The 2015 season will be the NL Central Division’s 22nd year of play, having seen its first season of competition in 1994. 1994 was also the season the Pirates of the brand new NL Central Division signed the 16-year-old Aramis Ramirez to a pro contract. Ramirez has remained with NL Central Division organizations ever since, first with the Pirates, then the Cubs and, since 2012, the Brewers. On September 20th, 2014, Aramis played in his 2,051st career regular season game, breaking Craig Biggio’s record of 2,050 career regular season games played for NL Central Division teams.

Most Regular Season Games Played For NL Central Division Clubs
1. Aramis Ramirez 2,057
2. Craig Biggio 2,050
3. Lance Berkman 1,769
4. Albert Pujols 1,705
5. Jeff Bagwell 1,690
(credit: division-based leaderboards have been generated using the current edition of Lee Sinins’ Complete Baseball Encyclopedia)

More NL Central stats are after the jump. Continue reading →

This post is for voting and discussion in the 85th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG).  This round begins to add to the list of candidates eligible to receive your votes those players born in 1904. Rules and lists are after the jump. Continue reading →

Roberto Alomar finished fifth in our very first Circle of Greats voting round, back in December, 2012: COG Round 1 and COG Round 1 Results . In this his 63rd round of eligibility Alomar at last, albeit with a runoff victory needed, wins induction into the COG, as our 84th inductee. More on Robbie and the voting after the jump. Continue reading →

Great news!

I am about to change over the website to a new theme that will run substantially faster and resolve some of the bugs that folks have been seeing. I will be getting rid of advertisements and also using fewer plugins.

Please bear with me on Monday evening as I get these changes in place.

We need a quick runoff vote to resolve the tie at the top in the 1905 voting. Voting closes Wednesday Friday night, so vote early. More after the jump. Continue reading →

Following up on my prior post, I looked at teams with the most 40-WAR players (career), who were then 30 or younger and had at least 1.0 WAR that year.

Eight distinct teams had six such players (one of them had seven), totaling 12 such seasons. Three repeated, and one lasted a third year. Chronologically:

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Seven teams since 1901 had five players age 30 or under who would amass 50+ career WAR.* But those seven comprise just four distinct clubs. We’ll track the progress of those teams, after the jump.

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This post is for voting and discussion in the 84th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG).  This round adds to the list of candidates eligible to receive your votes those players born in 1905. Rules and lists are after the jump. Continue reading →

Luke Appling was a solid second in the voting in each of the past three rounds, his first three rounds on the ballot. He finally broke through to the top spot this round, becoming the 83rd inductee into the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats. More on Luke and the voting after the jump. Continue reading →

Baseball mourns the passing over the weekend of Ernie Banks, a week shy of his 84th birthday. The career Cub was famous for never playing a post-season game, but more famous for his Hall of Fame career that began in 1950 with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League. Banks then entered military service, though he somehow found time to “moonlight” with the Harlem Globetrotters! After his discharge, Banks skipped the minors and went straight to the show, debuting in September 1953 as the Cubs’ first black player. That debut was also auspicious for multi-hit games in two of Banks’ first three contests, including his first home run off Gerry Staley of the Cardinals. A week later, Banks would again victimize Staley who had been enjoying an 18-win All-Star campaign. The St. Louis right-hander would soon have company among the many NL hurlers to be burned by Chicago’s young slugger.

After the jump, more on the career of Ernie Banks.

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