518  5370  722 1598 286  22  72  566  506  17  554  68  56  57 142   46  34  .298  .362  .399  .761 *4635/D71 MIL-TOT-SDP-BOS-HOU
   21 Art Fletcher         6039    100 1909 1922 24-37 1533  5541  684 1534 238  77  32  675  203   0  348 141 154   0   0  159  28  .277  .319  .365  .684 *6/54     NYG-TOT-PHI
   22 Max Flack            5905    101 1914 1925 24-35 1411  5252  783 1461 212  72  35  391  474   0  253  32 147   0   0  200  71  .278  .342  .366  .708 *97/8     CHI-CHC-TOT-STL
   23 Terry Steinbach      5896    101 1986 1999 24-37 1546  5369  638 1453 273  21 162  745  418  31  938  48  15  46 176   23  22  .271  .326  .420  .746 *2/D3597  OAK-MIN
   24 Carlos Baerga        5895    100 1990 2005 21-36 1630  5439  731 1583 279  17 134  774  291  41  580  73  26  66 158   59  24  .291  .332  .423  .755 *45/36D   CLE-TOT-NYM-BOS-ARI-WSN
   25 Rich Aurilia         5705    100 1995 2007 23-35 1452  5192  702 1435 278  21 174  688  412  17  781  23  36  42 124   22  17  .276  .330  .439  .769 *6543/D   SFG-TOT-CIN-SFG

It's interesting that Bill Buckner comes out on top. I've always thought of him as an average player--not in a negative sense, but as a guy who might not have been the most talented or athletic, but who ground it out and ended up being pretty productive. He's the only guy on this list to play 1B or 3B as his primary position, which isn't surprising since others with this many PAs would probably be above an OPS+ of 101.

Rather, this list is populated by shortstops and second basemen primarily, which again is not that surprising. For years, these were positions from which little offensive production was expected, and therefore guys at these positions who got an OPS+ of 100 were probably fairly far above average for a 2B or SS, and therefore got a lot more career PAs.

There are lots of other interesting things about this list, but I won't go into too much more detail.

Interesting Rosenthal article about Jeter's chances to catch Pete Rose's hit record. (Bonus: Rosentahl uses Bill James's Favorite Toy).   Let's look at the PI and see what it says.

Well, Derek Jeter just finished his age 33 season, and based on that he's 18th all-time on the hit list through that age.  Then again, Pete Rose was 22nd. 

That's not entirely fair -- had he been born a week later, he would've just finished his age 32 season.  Pesky June/July bubble.  I realize that the June 30 / July 1 cut-off is the most sensible mark, but for people within a few days of it (as is the case with Jeter) it obscures as much as it illuminates.  

Jeter has 2356 hits.   Only six men have gotten that many hits though age 32 (and only 3 made it to 3,000!?!?). 

Impressive, eh?  Well, he needs 1900 more hits.  Not only is Pete Rose the only man to do that through age 34-onward, but only a trio have more than 1500 from that point onward.  Ouch.   Apparently, aging hurts players. 

Move Jeter's birthday back by a week, and now three men have done it, but no one else is close.

Obviously, the odds are against him, but if he stays healthy and consistent, he's got a shot.  He's lead-off hitter in a great line-up so should get plenty of at bats.