Category Archives: Quiz

Quiz – Catchers and Infielders (solved)

The players in this quiz share the distinction of posting the only qualified seasons since 1961 with a certain batting accomplishment. What is it?

Rk	Player
1	Brad Ausmus
2	Royce Clayton
3	Tony Pena
4	Ted Simmons
5	John Wathan
6	Marty Perez
7	John Bateman

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 2/17/2016.

Hint #1: only one of these players posted such a season before age 30
Hint #2: no outfielder since 1871 has posted such a season

Congratulations to Richard Chester! He correctly identified that only these players have a qualified season since 1961 with times grounded into double plays exceeding 15% of their total bases. Ouch! More on these forgettable seasons after the jump.

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Quiz: Free Swingers (stumped)

23 Replies

2015 NL RoY Kris Bryant makes this list of modern batters who were not shy about taking their cuts. What is the unusual seasonal batting feat that only these players have achieved since 1901?

Rk	Player
1	Jose Hernandez
2	Austin Jackson
3	Kris Bryant
4	Rick Monday
5	Mike Napoli
6	Mark Bellhorn
7	Jack Cust
8	Gary Pettis
9	Ben Grieve
10	Anthony Gose

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 2/6/2016.

Our readers zeroed in on BABIP as part of the quiz answer, but didn’t get that only these players had a qualified season since 1901 with a .350 BABIP that was one-third higher than their overall batting average. Those seasons are after the jump.
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Quiz – Modern Day Starting Pitchers (stumped)

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2015 NL Cy Young Award winner Jake Arrieta is one of the twelve pitchers below to record a certain single game pitching accomplishment in the past twenty seasons (since 1996). What is this unusual feat?

Hint #1: Roger Clemens is the only other Cy Young Award winner to accomplish this feat.
Hint #2: Since 1914, no pitcher has accomplished this feat on his birthday.

Looks like this one was a stumper. The key to the solution was observing that these twelve pitchers were born on only 6 dates, two pitchers per date. In fact, only these pitchers have started a game since 1996 in which the the two starters shared a common birth date (i.e. born same day and year). More after the jump.

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