Here’s a rundown of the NL teams, highlighting a statistical quirk to watch for when you see these teams over the rest of the season.
More after the jump.
West Division
The Dodgers have recorded their second consecutive season with 100 games played at first, second and third base by players aged 30 or older (Adrian Gonzalez, Chase Utley and Justin Turner). This has happened just once before in franchise history, in 1979-80 with Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes and Ron Cey.
San Francisco has no players slugging .500 in 300+ PA for the fourth consecutive season (Brandon Belt leads the team with a .472 mark). Unless Belt or another Giant regular goes on a big September power binge, this will be the first time in the live ball era that the Giants have strung together four such consecutive seasons.
Colorado has three players (Carlos Gonzalez, Mark Reynolds and Trevor Story) with 100 strikeouts and fewer than 40 walks, putting the team on pace to record a fourth consecutive season having a trio with 100 whiffs and fewer than 50 walks. What’s most remarkable about the four-peat is that none of the individual Rockies players doing this has repeated from one season to the next. A four-peat has not previously been recorded for any team, although it appears the Astros will join the Rockies in doing so this year.
Arizona is on pace to have eight players aged 29 or younger play 100 games, despite having shortstop Nick Ahmed suffer a season-ending injury just shy of that mark. Eight such players would tie the franchise record set last season.
San Diego is on pace to have no players bat .275 in 100+ games (Yangervis Solarte currently leads the team with a .270 average; John Jay is at .296 but will be unable to reach the 100 game mark). It could be the second time in three years that the Padres are unable to field a regular hitting that well, something that hasn’t happened since the franchise’s first three seasons, in 1969 and 1971.
Central Division
The Cubs currently have five qualified pitchers (Jake Arrieta, Jason Hammel, Kyle Hendricks, John Lackey, Jon Lester) with a winning record and fewer than 10 losses (Hammel, Hendricks and Lackey currently have the most losses with 7). This has happened just once before in franchise history, in the Cubs’ 1907 world championship season when Mordecai Brown, Carl Lundgren, Orval Overall, Jack Pfiester and Ed Reulbach accomplished the feat.
St. Louis has already recorded 14 pinch-hit home runs this season by eight different players (Jeremy Hazelbaker, Brandon Moss, Matt Adams, Greg Garcia, Kolten Wong, Aledmys Diaz, Tommy Pham and Randal Grichuk). Both are franchise records.
Pittsburgh has no qualified pitchers 130 games into this season. If that trend holds (and it seems a certainty unless Jeff Locke returns to the rotation and averages 7 IP over six remaining starts), it would be a franchise first.
It’s hardly been noticed outside Milwaukee, but the Brewers‘ Ryan Braun is on pace for his eighth season of 25 home runs, 80 RBI and .850 OPS. Six of those seasons have been in the outfield, the most of any active outfielder, and more than any other Brewer at any position.
The Reds have cooled recently (3-7 over their last 10), but have still improved 29 games relative to .500 since the All-Star break (25 games under before the break, 4 games over since). When playing less than half of the schedule after the All-Star game, the Reds’ highest proportion of season wins after the break is 53.1% in 1962 (after that year’s first ASG), a mark Cincinnati can surpass with only a 14-17 finish over the remainder of the season.
East Division
The Nationals already have six players (Danny Espinosa, Bryce Harper, Daniel Murphy, Wilson Ramos, Anthony Rendon, Jayson Werth) with 60 RBI this season. There won’t be any more so Washington will have to be content with tying the franchise record set by the 1982 Expos.
With a month to go in the season, the Mets have already matched last year’s season total of 177 home runs but trail last year’s RBI total by more than 150. At the team’s current RBI:HR ratio of 2.84, the Mets will shatter the franchise record low of 3.56 set in 2004.
The Marlins will likely finish the season with only five qualified batters, but three of them (Martin Prado, J.T. Realmuto, Christian Yelich) are now batting .300, a mark which, if maintained, would match the franchise record set in 2005.
Phillies‘ first baseman Ryan Howard will be the team’s only player aged 30 or older to record 300 PA this year, a marked departure from recent seasons when there were at least 5 such players on six consecutive Phillie teams (2009-14). The youth movement also shows on the pitching staff with only four of the team’s games (likely the season’s final total) started by pitchers aged 30 or older; only four Phillie teams since 1913 have had fewer starts by age 30+ hurlers.
Unlike the Phillies, Atlanta management didn’t get the memo about rebuilding with young players. With a month left in the season, this year’s Braves already have the franchise’s 15th highest total since 1913 for PA by players aged 31-35, and will almost certainly crack the top 10 by the end of the year. Oddly, though, of the 14 teams on that list now ahead of this year’s club, the only one with a lower sOPS+ from those age 31-35 players was the Braves’ 1999 pennant-winning club (have to figure out how they did that!).