The PI has a neat feature about team scoring and records by inning. It can be reached from the main PI page.

Here are the runs score for all teams in 2007:

Runs Scored by inning.

 Inning   #    0  Any    1    2    3    4   ≥5  Most Total  Avg Avg/9inn
+------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+----+
    1   4862 3276 1586  845  394  191  100   56   11 2921  0.60 5.41
    2   4862 3507 1355  782  337  133   54   49    8 2357  0.48 4.36
    3   4862 3445 1417  736  360  174   78   69    8 2670  0.55 4.94
    4   4862 3434 1428  757  362  182   63   64   10 2631  0.54 4.87
    5   4862 3427 1435  717  379  187   82   70   11 2777  0.57 5.14
    6   4858 3363 1495  764  367  205   90   69   11 2869  0.59 5.32
    7   4856 3500 1356  723  331  169   71   62    8 2519  0.52 4.67
    8   4854 3525 1329  695  334  151   77   72   11 2534  0.52 4.70
    9   3754 2819  935  524  237  100   42   32    7 1640  0.44 4.00
   10    440  323  117   79   20   12    3    3    8  185  0.46 4.13
   11    246  180   66   49   11    3    2    1    5   93  0.41 3.72
   12    128   89   39   25    6    2    4    2    6   70  0.58 5.24
   13     62   44   18   10    5    3    0    0    3   29  0.51 4.61
   14     30   21    9    6    1    2    0    0    3   14  0.50 4.50
   15     12    8    4    2    1    0    0    1    5    9  0.75 6.75
   16      6    5    1    1    0    0    0    0    1    1  0.18 1.59
   17      4    2    2    1    1    0    0    0    2    3  0.75 6.75
+------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+-----+----+
        43560 30968 12592 6716 3146 1514  666  550   11 23322  0.54 4.83

So, for example, let's say you want to know how many times a team scored 1 run in the 7th inning of a game. Well, you go down the list to Inning # 7, then read across to the column for "1" and you see it happened 723 times in 2007.

There are so many interesting things we can glean from the data above: Read the rest of this entry »

It's a basic sort, but the results sure are fun to look at.  My favorite is #13.  Betcha didn't expect that one, ay?

Really makes clear how hard it is to keep performing at the highest levels while healthy.  #2 was an alcoholic,  #6 a drinker, #4 had a series of injuries - as did #9.  #8 was known as the hardest player of his day - a real hard sliding wall-runner-into tough guy.  #12 is a catcher.

I know DiMaggio was a great player, but since he only hit 361 homers in his career, I never would've expected him to end up in the top 20.  But there he is at 18.  Hell, at age 27, he was already in the top 20 for career homers.  Not through age 27, but entire careers.  Damn.

Today, I found myself wondering how "old guys" (in baseball terms of being old) have played (pretty much) full seasons - and, who did it the most?  So, I went to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Season Finder and set it for:  From 1901 to 2007, From Age 35 to 99, (requiring G>=140).  Looking at the results, I noticed that only a dozen players have pulled this off, five times or more:

Player ages are computed as their age on June 30th

                   From  To   Ages Seasons Link to Individual Seasons 
+-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+------------------------------+ 
 Craig Biggio      2001 2007 35-41       7 Ind. Seasons 
 Pete Rose         1976 1983 35-42       7 Ind. Seasons 
 Darrell Evans     1982 1988 35-41       6 Ind. Seasons 
 Sam Rice          1925 1930 35-40       6 Ind. Seasons                     
 Omar Vizquel      2002 2007 35-40       5 Ind. Seasons 
 Rafael Palmeiro   2000 2004 35-39       5 Ind. Seasons 
 Steve Finley      2000 2004 35-39       5 Ind. Seasons 
 Edgar Martinez    1998 2004 35-41       5 Ind. Seasons 
 Dave Winfield     1987 1993 35-41       5 Ind. Seasons 
 Carl Yastrzemski  1975 1979 35-39       5 Ind. Seasons 
 Doc Cramer        1941 1945 35-39       5 Ind. Seasons 
 Rabbit Maranville 1929 1933 37-41       5 Ind. Seasons

Biggio and Rose stand out here, at the top, with seven seasons each.  And, Omar Vizquel has an outside chance to tie them.  I would have expected to see Rose here - and, if I thought hard enough, maybe I would have guessed Biggio.  But, Vizquel was an interesting find for me.  I would have not thought of him as being so high on this list.

It's 25 years later, and the AL Cy Young voting for 1982 still bothers me. Rob Neyer once told me that he considers that vote to be the worst Cy Young vote ever, i.e. Pete Vukovich to be the least deserving winner.

Just how bad was that season?

Well here are all pitching seasons since 1901 with at least 200 innings pitched and a winning percentage of .750 or better, ranked by highest WHIP:

  Cnt Player             **WHIP**  W-L%   IP  Year Age Tm  Lg  G  GS CG SHO GF  W  L SV  H   R   ER  BB  SO   ERA  ERA+ HR  BF   AB  2B 3B IBB HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS Pk BK WP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  OPS+  Pit  Str
+----+-----------------+---------+-----+-----+----+---+---+--+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+------+----+--+----+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+----+
    1 Pete Vuckovich      1.502    .750 223.2 1982  29 MIL AL  30 30  9   1  0 18  6  0 234  96  83 102 105   3.34  114 14  971  851 38  7   1   5   9   4  23  32 16  3  0  6  .275  .354  .385  .739  108
    2 Juan Guzman         1.452    .824 221   1993  26 TOR AL  33 33  2   1  0 14  3  0 211 107  98 110 194   3.99  109 17  963  836 35  1   2   3   5   9  10  25 17  2  1 26  .252  .338  .358  .696   87
    3 Jack Kramer         1.449    .783 205   1948  30 BOS AL  29 29 14   2  0 18  5  0 233 104  99  64  72   4.35  101 12  891                  0                        0  3                            0
    4 Whitey Ford         1.435    .750 207   1953  24 NYY AL  32 30 11   3  2 18  6  0 187  77  69 110 110   3.00  124 13  882                  4                        0  3                            0
    5 George Earnshaw     1.406    .750 254.2 1929  29 PHA AL  44 33 13   3  5 24  8  1 233 110  93 125 149   3.29  129  8 1115                  5                        0  8                            0
    6 Lefty Gomez         1.398    .774 265.1 1932  23 NYY AL  37 31 21   1  3 24  7  1 266 140 124 105 176   4.21   97 23 1149                  2                        0  0                            0
    7 Ellis Kinder        1.389    .793 252   1949  34 BOS AL  43 30 19   6 10 23  6  4 251 103  94  99 138   3.36  130 21 1085                  2                        0  1                            0
    8 Tom Glavine         1.362    .786 239.1 1993  27 ATL NL  36 36  4   2  0 22  6  0 236  91  85  90 120   3.20  127 16 1014  910 50  4   7   2  10   2  25   9  5  1  0  4  .259  .327  .376  .703   92
    9 Larry Christenson   1.359    .760 219.1 1977  23 PHI NL  34 34  5   1  0 19  6  0 229 113  99  69 118   4.06   99 21  945  856 52  7   1   7   5   8  18  14  8  1  6  7  .268  .324  .418  .742  100
   10 Charley Root        1.357    .760 272   1929  30 CHC NL  43 31 19   4  9 19  6  5 286 120 105  83 124   3.47  133 12 1158                  3                        0  1                            0
   11 Alvin Crowder       1.348    .808 244   1928  29 SLB AL  41 31 19   1  6 21  5  2 238 113 100  91  99   3.69  114 11 1069                  1                        0  1                            0
   12 Mel Parnell         1.327    .781 295.1 1949  27 BOS AL  39 33 27   4  5 25  7  2 258 102  91 134 122   2.77  157  8 1240                  5                        0  9                            0
   13 Red Ruffing         1.326    .750 247.1 1938  33 NYY AL  31 31 22   3  0 21  7  0 246 104  91  82 127   3.31  137 16 1043                  0                        1  1                            0
   14 Bruce Hurst         1.325    .750 216.2 1988  30 BOS AL  33 32  7   1  0 18  6  0 222  98  88  65 166   3.66  113 21  922  842 40  1   1   2   8   5  15  14  4  4  3  5  .264  .316  .388  .704   92
   15 Lefty Grove         1.318    .750 275.1 1933  33 PHA AL  45 28 21   2 16 24  8  6 280 113  98  83 114   3.20  134 12 1173                  4                        0  1                            0
   16 Russ Ortiz          1.314    .750 212.1 2003  29 ATL NL  34 34  1   1  0 21  7  0 177 101  90 102 149   3.81  112 17  912  793 41  3   7   4   6   7   9  22  5  2  0  5  .223  .312  .347  .659   76 3569 2104
   17 Richard Dotson      1.313    .759 240   1983  24 CHW AL  35 35  8   1  0 22  7  0 209  92  86 106 137   3.23  130 19  997  872 34  3   1   8   4   7  33  29  5  2  0  7  .240  .325  .351  .676   83
   18 Red Munger          1.311    .762 224.1 1947  28 STL NL  40 31 13   6  6 16  5  3 218  94  84  76 123   3.37  123 12  936                  2                        0  4                            0
   19 Brad Penny          1.308    .800 208   2007  29 LAD NL  33 33  0   0  0 16  4  0 199  75  70  73 135   3.03  151  9  865  765 47  1   2   5  13   9  29  14  5  0  0  6  .260  .325  .359  .684   78 3232 2084
   20 Chien-Ming Wang     1.307    .760 218   2006  26 NYY AL  34 33  2   1  1 19  6  1 233  92  88  52  76   3.63  124 12  900  841 44  1   4   2   3   2  33   9 11  1  1  6  .277  .320  .375  .695   79 3055 1920

Yeah, so Vukovich's 1982 ranks as the worst of all time (well, since 1901) in this regard. We see a lot of old seasons on here, but for the most part I think we also see over-rated pitchers on this list. Juan Guzman (#2) is a prime example of a guy who was fairly lucky in having such a winning season, and parlayed it into a big contract, and never had anywhere close to the same success. Russ Ortiz in 2003 (#16) is another example. He had a good career up to that point, but played way over his head that year, then fell off a cliff. (Later he became the highest-paid player ever to be released outright.)

Mind you, we see other names here like Whitey Ford, Left Gomez, and Red Ruffing who are not over-rated.

#20 is interesting, huh? When Wang won 19 in his first full season last year, the rest of his stats didn't seem to back it up very well. His low strikeout rate, even for a ground-ball pitcher, was alarming. I predicted a much poorer 2007, but in fact he had a very similar season. I'm not sure his numbers bode well for a long & productive career, though. That trade we've heard about of packaging Wang with a few others for Santana might not be such a bad deal for the Yankees.

During the season, I wrote about Jorge Posada's incredible season for a 35-year-old. Now that the season has ended, we can get a little perspective on just how good his season was. Read the rest of this entry »

Minimum 500 PA. Worst ever was a one-time Cy Young Award winner - can you guess who before clicking on it?  Because of the PA requirement, it's tough for modern guys to even quality unless they spend over a decade in the NL. Jason Schmidt is the worst of guys who pitched in 2007, though.

From a user suggestion by gswitter, here is a look at players who homered in their only plate-appearance of a post-season series. Read the rest of this entry »

I have no idea where this idea came from, but I had an inkling to see who had the most RBIs without hitting many homeruns.  I initially set the filter at fewer than 20 HRs after 1980.  Here's the list:

  Cnt Player            RBI HR Year Age
+----+-----------------+---+--+----+---+
    1 Tony Gwynn        119 17 1997  37 
    2 Pedro Guerrero    117 17 1989  33 
    3 Al Oliver         117 19 1980  33 
    4 Jeff Cirillo      115 11 2000  30 
    5 Derek Bell        113 17 1996  27 
    6 Paul Molitor      113  9 1996  39 
    7 Marty Cordova     111 16 1996  26 
    8 Paul O'Neill      110 19 1999  36 
    9 Kirby Puckett     110 19 1992  32 
   10 Bill Buckner      110 16 1985  35 
   11 Tom Herr          110  8 1985  29 
   12 Rusty Greer       108 16 1998  29 
   13 Ted Simmons       108 13 1983  33 
   14 Bobby Abreu       107 15 2006  32 
   15 Hideki Matsui     106 16 2003  29 
   16 Joe Randa         106 15 2000  30 
   17 Keith Moreland    106 14 1985  31 
   18 Jeff Francoeur    105 19 2007  23 
   19 Willie McGee      105 11 1987  28 
   20 Bill Buckner      105 15 1982  32 

Lots of professional hitters who didn't take a lot of walks.  How could you not have rooted for Rusty Greer, Tony Gwynn, Jeff Cirillo, and Marty Cardova?  Those are great names.  I'm shocked to see Willie McGee on the list.

How about if we also limit doubles to fewer than 30?

  Cnt Player            RBI HR 2B  G  Year Age
+----+-----------------+---+--+--+---+----+---+
    1 Joe Randa         106 15 29 158 2000  30 
    2 George Hendrick   104 19 20 136 1982  32 
    3 Paul O'Neill      100 18 26 142 2000  37 
    4 Terry Kennedy      98 17 27 149 1983  27 
    5 Steve Kemp         98 19 23 160 1982  27 
    6 Jeff Conine        97 14 23 139 2001  35 
    7 Eddie Murray       96 19 23 153 1991  35 
    8 Terry Pendleton    96 12 29 159 1987  26 
    9 Marquis Grissom    95 19 27 157 1993  26 
   10 Will Clark         95 19 25 154 1990  26 
   11 Jose Cruz          95 12 28 160 1984  36 
   12 Jody Davis         94 19 25 150 1984  27 
   13 Dave Parker        94 16 28 156 1984  33 
   14 Will Clark         92 16 27 123 1995  31 
   15 Lloyd Moseby       92 18 28 158 1984  24 
   16 Jose Cruz          92 14 28 160 1983  35 
   17 Jose Cruz          91 11 29 160 1980  32 
   18 Carlos Baerga      90 15 28 135 1995  26 

Obviously, it's hard to knock in 100 runs when you're only hitting singles.  Jose Cruz appears three times in the top 20.

Finally, how about the most runs scored with the second set of restrictions: fewer than 20 homeruns and 30 doubles:

  Cnt Player             R  HR 2B  G  Year Age
+----+-----------------+---+--+--+---+----+---+
    1 Paul Molitor      136 19 26 160 1982  25 
    2 Willie Wilson     133  3 28 161 1980  24 
    3 Derek Jeter       127 19 25 149 1998  24 
    4 Derek Jeter       124 18 26 157 2002  28 
    5 Derek Jeter       122 19 25 159 2005  31 
    6 Vince Coleman     121  3 14 151 1987  25 
    7 Tony Phillips     119 12 29 153 1996  37 
    8 Rickey Henderson  119 10 24 149 1982  23 
    9 Al Bumbry         118  9 29 160 1980  33 
   10 Chuck Knoblauch   117 17 25 150 1998  29 
   11 Chuck Knoblauch   117  9 26 156 1997  28 
   12 Kenny Lofton      116  1 28 148 1993  26 
   13 Willie McGee      114 10 26 152 1985  26 
   14 Chone Figgins     113  8 25 158 2005  27 
   15 Craig Biggio      113 15 24 162 1996  30 
   16 Eric Young        113  8 23 141 1996  29 
   17 Tony Phillips     113  7 27 151 1993  34 
   18 Rickey Henderson  113 12 26 150 1989  30 
   19 Rickey Henderson  113 16 27 142 1984  25 
   20 Brian Hunter      112  4 29 162 1997  26 
   21 Brett Butler      112  2 13 161 1991  34 

Derek Jeter just knows how to win, huh?  Brett Butler scored 112 runs in 1991 while only hitting two homeruns and 13 doubles.  Yikes.

Picking up on an idea made in the Suggestions, here are the most appearances in history without allowing a baserunner: Read the rest of this entry »

Well, it's all over folks. The World Series, the 2007 baseball season, and of course, the B-R SOTD 2007 World Series Challenge.

First let's look at Game 4:

• Cook had a game score of 50--really pretty good all things considered. Nobody got it exactly but lukemeister was closest at 49. Average guess was a pretty close 43.4.
• Colorado scored 3 runs. The average guess was 5, but lukemeister nailed it at 3.
• Colorado LOB was 7, with an average guess of 8.2. Kingturtle got it exactly, as did Dre17.
• Colorado Home Run Guess - several people got Atkins.
• Lester had a game score of 63--quite impressive all things considered. You all thought he'd do worse and gave him an average of 46.4. ImAShark was closest with a 59.
• Boston scored 4 times, with an average guess of 5.6. Truman got it exactly.
• Boston LOB was only 3, with an average guess of 9.2. The guesses went up after Boston left so many runners on earlier in the series. Lukemeister was by far the closest with a guess of 5.
• Boston managed two homers this game, but nobody guessed either correctly.

The average score for this game was just 90, by far the lowest of all 4 games. You guys got better and better as we went along, it seems.

The leaderboard for Game 4 is quite interesting:

1. Dre17 - 37 points
2. kingturtle - 46
3. ImAShark - 48
4. lukemeister - 53
5. doug730 - 7 1

Firstly, I'm happy to see kingturtle finally make the top 5. He made a lot of correct guesses through the whole competition but didn't put it all together until this game. Secondly, lukemeister got 4th without guessing either pitching decision correctly. Had he guessed Lester/Cook correctly, he would have had a 13, by far the lowest score of the entire Challenge. (Everybody else on this leaderboard got the pitchers right, and did much poorer in everything else than lukemeister.)

With Dre17 winning for the third time, I think there is very little drama in the final standings:

1. Dre17 - 247 points
2. doug730 - 311
3. larryhisle - 385
4. kingturtle - 413
5. zimcity - 419
6. spartanbill - 429
7. lukemeister - 450
8. truman - 455
9. wellspr - 460

You folks are the only 9 to complete all four games, and I listed everybody because you're all winners. Everybody else who had a bad game or two dropped out, and would have finished with much worse scores. So, no joke, I really think all 9 of you did really well. Some just did a little better 🙂

So, congrats to Dre17. Now, with that email address of yours, will you finally tell us if you are, indeed, former major leaguer Paul Assenmacher?

Thanks to everybody for participating!

Don't stop reading the SOTD blog just because the season is over. We'll continue to bring you nuggets from the Baseball-Reference.com Play Index all throughout the winter. In fact, now is a good time to email a few of your friends about this blog so they can also keep warm during the hot stove months ahead.