This past week, Jack Cust was released and later picked up by the Yankees on a minor-league contract. Cust, at 53.0%, is the active career leader in TTO% (three true outcomes – % of PAs resulting in BBs, Ks or HRs). Generally, those high on the TTO list (usually around 50% of PAs) need to be high up on each of the component lists, if not among the league leaders. If they are, they stand a decent chance of being positive contributors.

Strikeouts are customarily seen as unproductive outs and therefore something to be minimized. Of course, those with high strikeouts can mitigate their negative impact by providing power. I was interested, though, to find out if any players had made positive offensive contributions even when their power did not seem adequate to compensate for their strikeouts.

Continue reading →

Actually, one of these guys wasn’t an All-Star, but that’s only because there weren’t such things in his time.

Regardless, the list after the jump is an impressive assortment of top baseball talent. And, it’s a very exclusive group because these are the only players since 1901 to accomplish a particular feat. What is that feat?

The quiz has been solved in just 63 minutes. Congratulations to bstar!

I’m going to have to go back to the difficult quizzes.

Continue reading →

In a Grapefruit League game today, the Toronto Blue Jays’ Anthony Gose stole 2nd, 3rd and home in top of the 8th inning, scoring the eventual winning run as Toronto beat Boston to continue its torrid spring training winning spree.

This, of course, is a pretty unusual feat. I’ve found references to these previous times that this has been done.

• Pete Rose, May 11, 1980, at the age of 39!!!
• Jayson Werth, May 12, 2009

What is special about Gose today was that he was the only baserunner of the inning. The two games above both involved a double steal in one of the 3 stolen bases.

Does anyone know of other games where this has happened?

How often have Juan Pierre and Jimmy Rollins had outs in a season totalling 75% of their PAs? You might be surprised to know that neither of them has ever done this, though a number of other players have, some more than once. As PAs are, aside from pinch-running, a prerequisite to making an out, let’s see who the players are who do this most frequently.

Continue reading →

The last player to appear in a major league game before his 19th birthday was Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod debuted for the Mariners on July 8, 1994, 19 days before turning 19. Since then, just a handful of 19 year-olds have appeared, including such notables as Andruw Jones, Edgar Renteria, Adrian Beltre and Felix Hernandez. The Upton brothers, Justin and B.J., also both debuted just prior to turning 20 (does anyone know if any other brothers have debuted as teenagers?)

But, teenagers weren’t always so scarce. During World War II, and in the bonus baby days of the 1950s and 1960s, there was a relative abundance of teenagers in the majors, with some teams sporting several on their rosters. And, it wasn’t just 19 year-olds – Joe Nuxhall famously debuted as a 15 year-old and a number of 16, 17 and 18 year-old players have also had major league playing time.

With that preamble, I’m following up an earlier post on the oldest batter vs. pitcher matchups with this post, highlighting the youngest such matchups.

Continue reading →

In the final installment of WAR leaders by position since 1961, we look at pitchers and catchers. As with the earlier posts, the methodology is to identify the leader in cumulative bWAR over 5-year periods for players appearing in a designated position for at least 75% of their games. For pitchers, this means that a pitcher must appear in either a starting or relieving role for 75% of their games to be included on the leader board.

Continue reading →

Mel Parnell passed away a few days ago at the age of 89. Parnell was a mainstay in the Red Sox rotation in the late 40s and early 50s. During his 10-year career from 1947 to 1956, all with Boston, the Red Sox compiled a .554 winning percentage. When Parnell started, that shot up to a .647 clip.  

Parnell was among the top major league pitchers during his career, placing 8th in ERA+, 10th in WAR and W-L %, and 3rd in lowest HR/9 for the 1947 to 1956 period. 

Continue reading →

In the second installment of 5-year WAR leaders since 1961, this post looks at players in outfield and DH positions. The methodology is to determine bWAR leaders for each year based on cumulative 5-year bWAR ending in that year. To qualify for the leader board, players must play 75% of their games in the period at the indicated position.

Continue reading →

Birtelcom’s recent post on dynastic succession by teams got me to thinking about succession in terms of players. In particular, does the best player at a position remain the best player for an extended period, or does that honor tend to shift around among the better players during any particular time?

To answer this question, I looked at cumulative bWAR measured over 5 year periods, for every such period since 1961. Since I was focusing on individual positions, I set a high threshold of at least 75% of games played at that position during the period. This approach will exclude players who split time among positions, or around the time of a mid-career position switch. But, I believe those are precisely the reasons why this approach is preferable when evaluating players by position.

Continue reading →

A St. Patrick’s Day Tribute to players born in the Emerald Isle.

Here’s the All-Ireland All-Star team

Continue reading →