Nolan Ryan was recently inducted into the HHS Circle of Greats and is one of these pitching greats with a career accomplishment unique among pitchers active since 1901. What is this unusual career feat?

Congratulations to Artie Z! He correctly identified our quiz players as the only Hall of Fame pitchers active since 1901 who hit no more than 5 career home runs but did hit one off another Hall of Fame pitcher. More on this vanishing occurrence after the jump.

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Wil Myers won the 2013 AL Rookie of the Year award, as announced this evening.  It was generally acknowledged that Myers’ season was likely the best of a not particularly impressive class of AL rookie seasons this year.  Baseball-reference’s WAR ranks several AL rookies seasons a bit ahead of Myers’ 2.0 WAR total, but no AL rookie produced a WAR season above 2.7, so nobody can really claim to have a big WAR advantage over the ROY winner.

That lack of a rookie season over 2.7 WAR (pitching WAR for pitchers, overall WAR for everyday players) is very unusual in the AL.  Indeed, it looks to me as if the last time the top WAR for a rookie season in the AL was under 2.8 was 1958 (not including the strike year of 1994).  Albie Pearson of the old Washington Senators won the Rookie of the Year in the AL in 1958, sixty-five years ago.

This post is for voting and discussion in the 36th round of balloting for the Circle of Greats (COG).  This round adds to the ballot those players born in 1940 who were not added in the previous round.  Rules and lists are after the jump. Continue reading →

Palmer, Briefly

In a near-repeat of the 26-26 tie vote between Pete Rose and Nolan Ryan in the 1941 round, Jim Palmer barely edged Rose, 27 votes to 25, to become the 35th inductee into the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats.  More on Jim and the voting after the jump. Continue reading →

In a recent quiz, I happened to stumble upon a tiny subset of hitters, namely those represented by the yellow area in the extreme upper right-hand corner of the chart below. In that post, I noted the recent increase in the number of such hitters and speculated on what might be causing this uptick.

More on batters with a high XBH to SLG ratio after the jump.

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It took a while for Circle of Greats voters to get past the limitations of Nolan Ryan’s somewhat un-nuanced approach to pitching.  But ultimately his undeniable talent for throwing pitches really hard and his extreme durability were enough to tie Pete Rose in a high-comment-generating scheduled voting round, and then to defeat Rose in a closely contested, head-to-head runoff.  Ryan becomes the 34th player inducted into the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats.  More on Ryan, and the voting, after the jump (oh, and here, courtesy of Katz’s Deli, is the sandwich missing in this post’s title: Katz’s Sandwich . Continue reading →

Baseball-Reference.com

Pro football HOFer Ace Parker died Wednesday in his hometown of Portsmouth, Virginia. Parker played professionally in baseball and football in the 1930s and 1940s, continuing in pro baseball into the early 1950s. At his death, Parker was the oldest living US-born major-leaguer.

More on Ace after the jump.

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“Good young pitching” was a dominant theme of the 2013 MLB season, as discussed by fans and media. Ever skeptical of perceived trends, I had to ask: Were the numbers truly unusual, or was the discussion based on selective notice? And if the numbers do stand up to initial scrutiny, are they part of a trend, or just a random event? Here’s a quick study of pitchers and age since 1998, the last expansion year.

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According to Wins Above Replacement (WAR, baseball-reference version), the top two rookies in the National League this past season were Jose Fernandez (6.3 pitching WAR) and Yasiel Puig (5.0 WAR).   How often have two rookies in the NL both reached 5 or more WAR (baseball-reference version, pitching WAR for pitchers and overall WAR for everyday players) in the same season, prior to this year? Continue reading →

For 101 major league seasons (1901-2001), the players below were the only hitters to achieve a certain seasonal batting feat. In 2002, three more players achieved this distinction and, since 2002, 5 more players have done this a total of 7 times.

What is this batting feat peculiar to modern day hitters?

Hint: Versalles’ season is the one you’re thinking of.

Don’t know whether I stumped you or just no interest. Anyway, the solution is that these players and the others from the current century all have a low slugging percentage relative to extra-base hits. In particular, they are the only players since 1901 having a season with an extra-base hit total of over 160 times slugging percentage. The seasons are after the jump.
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