I was just playing around with Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Event Finder - looking at all IBB that were issued in the first innings of games in 2007 - when I noticed that Ben Sheets gave an IBB to Ryan Hanigan during the 1st inning of a game on September 14, 2007.  I found this one interesting because Sheets was losing this game, 4-0, at the time of the IBB, again, in the first inning.  And, it was Ryan Hanigan's second PA in his big league career!

This got me wondering as to how many batters had just one PA in their first big league game - and who were issued an IBB in that one PA.  Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Gamelog Finder, we know the answer - it's happened just 5 times since 1957:

  Cnt CarGm Player            Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt PA AB  R  H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS BOr Positions
+----+-----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+---------+
    1     1 Luis Lopez        2001-04-29    TOR  ANA W  2-0   1  0  0  0  0  0  0   0  1   1  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 8th PH        
    2     1 Steve Carter      1989-04-16    PIT  MON L  4-5   1  0  1  0  0  0  0   0  1   1  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 8th PH        
    3     1 Scott Reid        1969-09-10    PHI  CHC W  6-2   1  0  1  0  0  0  0   0  1   1  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 7th PH LF     
    4     1 Sandy Valdespino  1965-04-12    MIN  NYY W  5-4   1  0  0  0  0  0  0   0  1   1  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 9th PH        
    5     1 Rex Johnston      1964-04-15    PIT  CHC W  5-4   1  0  0  0  0  0  0   0  1   1  0   0  0  0   0   0  0  0 9th PH        
Games found: 5.

Man, that's alotta respect for some guys that never became stars.

I wrote the post below to go up on Thursday, but the controversy over Curt Schilling's new contract is directly relevant to Cy Young voting shares, so I moved it up a day.

Also, this has nothing to do with anything, but why would you have season ticket holders give opinions on TV and radio broadcasters? Aren't those fans AT the games, and not listening on TV and radio? Furthermore, aren't those fans who bought season tickets already deeply committed to the team? Aren't you more interested in the opinions of the fringe, who you'd like to commit to being more dedicated fans? Just one more example of Phillies franchise, uhh, not-so-smartness. But at least our man Sean will get to vote.

Anyway, click through for the full post on MVP and Cy Young award shares.

Read the rest of this entry »

From 1918-1948, the Phillies only had one winning season.  It was in 1932, where they just sneaked in at 78-76.  Not only did they fail to go .500 in the remaining 30 seasons in that 31 year stretch, but (and yes, I have checked this) they never even had a winning record from July 1 onward.  Yoikes.  So . . let's take a look at what sort of pitching staff you can construct from that bunch.

Here are the best ERA+s they ever had in that period.   Curt Davis was a heckuva pitcher; a late bloomer from the Pacific Coast who going by win shares he's the best starter in MLB history who began his career after the age of 30.  Dutch Leonard was a mighty fine knuckler.  But what does it say that the best pitchers on a team over a 31 year period are Curt David and Dutch Leonard?

Another way of looking at it, here are the winningest pitchers that they had.  Not a single 20-gamer in the bunch.  In that stretch, you actually had 222 different 20-win seasons.  Jeepers.

Or, if you look at cumulative totals with the Phillies in those years, it's clear Curt Davis was their best pitcher.  What's really striking is that only four men tossed 1,000 IP for them in those years.  That' impressive roster churning for a non-free agent league.

A few days ago when I posted about run-scoring by inning, there was a cool blog post written about the length of games in extra innings. Read that one first, then come back here for some more data. Read the rest of this entry »

In honor (?) of the writers strike that officially started today in Hollywood, I present a list of pitchers who have thrown the most strikes in a singles game:

  Cnt Player            Date          Tm   Opp GmReslt App,Dec    IP   H  R ER BB SO HR Pit **Str** GmSc IR IS BF AB 2B 3B IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS Pk BK WP   ERA
+----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+---------+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+-------+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+--+--+------+
    1 Sandy Koufax      1961-09-20    LAD  CHC W  3-2  CG 13 ,W  13    7  2  2  3 15  1 205   128     97       50 44  0  0   1   1  2  0   0  1  0  0  0  2   1.38 
    2 Herm Wehmeier     1957-05-02    STL @BRO W  3-2  GS-12     12    9  2  2  4 12  0 203   128     84       49 45  3  0   0   0  0  0   1  2  0  0  0  1   1.50 
    3 Jay Hook          1960-05-18    CIN  LAD W  5-4  GS-11     11   10  4  4  2 10  0 188   122     69       43 39  2  0   0   0  1  1   0  1  1  0  0  0   3.27
    4 Robin Roberts     1957-04-16    PHI  BRO L  6-7  CG 12 ,L  12   12  7  7  4  8  3 190   121     54       51 46  2  0   1   0  0  1   0  0  0  0  0  0   5.25 
    5 Sandy Koufax      1963-05-15    LAD  PHI W  3-2  CG 12 ,W  12   11  2  2  0 12  0 164   118     84       47 45  1  0   0   0  2  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   1.50 
    6 Sandy Koufax      1960-05-28    LAD @CHC L  3-4  GS-14 ,L  13    3  4  3  9 15  1 193   117     93       49 39  0  0   2   0  1  0   0  1  3  0  0  0   2.08 
    7 Don Drysdale      1959-05-22    LAD  SFG W  2-1  CG 13 ,W  13    6  1  1  2 11  0 173   112    100       47 44  0  1   1   0  1  0   0  0  0  0  0  0   0.69 
    8 Don Drysdale      1959-05-05    LAD @MLN L  2-3  GS-11     11   10  2  2  2  9  0 175   112     76       45 41  4  1   0   1  1  0   1  0  0  0  0  0   1.64 
    9 Randy Johnson     1992-09-27    SEA @TEX L  2-3  GS-8       8    6  2  2  4 18  0 160   111     76       34 30  1  0   0   0  0  0   0  1  0  0  0  0   2.25 
   10 Billy O'Dell      1962-04-16    SFG  LAD W 19-8  CG 9  ,W   9   15  8  6  4  4  1 172   111     29       47 41  3  0   0   1  0  1   0  1  0  1  0  0   6.00 
   11 Randy Johnson     1995-07-07    SEA @CLE W  5-3  CG 9  ,W   9    8  3  2  0 13  0 160   110     74       34 34  1  0   0   0  0  0   0  2  1  0  0  0   2.00 
   12 Randy Johnson     2000-07-30    ARI @FLA L  3-4  GS-7       7    7  2  2  1 11  1 162   109     65       29 28  3  0   0   0  0  0   0  2  0  0  1  1   2.57 

   37 Tim Wakefield     1996-06-10    BOS @CHW L  2-8  CG 8  ,L   8   16  8  6  3  0  1 158   103     19       43 40  2  0   0   0  0  0   0  2  0  0  0  0   6.75

There's some interesting information in that list:

• Sandy Koufax dominates the top spots, placing in a tie for 1st, plus 5th and 6th.  Huh, wasn't his career cut short by arm issues or something like that?
• Randy Johnson has the best performance for a non-extra innings game, and he only pitched 8 innings.  That 18 strikeout performance was just awesome.
• At number five on the list, Koufax threw 118 of 164 pitches for strikes -- that's 72%.
• Tim Wakefield holds the record for most strikes thrown in a game without recording a strikeout: 103
• In total, a pitcher has thrown at least 100 strikes 63 different times.  Nine were by Koufax, eight were by Don Drysdale, and seven were by Randy Johnson.  Nolan Ryan only did it twice.  Randy Johnson needed the fewest number of pitches to do it -- 133 (76%).

Free Agent Pitchers Sorted by ERA+ from 2006-2007 - Baseball-Reference PI

The Batting and Pitching Season Finders now have the option of selecting only current Free Agents.  Team need a SS or a Catcher?  You can now just take a look at the FA's available.  You can look for just last season, their entire careers or any subset of seasons you choose.  In the second column of the season finders just select the checkbox for 2007 free agent.  We'll update these lists as more players become free agents.  We probably won't remove players who have signed though.

OK, here is part two of yesterday's post. Read the rest of this entry »

Reader MikeC asked about scoring by inning in the two leagues, and whether it was different, so I did a quick analysis. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I wrote about the PI's Team Inning Summary function, and here's another thing you can do with it.

For each year, I looked at run scoring for all teams (in total) and extracted the total number of games that a team had a lead going into the 9th inning and then ended up behind at the end of the 9th inning (i.e. losing the game.) Click through for detailed results. Read the rest of this entry »

Just having some fun with Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Season Finder...

Do you know how many batters, in all of baseball history, have seasons with 200+ hits and 35+ walks - yet had an OBA of .340 or below?  Here's the answer:

  Cnt Player            Year  H   BB  OBP  Age Tm  Lg  G   PA  AB  R  2B 3B HR RBI IBB  SO HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS   BA   SLG   OPS  Positions
 +----+-----------------+----+---+---+-----+---+---+--+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+-----+-----+-----+---------+
     1 Michael Young     2003 204  36  .339  26 TEX AL 160 713 666 106 33  9 14  72   1 103   1   3   7  14  13  2  .306  .446  .785 *4/6
     2 Bobby Richardson  1962 209  37  .337  26 NYY AL 161 754 692  99 38  5  8  59   1  24   1  20   4  13  11  9  .302  .406  .743 *4
     3 Doc Cramer        1940 200  36  .340  34 BOS AL 150 712 661  94 27 12  1  51   0  29   1  14   0  13   3  5  .303  .384  .724 *897       
Just three batters - in the history of baseball.  That tells you this is pretty hard to do.  All three times, it happened in the A.L. - and it's only happened once in the last 45 years.  Way to go Michael Young.