For the April 20-26 issue of USA Today Sports Weekly, Andy analyzed league-wide stats after each team’s first 10 games of the 2016 season. He explains what has made this year unique and how playing style continues to evolve.
Here is the link to the column. High Heat Stats is contributing to the magazine every week this season, so stay tuned for future links or consider picking up a print copy.
One item I find amusing in the early going is that run-scoring this season ihas way up in the NL and way down in the AL. That’s true to such an extent that run-scoring in the NL is well ahead of that in the AL, despite pitchers having to bat in the NL. Might this partly be attributed to early inter-league play, where the NL gets to use a DH in some games and AL pitchers have to bat in some games?
Thank you, Richard. I like the new design here at HHS, and look forward to further participation as I continue to recover from an illness. I am ecstatic that Doug and all of you beautifully completed the Circle of Greats project that I started way back when, and look forward to new rounds next year when the Hall inducts, I hope, a bunch of new BBWAA members.
No team has drawn walks in more than 10% of their plate appearances since the Rays, Yankees and Braves did it in 2010. Right now, 3 teams are well above the 10% mark – the Cubs (12.7%), Brewers (11.9%) and Pirates (11.3%). Four other teams are also flirting with the 10% level – the Braves (10.2%), Yankees (10.0), Nats (9.7%), and Cardinals (9.6%). Odd that 6 of those 7 teams are NL teams, given that having the pitcher hit should lead to fewer walks. Overall NL teams have walked in 8.9% of PAs, whereas AL teams have only walked in… Read more »
In the “This probably won’t happen but who knows” department.
The Braves are on track to throw 151 wild pitches which would shatter the current record of 96 set up the Reds in 2000. The Marlins, Padres, Twins, and Rays are also on pace to beat the record.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox are on pace to hit 140 batters which would shatter the current record of 95 set by the Rays in 2003. The Reds are also on pace to beat the record and the Diamondbacks are on pace to tie it.
David P-
The record for starting the season without giving up an unearned run since 1913 is 24 games by the 2009 Phillies. Here are all teams with streaks of 13 or more.
http://bbref.com/pi/shareit/7awCS
Early season oddity: Kershaw introducing an eephus into his arsenal. Was this intentional, or did he have a bad grip on the ball and just rolled with it?
http://m.mlb.com/video/v608498583/ladatl-kershaw-throws-an-eephus-pitch-to-flowers/?query=kershaw
Mike Trout has added an interesting twist to his game! His Baseball Reference page is showing that he’s fielded 21 games as a pitcher so far this season! Which is amazing on two levels. Since, he’s never pitched in a game, it means that he’s simultaneously covering CF and the Pitcher’s Mound. Also, the Angels have yet to play 21 games this season which means that Trout is so incredible he’s able to field games in the future.
Previously, it was thought that only Chuck Norris could do these sorts of things.
I heard a stat on the Padres’ broadcast a couple of nights ago. After Jeremy Hazelbaker went deep on Saturday night in the Cardinals’ 17th game of the season, St. Louis pinch hitters were 13 for 32 (.406) with seven home runs. The Cards hit a record three pinch-hit homers on April 9 against the Braves.
I cannot believe that the 2014 Padres could be cited in support of any positive offensive category, no matter how obscure. Team season OPS+ of 85, June team batting average of .171 (worst team month on record) and OPS of .492. So I guess it’s fitting that the evidence doesn’t support the team’s five pinch-hit homers in first 17 games. On April 8, Xavier Nady grounded out as a pinch-hitter in the seventh, stayed in the game in left field, and homered leading off the top of the ninth. I don’t consider that a home run hit in a pinch-hitting… Read more »
The Cardinal record for pinch home runs in a full season is 9 in 2000. I’ll take the over on that for this season. Hazelbaker and Brandon Moss each have two PH home runs, half-way to tying the seasonal Cardinal record held by George Crowe, who did it twice, in 1959 and 1960.
Seven PH home runs is a new April record for any team, eclipsing the D-Backs’ total of 6 in 2001. No other team has more than 3 PH home runs in any April.
Here’s how the 2014 Padres could be credited with five pinch-hit homers in their first 17 games, yet not exceed three in April. 1) X. Nady’s April 8 home run occurred in a game which he had indeed entered as a pinch-hitter, but he was playing left field during the at-bat in which he homered. 2) Seth Smith’s pinch-hit HR was hit in the team’s first game on March 30.
Lovely details.
In 1972 Nate Colbert had 111 RBI out of 452 for the San Diego Padres, 24.55% of his team’s RBI total. I believe this is the highest % of team RBI one player has accounted for. This says more about the ineptitude of the 1972 Padres offense (last in the NL @ 3.19 R/G, vs. a league-avg of 3.91 R/G), than Colbert’s ability to drive in runs. He had overall a .250 BA/ .508 SLG, versus a .293/ .537 with RISP and .257/ .502 with runners on base. He had only 5 SF. He had 27 2Bs, 2 3Bs and… Read more »
Cherry-picking some stats: Nate Colbert in 1972 had a .939 OPS with runners in scoring position, with 72 RBI in 184 plate appearances (one RBI every 2.6 PA). All other 1972 Padres combined had a .552 OPS with runners in scoring position, with 252 RBI in 1114 plate appearances (one RBI every 4.4 PA). In tied games, Colbert’s ratio of RBI to PA was 3.34 times better than the rest of the team’s (.183 to .054). With two outs, Colbert had an OPS 336 points better than his teammates’ (.881 to .545) even though his BAbip with two outs was… Read more »
Wally Berger, CF for the 1935 Braves, drove in 130 of his team’s 575 runs, or 21.8%. He was the Braves best hitter by a huge margin, no matter how you measure it:
– only hitter with an OPS+ over 100 (148)
– had 34 HR, next-best was 6 HR
– he had more than twice the next-best total of RBI (130, 60)
The 1935 are best-known for two things:
1) Babe Ruth’s last team
2) Being one of the worst teams post-1900 at 38W – 115 L
César Vargas has become the eighth Mexican-born pitcher to start at least one game for the San Diego Padres. (So far, so good: he’s allowed one earned run in 10⅓ innings pitched.) All-time Padres starts leader among Mexican pitchers is Fernando Valenzuela—59 GS in ’95, ’96, and ’97. Mexican-born pitchers have started 3632 games for all teams, so the Padres’ total of 130 games (3.6%) is very close to the average. Anyway, here’s the oddity. Two Mexican-born pitchers appeared in six games for the Padres, all starts, and allowed 24 earned runs in 24⅔ innings pitched for an 8.76 ERA:… Read more »
Two players in 2016 are drawing walks at a rate greater than 30% of their at-bats: Paul Goldschmidt, 25 BB and 81 AB, 30.9%, and Odúbel Herrera, 23 BB and 76 AB, 30.3%.
Herrera in 2015 drew 28 walks in 537 plate appearances.
Over the course of a full season, BB > 30% of AB has been done only by Williams and Bonds (four times each), Mantle and Ruth (twice each), and Jack Clark (1987) and Mark McGwire (1998).
Andrew Miller currently has an ERA of 0.00…and a FIP of -0.13 Opposing lineups are not merely failing to score against him; they are giving runs back to the Yankees.
Meanwhile, in Atlanta, Erick Aybar has 91 plate appearances, a .163/.180/.198 slash line…and a repugnant OPS+ of 2. Perhaps Miller has only faced teams of Aybars so far? :^)
Meanwhile, Miller’s teammate, Chase Headley is still looking for his first extra base hit, 75 PAs into the season. He currently has a triple slash line of .156/.267/.156 (yes, for some odd reason Headley has been able to draw 10 walks this season despite no power and a .156 batting average).
1. Single-season leaders in walks among players with zero extra-base hits: Sammy Strang, 23, 1908 Giants (80 PA, .094 batting average, .385 OBP), and Mickey Lolich, 20, 1972 Tigers (121 PA, .067 BA, .245 OBP).
2. From 2009 to 2015, Headley and Howie Kendrick have averaged 43 XBH and 64 RBI per season. So far in 2016, their combined XBH is 0 (in a combined 133 PA), and they have two RBI between them (both by Headley).
Neither the Yankees nor the Mariners have received an intentional walk this season. The last time a team had fewer than 10 IBB in a season was in 1945 (A’s). The 1944 Senators hold the record for fewest intentional walks received (1).
Meanwhile, the Rays have yet to issue an intentional walk. The last time a team issued fewer than 10 intentional walks was in 1974 (Dodgers). The 1943 Senators hold the record for fewest intentional walks delivered (1).
I messed up, was looking at Team Totals in Retrosheet, which are the official stats, rather than Splits, which are from play-by-play. The splits for the 1950 Browns show 18 IBB, which include the 11 listed in BB Ref and 7 more. Just ignore my earlier post, will take more research to find out what the record is.
The Cincinnati Reds’ bullpen set a record on Tuesday by giving up a run in 21 consecutive games (now 22 and counting). Next up: the 2004 Cleveland squad, with 30 consecutive appearances that yielded a run; this factors in games where the bullpen was not needed. This number seems surprisingly low to me, considering the ever-growing percentage of innings that are thrown by relievers in the modern era. Giving up one run in three innings of work (factoring in the average length of a start) would only yield a 3.00 ERA. Of course, the Reds’ unit is FAR worse than… Read more »
The Cubs are on pace to score the most runs ever for a team with an OPS under .800. With 159 runs in 26 games, the Cubs are on pace for 991 runs. Yet their OPS is only .789.
Only two teams have ever scored 900+ runs while having an OPS under .800. The 1936 White Sox (920 runs, .771 OPS) and the 1948 Red Sox (907 runs, .782 OPS). Of course, a few other teams would have accomplished the feat had they played a 162 game schedule.
Partly in honor of Willie Mays’ 85th birthday— Top 10 Largest Percentage Differences between Highest and Second-highest Power-speed Number, 1901 to 2016 1. 1956: 52.9%, Mays (37.90) vs. Bill White (17.84) 2. 1957: 40.3%, Mays (36.44) vs. Mantle (21.76) 3. 1955: 39.3%, Mays (32.64) vs. Jackie Jensen (19.81) 4. 1932: 37.2%, Chuck Klein (26.21) vs. Roy Johnson (16.47) 5. 1922: 36.3%, Ken Williams (37.97) vs. Hornsby (24.20) 6. 1963: 33.4%, Aaron (36.37) vs. Pinson (24.24) 7. 1968: 32.3%, Aaron (28.49) vs. Don Buford (19.29) 8. 2006: 31.9%, Soriano (43.36) vs. Rollins (29.51) 9. 1981: 30.7%, Dawson (24.96) vs. Schmidt (17.30)… Read more »
HHS team,
I see Big Papi doing his thing again this year, enough to make an old Hoser proud. As he passes Yaz on the alltime Sox HR list, and can see the Splendid Splinter’s 521 in his sights for alltime HR list, his 58 Twins dingers mean Ted will remain (forever) ahead on Sox list. Here’s my question: Are there any other 500+ ( or 400 or 300+ ) club sluggers who hit more than 88% of their homers for one club after being traded? Bonds didn’t. ARod neither. Sosa?
Is Papi the meatiest Slugger acquisition of all time?
The obvious one you’re forgetting? Babe Ruth!!!! (if you consider selling a player to be a type of trade). 659 of his 714 (92%) came with the Yankees.
Sosa clears the threshold too; 89.5% of his homers came with the Cubbies. And scrolling further down the all-time list, Paul Konerko recorded 432 of 439 homers with the White Sox. He was traded TWICE (by the Dodgers and the Reds) as a rookie.
Give Phelps his due. He’s one of the few players with career ISO higher than his BA, meaning he averaged better than two bases per hit. Phelps’s 123 career home runs are the most among players with fewer than 500 hits. His last career homer was as a pinch-hitter for Oakland on 4/20/90; it came with two out in the 9th inning to break up a perfect game by the Mariners’ Brian Holman. Norm Cash is right behind Buhner with 98.9% (373 of 377) of his dingers for the Tigers. Three of the four homers Cash hit for the White… Read more »
Cash, like Konerko, was also traded twice before he became a star. He was traded from the White Sox to the Indians, but he never played for Cleveland, who flipped him over the offseason to the Tigers for Steve Demeter, whose illustrious Tribe career consisted of going 0 for 5 in 4 games during the 1960 season. Just one of the dozens of trades made by “Trader” Frank Lane, but it might have been his worst mistake. He finally resigned before the 1961 season. And the Indians grand rebuild only took another, eh, 33 years after that.
But you’re right that, even though it’s been immortalized by Seinfeld, the Buhner for Phelps swap wasn’t actually a bad trade. Buhner had performed well in the minors (.279/.351/.514 with 31 HR’s at Triple-A Columbus as a 22 year old), but was far from a can’t-miss prospect. His 124 K’s in 134 games foretold a career plagued by trouble making contact, and he certainly looked overwhelmed in his short time in the majors. Certainly there have been plenty of guys with that kind of hitting profile who ended up being “4A” guys. On the other side of the deal, the… Read more »
Bryce Harper on Sunday against the Cubs: 7 PA, 6 BB, 1 HBP. This sets single-game records since 1912 for a) most walks in a game by any batter who was hit by at least one pitch; b) fewest official at-bats by any player with 7+ plate appearances (the previous low had been two); and c) most plate appearances for any player credited with zero at-bats.
The surprising thing to me was not that he got three IBB, but that twice the Cubs would load the bases, and push the potential winning run from second to third base, rather than face Harper with two out. Talk about respect!
Harper also had zero AB in the game before, making him the first searchable player to record consecutive 4 PA games without an AB. The Cubs walked him 13 times in the four game series, giving Harper 19 PA but only 4 AB for the set.
Jake Arrieta set a record last night for longest consecutive starts giving up 3 runs or less at 27. Elias says this is the longest streak since 1893, so apparently they have pitcher game logs to back then. The top four in that category from 1913-1964 is held by some unexpected pitchers:
22 Carl Weilman 1913-1914
21 Mellie Wolfgang 1914-1916
21 Joe Benz 1915-1916
20 Al Benton 1942-1945
Arrieta moved past Chris Short of the 1967-68 Phillies to set the new record. Arrieta has a 22-1 record in his 27 starts while Short managed only a 10-11 mark in his run of 26. Here’s the list since 1913. Rk Name Strk Start End Games W L CG SHO IP ERA Tm 1 Jake Arrieta 2015-06-21 2016-05-08 27 22 1 5 4 195.0 0.92 CHC 2 Chris Short 1967-04-29 1968-04-19 26 10 11 9 3 199.0 2.13 PHI 3 Clayton Kershaw 2014-05-23 2015-04-06 24 19 2 6 2 182.0 1.53 LAD 4 Dwight Gooden 1985-04-14 1985-08-10 24 18 3… Read more »
It isn’t hard to fathom why half of these streaks occurred in the past twenty years. Cingrani’s 20 starts with 105.2 IP is the shining standard of the age.
Gooden’s streak, on the other hand, reminds you of just how good he was for that one season.
The striking thing is that the vast majority of the pitchers listed were journeyman—including Gooden, in my opinion—who aren’t thought of that way because each had a few seasons well above the norm. So far that description fits Arrietta’s profile, too.
Some logic to that.
The good but not great pitchers probably get less rope and an earlier hook when they get in hot water. The elite guys are more likely to be given a chance to work out of jambs, and thus greater likelihood of having low run streaks broken up when they are unable to work out of those jambs successfully.
May 5 was the first game of the season with both starters (Masahiro Tanaka, Kevin Gausman) going 8+ innings, a feat duplicated yesterday by J.A. Happ and Matt Cain. Looks like 1995 (late start to season) and 2004 are the only other years with no such games in April.
Still waiting, though, for first game with both starters going the distance.
Here you go, Doug: May 23, Finnegan-Kershaw.
Songs based on number patterns? I want to play! Ideas for the last line:
a) ♪ And the bad luck of facing Kershaw
b) Though backed up by four double plays ♪
c) ♪ For a close loss at Chavez Ravine
On a different note, the two teams played last night’s game in a brisk 2:11, the Reds’ shortest game of the year. Shortest Reds-Dodgers game ever at Dodger Stadium: 7/5/63, Johnny Podres over Jim O’Toole 1-0 on a Frank Howard solo homer, wrapped up in an amazing 1:35.
Last night Noah Syndergaard became the 9th pitcher since 1913 to have 4 or more RBIs in a game and drive in all of his team’s runs. It was last done by Mark Thurmond on 6/8/1986 for the Padres vs the Braves. The record in this category is 6 by Wes Ferrell on 8/12/1936 for the Red Sox vs the A’s. All of the other pitchers had 4 RBIs.
Scanning a list of 2016’s highest-leverage home runs, I noticed that on April 13 Detroit’s Jarrod Saltalamacchia hit a sixth-inning grand slam off Pittsburgh’s Arquímedes Caminero. That batter-pitcher name combination must involve the most, or nearly the most, letters of any pairing in major-league history (38).
John Smiley.
There’s a mile between the first and last letters of his last name.
_______________
Or, if you want to look to the middle:
For longest full name, see Alan Gallagher. Not exactly what I had in mind. (-;þ
If there’s proof that Pete Alexander was regularly referred to as “Grover Cleveland Alexander,” he could conceivably be paired with someone else for a longer combination. (I checked—he never faced Bonnie Hollingsworth or vice versa.)
A day late on this, but the Phillies had a 22-15 record thru Saturday, and had been outscored by 25 runs (122-147). Only three other teams since 1876 (NL and AL only) started out 22-15 while being out-scored:
1957 Indians -4 (147-151)
1907 Phillies -3 (151-154)
2006 Phillies -1 (178-179)
The most games above .500 any NL team has ever finished a season while being outscored by 25 or more runs is 12. The 1917 Cardinals went 82-70 while being outscored by 36 runs (Pythagorean delta of 10.56). The 2008 Astros were 11 games over .500 but -31 in run differential (Pyth. Δ 8.64), and the 1972 Mets were 10 games over .500 but -50 in run differential (Pyth. Δ 11.44). Most games above .500 for any AL team is eight, accomplished by the 1930 Indians (81-73, -25, Pyth. Δ 5.95), 1973 Tigers (85-77, -32, Pyth. Δ 7.60), and 2009… Read more »
Steve Delabar of the Reds had 5 walks in 1/3 of an inning of relief today against the Indians – that’s rare in and of itself. (It’s been done 4 other times by relievers in the PI searchable era, compared to 12 times by starters) 4 of them were bases loaded walks – in a row. From my cursory search, that’s the first time it’s ever happened in the PI searchable era. I found 3 in a row, done by Craig Minetto in 1979: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CAL/CAL197907040.shtml Minetto’s night was even worse in some ways – he also gave up 5 walks,… Read more »
Brissie’s Game Score for that 1950 start was 3. Worst ever? Not close. Worst among PI-searchable games was a horrifying -56 in this 1914 Federal League game. To get a Game Score that low, you have to pitch a complete game, give up 20 earned runs, walk eight and strike out none. (The 13 stolen bases allowed is/are strictly optional.)
Coincidentally here is something I just stumbled across on Twitter. Yesterday a commenter asked about a game with the most bases-loaded walks. There was a response from baseball-reference and here is a link to that response. I hope this works.
On 4-22-1959 George Brunet of the A’s came to relieve against the White Sox in the top of the 7th with the bases loaded and one out. He faced 8 batters to complete the inning. The sequence was walk, walk, HBP, walk, strikeout, walk, walk and ground out. He pitched 2 more innings giving up 1 run and 5 hits.
Immediately prior to Brunet’s entry into the game pitcher Tom Gorman issued a bases loaded walk and then pitcher Mark Freeman gave up 2 more making for a total of 8 bases loaded walks in the inning. In the searchable era there has not even been an entire game with that many bases loaded walks. Altogether the White Sox score 11 runs in the inning with 1 hit, a single. There were 10 walks, a HBP and 2 ROE.
It’s tame compared to Chisox-A’s 4/22/59 top of the seventh, but in the bottom of the third inning on May 25, 1983, the Braves scored four runs against Pirates pitchers Jim Bibby and Jim Winn on seven consecutive walks. The Braves did not have a hit in the inning.
Four runs scoring on walks is not that unusual—here’s an Indians-Reds game from last season in which Reds pitchers walked home four Indians runs, all in different innings.
Yaz had a shoulder injury in late 1971 that severely curtailed his power, and forced him to alter his famous ‘bat held high over his shoulder’ stance. He got some of his power back mid-1972 and had several more very good seasons, but he was never the same hitter he was from 1963 – 1970.
He did have amazing longevity in that he was still an above-average hitter (by OPS+) his last two years; they weren’t running him out there at DH out of sentiment.
Lawrence – Looks like Yaz’s batting stance was covered in a prior version of HHS. The general consensus from the comments is that he was continually tweaking it. http://highheatstats.blogspot.com.co/2011/11/carl-yastrzemskis-batting-approach.html I’m also not clear on how a shoulder injury near the end of ’71 could have led to his power drop which seemed to have begun before the injury. I have no idea when the injury occurred but he only had 11 home runes in 358 PAs in the first half of ’71. BTW, I’m not trying to dispute what you’re saying. I know you’re a Sox fan and I was… Read more »
The walk drawn by pitcher Travis Wood to force in a run and put the Cubs ahead in the 13th inning of last night’s game against the Brewers was the sixth such walk drawn by a pitcher in the PI-searchable era. The other five: • The Yankees’ Johnny Sain off the Senators’ Spec Shea, walk-off, breaking a 6-6 tie, bottom of the 10th, second game, May 31, 1954. • The Twins’ Jim Roland off the Tigers’ John Wyatt, walk-off, breaking a 6-6 tie, bottom of the 14th, July 13, 1968. • The Cardinals’ Tim Conroy off the Expos’ Floyd Youmans,… Read more »
Joe DiMaggio beware! With a single in his first plate appearance tonight, pitcher Josh Tomlin has extended one of the more unusual hit streak in the history of baseball. He now has a 4 game hit streak that spans 6 seasons. The streak began on June 28th, 2011 when Tomlin singled twice. In 2012, he got PAs in two games and singled in both of them. Tonight’s game is his first since 2012 with a PA. At his current pace, Tomlin will break DiMaggio’s record around the end of the century.
