Is it possible to have a good day and a bad day, all in the same day?  Sure, in life it happens all the time.  How about baseball?  Just for the fun of it, I asked Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Game Finder to show me all games, since 1957, where a batter had 3+ hits in a game - but where he also grounded into 3+ double-plays in the game.  It's only been done once since 1957:   Robin Yount on May 8, 1984.

Check out that game.  25 inning contest played in 8 hours and 6 minutes.  Tom Seaver won it in relief - the only one of his 311 career wins that came out of the pen.  14,754 were there to see that game.  I wonder how many saw Yount ground into that 3rd DP in the top of the 25th?

Bert Blyleven finished his career with 287 wins (26th) all-time and has never received significant support for the Hall of Fame, at least from the voters. It turns out that he was a remarkably unlucky pitcher, not only because he played for a lot of below-average teams, but also because he got losses or no-decisions in a lot of very close games.

For example:

Read the rest of this entry »

On the Play Index, we haven't yet done a whole lot of analysis using the ability to search by defensive positions played. There's quite a lot of flexibility built in there, so I thought I'd use it to recall a somewhat remarkable set of games.

A while back, I remember Les Lancaster, a relief pitcher who had a handful of good seasons in the 80's and 90's, actually moving from pitcher to left field and then back to pitcher in a game. Don Zimmer, then manager of the Cubs, wanted to bring in another pitcher to face some batters, but then bring Lancaster back to face the following batter.

This has happened a number of times in history. Using the BI Batting Game finder, we can search for (for example) players who played the defensive positions of both P and LF in a game: Read the rest of this entry »

I was looking for something unrelated, and did an unusual search. On the PI Batting Season finder, I set Plate Appearances to zero, unchecked "pitcher" as the possible position, and then sorted the results by most seasons.

Here's what you get: Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE 2: Hey, that's 3 homers in 3 games for Ankiel. The last story I can remember of a young top-flight pitcher disappearing then coming back as a power-hitting outfielder is that one about Roy Hobbs.

UPDATE: Ankiel powered a 3-run homer in his first game with the Cardinals as an outfielder. A very nice start.

Rick Ankiel was called up to the Cardinals (Thanks to Tim at MLBtraderumors.com for the link.)

You probably remember Ankiel as one of the guys who suffered the condition named after Steve Blass, namey losing the ability to throw strikes with any regularity. It was in the third inning of Game 1 of the ALDS vs. the Braves in 2000 when Ankiel unexpectedly threw 5 wild pitches and had to be taken out of the game. His career as a an effective major league pitcher ended right there.

But as you may have heard, Ankiel accepted assignment to the minor leagues and started over as an outfielder. He's had some injuries in the last couple of years, but finally put together a full season this year and has shown tremendous power in the minors. In 2000, before that playoff game, he hit 2 home runs in 68 at-bats.

Ankiel has shown tremendous tenacity and dedication. Most people, after suffering such a public type of failure, would choose to shrink away into anonymity. Ankiel obviously feels he can contribute, and I for one hope he finds success again at the major league level. Don't forget, he's still a couple of weeks away from his 26th birthday! he just turned 28! He has plenty of time for a second major league career.

In Chris' excellent post about Bonds yesterday, he pointed out that Bonds' longest homer-less streaks were 27 games in the "classic Barry" era and 14 games in the "Big Head" era.

I'm interested in comparing Bonds' performance in that area to the top current contenders for breaking Bonds' eventual record final career HR record.

According to Rob Neyer, whose stuff I used to love to read before ESPN made his columns Insider-Only, the top contenders, in likelihood of getting to 801 career HR, are A-rod, Albert Pujols, Adam Dunn, Ryan Howard, Andruw Jones, and Ken Griffey Jr. I do recommend you check out that Neyer piece, particularly because that one is free.

Anyway, on to the analysis: Read the rest of this entry »

I was talking with a friend today when we got onto the subject of Coors Field, and how its park effects have changed. These have been well documented elsewhere, and the park effects are calculated for such things. (The Hardball Times, as well as their THT Annual, are my choices for such info.)

But, just using some of the basic info available here on B-R.com, let's see what we can learn. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, Justin Upton hit a double, a triple . . . but no single.  How often does a guy miss a cycle by a single?  Thanks to the wonder & glory of the PI, we can find out.

Go to PI's Batting Gamelog Finder and search for 1B=0, 2B>=1, 3B>=1, and HR >= 1.  Turns out that since 1957, it's happened 261 times.  That's so many times I can't fit it on one save'n'share it.  Here's page 1.  And page 2.  It's the tenth time it happened this year alone.  I never would've guessed it was so common.

Let's take another short break from the serious stats. See Name Chain #1 for explanation. Although I am calling this #2, some users posted some nice chains in the comments for Name Chain #1.

The Only Nolan Ryan Howard Johnson Fry

The Only Nolan Ryan Howard Johnson Fry
The Only Nolan Ryan Howard Johnson Fry
The Only Nolan Ryan Howard Johnson Fry
The Only Nolan Ryan Howard Johnson Fry
The Only Nolan Ryan Howard Johnson Fry

Nolan Ryan pitched just 5382.1 more innings than Johnson Fry.

And sure, I could have gone with Gary Nolan or Joe Nolan at the start, but you've heard of those guys.

Thanks to Sean, we can now search for pitching game streaks that include getting (or not getting) a decision. (In case you don't know who Sean is, check out this recent interview over at THT.)

Anyway, he pointed out to me a stat like this: the longest streaks since 1957 to start a season where every start yielded a decision: Read the rest of this entry »