This year’s Cardinals have already hit 10 pinch home runs, putting them on pace to smash the team record of 14 for a full season. In anticipation of this result, this post takes a look at the teams that St. Louis may pass on that team pinch-home run list.
More on pinch home runs after the jump.
Here are the teams currently with more pinch-home runs in a season than this year’s Cardinals.
| Rk ▴ | Tm | Year | Pinch-Hit Home Runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| T-1 | ARI | 2001 | 14 |
| T-1 | SFG | 2001 | 14 |
| 3 | CIN | 2006 | 13 |
| T-4 | ARI | 2007 | 12 |
| T-4 | LAD | 2000 | 12 |
| T-4 | NYM | 1983 | 12 |
| T-4 | CIN | 1957 | 12 |
| T-8 | SDP | 2014 | 11 |
| T-8 | COL | 2004 | 11 |
| T-8 | NYM | 1997 | 11 |
| T-8 | CIN | 1996 | 11 |
| T-8 | COL | 1995 | 11 |
| T-8 | SFG | 1987 | 11 |
| T-8 | BAL | 1982 | 11 |
| T-8 | SFG | 1977 | 11 |
| T-8 | PHI | 1958 | 11 |
| T-17 | STL | 2016 | 10 |
Only the 1982 Orioles on this list are from the AL, a fact made less surprising given that all but two of these teams were from the DH era. In that 1982 season, 60.6% of PH appearances were in NL games, a proportion that has grown to 74.1% of PH appearances for 2015 coming in non-DH games.
Despite their prowess in pinch home runs, only one of these teams (the 2001 D-Backs) was a pennant winner, though two others (the 1982 Orioles and the 2001 Giants) were just a season away from claiming that prize. That’s not too surprising as pinch-hitters are mostly employed by teams when trailing in a game, especially in the late innings (and, of course, teams that trail in the late innings usually lose). As an example, of 100 pinch-hit home runs in 2015, only 28 were hit by teams when leading in a game.
This year’s Cardinals already had 9 pinch home runs by the end of May, a pace matched only by the 2001 D-Backs. Of the other 16 clubs, only the 2001 Giants had even 5 pinch home runs before June. The Redbirds fast start was aided by having 3 players hit a pinch home run on April 8th against the Braves, the most in any searchable game and likely the most ever. A week later, St. Louis had two pinch home runs against the Reds on April 15th to become the only searchable team to have multiple games in the same season with multiple pinch home runs.
Some of the most outstanding individual feats of hitting pinch home runs came from players on these teams, starting with Dave Hansen whose 7 pinch home runs for the 2000 Dodgers broke Johnny Frederick‘s long-standing record of 6 pinch homers for the 1932 Dodgers (unlike Frederick, Hansen would have that record to himself for just one season as the Pirates’ Craig Wilson duplicated Hansen’s feat the next year). Right behind Frederick with 5 pinch homers are Mark Sweeney of the 2004 Rockies and David Dellucci and Erubiel Durazo, both for the 2001 D-Backs. John Vander Wal, with 17 career pinch home runs, is the only player with a pinch home run for more than one of our teams, tallying four for the 1995 Rockies and one for the 2001 Giants.
All of these teams had at least two players with multiple pinch homers, led by the 1977 and 2001 Giants, and the 1982 Orioles, each having four players with at least a deuce. Among these teams, the most players with a pinch home run are 9 by the 2001 Giants and 2006 Reds and the fewest are 4 by the 2001 D-Backs and 1958 Phillies (which, not coincidentally, are also the only teams in the group to have three players with 3 or more pinch homers).
Of the 198 pinch home runs by these teams, only 9 (4.5%) were grand slams and only 6 (3%) were walk-offs. That’s a bit worse than the majors totals for 1974 to 2015 of 6.1% grand slams and 4.9% walk-off. Here are some more markers of the 3921 pinch home runs over this period.
- 21% were hit in Sep/Oct (May is the next highest month with 18%), a result of expanded rosters creating more substitution opportunities
- 62% came in the 8th inning or later
- Despite the preponderance of pinch home runs coming late in the game, they were equally distributed between low (< 0.7 LI) and high (> 1.5 LI) leverage situations, with 39.5% in each of those buckets and the rest (21%) in moderate leverage situations
- 78% were hit when trailing or tied in the game
- 54% were hit with men on base
- 0.3% were inside the park
- Again illustrating the preponderance of pinch home runs in NL games, there were more hit in the dead air of the Astrodome (26 seasons) than in the launchpads of the Skydome (26½ seasons), Kingdome (23 seasons) or Metrodome (28 seasons)
- the Cubs have hit and allowed the most pinch home runs of any team
- the Royals have hit the fewest and allowed the second fewest pinch home runs of the 28 teams debuting before 1998
- despite debuting only in 1998, the D-Backs have hit more pinch home runs than 11 other clubs and allowed more than 8 other teams
- Lefty batter Matt Stairs hit 23 pinch home runs, all of them against right-handed pitching. Those home runs were hit for 8 different teams, the most (7) for Philadephia where Stairs played just 115 games at age 40-41. Stairs also has one post-season pinch home run, one less than career leaders Chuck Essegian, Bernie Carbo, Jim Leyritz and Eric Hinske.
- Right-handed reliever Jeff Reardon allowed 20 pinch home runs, 7 more than any other pitcher in the period. Not surprisingly, all but one of those pinch homers were hit by lefty batters (Reardon’s platoon breakdown for non-PH home runs is very different, with only 47% hit by lefties). Reardon has also allowed the most post-season pinch homers with two, tied with Mark Guthrie.
- Pinch home runs were almost equally distributed between left-handed (50.8%) and right-handed batters (49.2%). Right-handed pitchers allowed 69% of pinch home-runs, 70% of those when the batter had the platoon advantage. For left-handed pitchers, the platoon disadvantage was more pronounced with 92% of pinch homers against southpaws hit by right-handed batters.
- Two searchable players (Roger Freed and Carl Taylor) have hit a walk-off pinch grand slam with two out and down 3 runs. The .906 and .902 WPA scores were the biggest of both of their careers.
