Sure, Barry Bonds has more career home runs than anyone else, but he is not even close to being  the leader in late-inning home runs. Bonds hit 201 regular season homers after the sixth inning in his career, well behind Hank Aaron (236), Babe Ruth (233) and Willie Mays (215).

Indeed, although Bonds is the all-time career leader in homers hit in the third inning, and also the fourth inning, and he is tied with Ruth for the all-time lead in homers hit in the first inning, he is not the career leader in homers in any one inning after the fourth.  I’ll look at the career leaders in homers for each inning, one by one, but first you need some exercise, so click on “Read the rest of this entry”   Continue reading →

The Reds won a game last night on a walk-off homer that came in what had been up to that moment a 0-0 game.  That is a rather rare occurrence, and had not previously happened in the majors this season.  The last Cincy hitter to do it before Jay Bruce last night was Adam Dunn, in the 11th inning of a 2006 game against the Brewers.  Before that Reds fans would have to go back to Paul O’Neill in 1990, and then to Hobie Landrith in 1954.  The last 0-0 tie-breaking walk-off homer anywhere in the majors was by Brett Lawrie last September 5 against the Red Sox.  The last one by a National League hitter prior to last night was by Matt Kemp more than two years ago, back on June 1, 2010 against the Diamondbacks.

In order to accumulate a large negative number in Wins Above Replacement, a player cannot be merely bad. After all, most players who perform at less than replacement level for any extended period of time get, well, replaced.  So to pile up a substantial negative number a guy has to be both performing poorly and getting playing time anyway.

That might be because his team believes, for good reason or not, that he will turn it around.  Or his team believes that he is more valuable (for tangible or intangible reasons) than the WAR numbers suggest.  Or there are sentimental or financial reasons to keep the player playing independent of performance.  Or the team simply has no current better alternative, because the organization doesn’t happen to have access to a replacement level player at the position required.

The current Least Valuable Player in the majors for 2012 — the non-pitcher with the most negative b-ref WAR — is Jeff Francoeur, who continues to be Kansas City’s everyday starting rightfielder despite an OPS for the season of .643 (for a starting corner outfielder!) and a 2012 WAR of -2.9.  Francoeur has long been a favorite target for statistically-oriented fans and observers.  He is both a charming fellow and capable of hot streaks that lead teams to believe that he can be successful.  But in the long run Jeff just can’t ever seem to overcome his poor strike zone judgment. Twenty-five more years of “Least Valuable Players” after the click-through.   Continue reading →

The former star in Cuban baseball Yoenes Cespedes has 12 homers so far in his debut season in Major League Baseball.  Among those playing in their first season in MLB in 2012, the 26-year-old Cespedes has the most homers right now, but Will Middlebrooks is right behind him with 11 for the Red Sox.  Other recent debut season home run leaders:

2011 Eric Hosmer, 19 homers
2010 Mike (now Giancarlo) Stanton, 22
2009 Colby Rasmus, 19
2008 Evan Longoria, 27
2007 Dan Uggla, 27

More in the same vein after the jump Continue reading →

Nobody can possibly do what John Autin does with his amazing game reviews, but he’s been quiet for a couple of days, so I humbly chip in a few notes on yesterday’s games, and welcome others to add their own.

–Felix Hernandez’s Game Score of 93 was the highest against the Rangers since a Johan Santana 17K, 0BB game in August 2007.
–Jeff Francoeur of the Royals actually had two hits, a walk and an RBI, all in the same game, for the first time since April last season.
–Craig Kimbrel has now had 21 appearances in a row in which he has pitched at least one full inning and also allowed zero walks. There have been only five longer such streaks in MLB history (two by Mariano Rivera), the longest being a 26-game streak by John Smoltz that ran from September 2003 to June 2004.
–Oakland got home runs from four different hitters for the first time since they got homers from five guys on September 11, 2009.
–The Braves have now scored at least 7 runs in their last four games against the Mets and won all four. The last team to do that to the Mets was Arizona in 2002. The only team to beat the Mets five times in a row while scoring 7 or more every time was the Milwaukee Braves back in 1964.
–Andrew McCutchen has a homer and at least one additional time on base in each of his last three games. The last Pirate to do that three games in a row was Ryan Doumit in 2008.

The 1983 Yankees (the “Pine Tar Game” Yankees) started a left-handed pitcher in 127 of their regular season games. That’s the most lefty-starter games by any team in one season in the b-ref Play Index searchable era (1918-current).  Ron Guidry, Dave Righetti and Shane Rawley, all lefties, were the three primary starters for the Bombers all season long (this was the season Righetti pitched his no-hitter).  The fourth and fifth spots in the rotation were covered by a number of guys, but more than anyone else by two other lefties, Bob Shirley and, after he was called up from the minors in late June, Ray Fontenot.  The 1983 Yankees won 91 games, but in the pre-wild card era that wasn’t enough to get them to the post-season.   More lefty-heavy starting staffs after the jump. Continue reading →

There has been discussion here at HHS about the fact that even today, half a century after the first wave of major league franchise expansion, generally speaking the fourteen teams that have been created from the 1960s on have a tougher time being consistently successful than the sixteen teams that date back to the beginning of the 20th century or before.  It follows that serving as manager of one (or more) of the those fourteen expansion franchises can be a task with special challenges.  Mike Scioscia has handled that task as well as anyone. Indeed, Scioscia needs just four more more wins as manger of the Angels to become the winningest expansion franchise manager ever.  The numbers are after the jump. Continue reading →

Using the Day by Day Database over at David Pinto’s Baseball Musings blog, one can do leader boards covering specific in-season time periods, without being bound by the beginning and ends of seasons. So, for example, one can (and I do, after the jump) compare the MLB On-Base Percentage leader for each of the past four full seasons (502 PA minimum) with the OBP leader for each of the the past four year-long periods running from All-Star Break to All-Star Break (same 502 PA minimum): Continue reading →

No, Roger Clemens is not holding an auction to pay legal defense costs.  I’m talking about the White Sox’ Chris Sale, who currently has the most  Wins Above Replacement (Baseball-reference version) of any pitcher in 2012.  Chris is a mere tenth of a point ahead of Justin Verlander in b-ref”s WAR calculation.  If you check the Fangraphs version of the current AL pitching WAR leaderboard, you’lll find that over there Verlander is first in the AL and Sale is second.  By either standard, Sale is having a brilliant season thus far. What caught my eye in particular is what Sale’s current pace represents in historical terms.  Details after the jump. Continue reading →

Bryce Harper is thus far the only player born in 1992 to reach the majors.  His current Wins Above Replacement (WAR) (Baseball-reference version) career total of 1.4 is thus tops by default so far for his birth year.

Five players born in 1991 have reached the majors, but Mike Trout is the only one with positive WAR.  At 4.8 career WAR with half a season still to play, Trout is on pace to have one of the great very-young-career starts ever, according to b-ref’s WAR.  The only MLB hitters in history to reach more than 6.5 career WAR through the end of his age 20 season have been Ott, Cobb, Kaline, A-Rod, Mantle, Junior Griffey and Ted Williams.

Among players born in 1990, b-ref has Brett Lawrie as the career WAR leader with 8.3 WAR, ahead of Starlin Castro at 7.2.  Fangraphs, however, has Castro ahead with 7.6 to Lawrie’s 5.5.  Averaging b-ref and fangraphs puts Castro ahead 7.4 to 6.9.

More year-of-birth WAR leaders after the jump. Continue reading →