Towards the end of this coming season, we may see something that hasn’t ever happened before. At least not involving players on the same team.

This something (whatever it is) has occurred involving players on opposing teams only rarely, including in the following games.

Cardinals 4, Nationals 2 – Aug 27, 2010

Yankees 4, Braves 3 – June 28, 2006

Mariners 5, Rangers 2 – June 27, 1999

Orioles 6, Twins 5 – July 2, 1966

Giants 11, Braves 10 – Sept 19, 1961

So, what is this something?

Hint: if it doesn’t happen this year, it won’t happen next year, either.

Congratulations to ATarwerdi96! He correctly identified that, with a 40 home run season this year, Prince Fielder would join Tiger teammate Miguel Cabrera in the 300 HR club and do so when both are aged 30 or younger.  As far as I can tell, it would be the first time a team has had two such players. The closest so far has been the 1962 Braves, with Eddie Mathews, aged 30, at 399 home runs, and 28 year-old Hank Aaron with 298 round-trippers.

After the jump, more on precocious home run hitters, including the players represented in the box score clues.

Continue reading →

Here is a list of well-known ballplayers, all connected by a common seasonal batting achievement.

Your job: find that common batting feat, and identify the missing ballplayers needed to complete this list.

Note: there is no significance to the multi-column list; a single column list would have worked just as well

Congratulations to Ed on identifying these hitters as the record holders for home runs in a season at a specific age. After that, it was a true team effort to identify the remaining mystery players, shown in red above. So, thanks to everyone for playing.

Interestingly, there is a single HR  record-holder for every age – no ties. See the complete list of these record HR seasons after the jump.

Continue reading →

While not much remarked upon, in 2012 the Yankees completed their eighth consecutive season with a left-side infield of Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. At this juncture, it seems likely it will be nine seasons running with this trio in 2013. In that time, the Yankees have claimed just a single pennant, which was cashed in for a WS championship in 2009. Despite that pennant drought (by Yankee standards), the Yankees did make the playoffs in all but one of those eight seasons.

This Yankee trio is in the same class for longevity as the 1970s Dodgers who famously featured Davey Lopes, Bill Russell and Ron Cey (and Steve Garvey at 1B) from 1973 to 1981, a period during which the Dodgers claimed four pennants, but only one World Series title.

Usually when a team maintains the same infield year in and year out, defense is at least part of the reason why. But, that hasn’t been the case for the Yankees. After the jump, I’ll explore this topic in a bit more depth.

Continue reading →

Here are what might appear to be a random collection of ballplayers. Represented are players from each of the past 7 decades.

But, there is a common batting feat that connects the following list of players. What is that feat?

Hint: these are only retired players to achieve this feat since 1946

Congratulations to Insert Name Here and Richard Chester. INH identified these players as the only retired players with careers of 1500 or fewer hits that included a season since 1946 of 200 hits and 50 RBI. Of the 102 retired players with a 200 hit season since 1946, only 11 failed to parlay that success into a career of more than 1500 hits. Those 11 include the 10 players in our quiz plus Bob Dillinger, whose 200 hit season produced only 44 RBI. Dillinger’s career was only 753 games, the only player of those 102 not to reach 1000 games, which was the alternative solution to the quiz identified by Richard Chester.

Earned Run Average (ERA) and its derivative, ERA+ are, unquestionably, the go to stats for evaluating pitcher performance. Seldom mentioned is Run Average, or RA. Yet, when the runs are tallied at the end of the game, it doesn’t matter whether some are earned and some not; they all count the same.

So, why don’t we pay more attention to Run Average? The conventional answer to this question is that so-called unearned runs are not the pitcher’s fault. All the blame rests solely on the defense. But, is this really true? Let’s find out!

Continue reading →

Bobo Newsom
www.baseball-reference.com

If you’ve ever wondered about who are the most well-traveled ballplayers, well you’ve come to the right post.

My favorite journeyman is good ol’ boy Bobo Newsom on the left, there. His career spanned 25 years during which he played on 9 clubs, switched teams 16 times, and never stayed on the same club for more than 3 consecutive seasons. He even had multiple stints with 4 different organizations, and was once traded for two brothers, one (the wrong one) a future HOFer.

After the jump, I’ll introduce you to a number of other journeymen, some unfamiliar and some who need no introduction.

WARNING: what follows is entirely for fun and written 100% tongue in cheek. Remember, you were warned.

Continue reading →

Which pitchers are the toughest to run against? Well, Kenny Rogers on the left there is certainly among them (what do you think: is that Kenny’s no-look pickoff move to 1st base; or is he staring down the runner on 3rd as he delivers the pitch?)

There are a lot of ways to look at this question. After the jump, I’ll consider a few of them.

Continue reading →

In the game-searchable era (since 1916), there is something that has happened during a major league game only 4 times, specifically in the games below.

What is it?

1923-06-06 – White Sox 4, Yankees 1, Red Faber homered off of Herb Pennock

1929-06-24 – Tigers 13, White Sox 4, Red Faber homered off of Emil Yde

1948-09-20 – Phillies 5, Pirates 2, Bob Chesnes homered off of Robin Roberts

1962-05-05 – Athletics 18, Indians 6, Jerry Walker homered off of Pedro Ramos

Happy sleuthing!

Congratulations to Stuart! He correctly identified the above games as the only contests since 1916 to feature a home run hit by a switch-hitting pitcher off of another switch-hitting pitcher who also homered in his career. Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com for the home runs logs.

Continue reading →

“Who?”, you say. If somehow you have never heard of Jeremy Sowers (or don’t remember him), he was a bottom-of-the-rotation guy for the Indians in the last decade. Got off to a real nice start in a half-year rookie campaign in 2006. In 14 starts, Sowers went 7-4 with 126 ERA+ and a couple of shutouts. He wasn’t striking out many (3.6 SO/9) but made up for it with unusually good control for a young pitcher (2.0 BB/9).

Unfortunately, the promise of that first season was not fulfilled, as Sowers’ control started to fail him. Not horrendously, but it’s a fine line between success and failure when you’re not striking out many. The result was ERA+ scores for his next three seasons all on the wrong side of the century mark (actually, not even close to that mark). Sowers hasn’t pitched in the majors since losing to Dice-K and the Red Sox in the season-ending series of the 2009 season.

No doubt, there will always be pitchers who start impressively and then fizzle. So, what breed might Sowers be the last of? I’ll tell you more after the jump.

Continue reading →

Recognize the player below? He is the subject of today’s quiz.

Your job is to identify him and explain why he belongs in the same group of live-ball era players listed below.

www.baseball-reference.com

Hint: this group is defined by a season accomplishment involving statistics displayed on B-R main player pages.

Congratulations to Richard Chester and Josh, who solved this two part quiz (with some help from their friends, including Hartvig who identified an alternative solution). The pictured player is Len Koenecke. He and the others in the list are the only players since 1920 with a first qualifying season (among their first two seasons) with a .300/.400/.500 slash, a 145 OPS+ or better (or 4 WAR or more) and 25 or fewer home runs.

Continue reading →