145 replies to this topic

[bakahump]

Garret Anderson played 17 years in MLB.

He is currently 79th in Career RBIs with 1365.
He is currently ahead of such luminaries as Abreau, Pujols, Piazza, Snider, Helton, Ortiz, Nettle, Rose, Garvey and Clemente.

He also has 522 Doubles good for 41st all time.
He is just behind Mays, Griffey, Ted Williams and Frank Robinson. He is ahead of Henderson, Ruth, Jeter and Arod.

I was frankly amazed that he had amassed these kinds of counting stats in these select categories. Frankly I never thought he was much of a player. A complimentary piece. The "Trot Nixon" of the some good (though not great...and yea I know they won the WS one year) Angels teams.

He did all this while compiling a career OPS+ of 102. He walked 429 times in 9177 PAs (4.6%).

Why Garret Anderson.....Well I was looking at Ortiz again and wondering if he had another hot season and a half how his HOF case would look. I then saw Anderson and started poking around.

This could die quickly, but the "hey did you realize" topics are some of the most interesting on the site and lead to some of the most interesting discussions.

[TheYaz67]

I was told the other day (after Bryce Harper's 5 K game) that Bill Buckner never struck out more than twice in a single one of the 2,517 games he played in (over a 22 year career), which is amazing. I mean, he averaged only 29 walks per 162 games, so I guess it is not THAT surprising, but still....

[bakahump]

4 of the top 6 (and 3 of the top 4) career Defensive WAR players have significant connections to Baltimore.

2. Balanger (18 years, 39.3)
3. B.Robinson (23 yrs, 38.8)
4. Ripken (21yrs 34.5)
6. Aparicio (5 yrs 8.9 w/Baltimore 31.6 total)

Boston (AL) has 2 in the top 23.
6. Apricio (2.2 w/Boston in 3 years)
23. Lou Boudreau (.6 w/Boston in 2 years; 23.3 total)

Both could certainly be deemed as past their prime when playing here.

Everett Scott 1914-21 (34th dWAR all time with 21.8) would be the highest ranked player to play during their prime in Boston (AL).

If only his time in Boston (AL) is considered His dWar was 16.3. Good for 76th all time (tied with Fisk).

44th Beltre (2.4 w/Boston 20.8 total) 1yr
46th Rey Sanchez (1.1, 20.5) 1yr
64th Scott Fletcher (3.2, 17.9) 2 yr
69th Tony Pena (3.6, 17.3) 4 yrs
74th Jimmy Collins (7.9, 16.8) 7 yrs

Round out the top 75 with any Boston (AL) ties.

Boston total Defensive WAR (8 players in the top 75) dWAR 37.3 in 27 years.
Baltimore total Defensive WAR from Brooks Robinson was 38.8 in 23 years.
From the top 4 Baltimore Players 121.5 dWAR.

Edited by bakahump, 28 June 2012 - 10:31 AM.

[allmanbro]

On a certain level, we all know this, but it always blows me away how much Bonds, Ruth and Williams dominate the single season walks records.

Eight of the top 10 seasons belong to those three, and they hold 16 of the top 26. In the top 26 (chosen instead of 25 due to ties), Bonds and Williams appear 6 times, and Ruth appears 4 times. Eddie Stanky is the only other one who shows up more than once (2). link

I'd doubt any of the major stat categories are so dominated. It's also interesting that they each come from different eras, so its not simply an atrifact of a single walk-heavy period in the game.

And still, somehow, Ricky Henderson played forever and made it to #2 all time in career walks.

[Al Zarilla]

Bobby Abreu: 2423 career hits, 1344 RBI.

[curly2]

In 1971, Enzo Hernandez had 618 plate appearances for the Padres and had 12 RBI.

I'm not sure which is more remarkable: That pitcher Bob Buhl went 0 for 70 in 1962 or that he he drew six walks while doing so.

Don Newcombe went 20-5 in 1955 and had 125 plate appearances putting up a line of .359/.395/.632/1.028

[bakahump]

In Career Steals Bobby Abreau (75th on the list 395sb) is the highest ranked player who never had a season with more then 40 steals. (40 in 2004). Hal Chase (99th 363sb) and Jeter (114th 345sb) have also accomplished this.

Everyone above him had at least 1 season of 41+ (and yea I know its cheating because there is alot of dead ball era guys with no stats available and 40 just seemed like an interesting cutoff point.)

Nap Lajoie is the highest guy on the list (88th 380sb) who never had 30 or more.

Pete Rose (343rd on the list 198sb) is the highest ranked player who never had more then 20 SBs in a season.


And Holy Crap! Don Baylor once stole 52 Bases.....of course he was also once "190 lbs".

ADD-it- Out of the Top 5 Base Stealers of all times Rock Raines (#5) has the best success % at 84.7 Unless you count Billy Hamilton who was never thrown out

Edited by bakahump, 28 June 2012 - 03:26 PM.

[collings94]

Ridiculos minor league stat time!

There were leagues in the earlier parts of the 1900's that were totally dominated by offense. Some numbers:

In 1929, in the PCL (extended season) Ike Boone collected 553 total bases, he had 323 hits, 55 HR's, 218 RBI's and hit .407 in 794 at bats.

In the West Teaxs-New Mexico League, Bob Crues drove in 254 RBI's, hit 69 homers and hit .404 in 565 at bats in 1948.

In 1954, Joe Baumann of Roswell playing in the Longhorn League hit 72 HR's in just 498 at bats. He also drove in 224 runs and walked 150 times.

[OzSox]

From the Pirates broadcast yesterday: Andrew McCutchen is the second player in MLB history to be the team leader in all of the following categories this late in a season:

AVG, OBP, SLG, HR, R, H, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, XBH, RBI, SB & BB.

The first was Jose Cruz of the 1984 Astros.

[Jimy Hendrix]

From the Pirates broadcast yesterday: Andrew McCutchen is the second player in MLB history to be the team leader in all of the following categories this late in a season:

AVG, OBP, SLG, HR, R, H, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, XBH, RBI, SB & BB.

The first was Jose Cruz of the 1984 Astros.

He's got a decent chance of finishing the season that way too, with his MVP caliber season so far and how bad everything is around him.

[bakahump]

Dick Stuart (1b 1960 Pirates) Played 122 games and scored 48 runs.

OK so what...

He hit 23 HRs. Leaving 25 other runs he scored. He aslo hit 5 Triples and 17 Doubles. (83 RBI)

He was the only person on his team to hit over 20 HRs (Groat (League MVP with 2 HRs), Mazaroski, Clemente where notable teammates).

No one on that team had over 94 RBI (Clemente)

Bob Skinner led the team with 11 sb. (Second with 86 RBI)

No one scored more then 97 runs (Don Hoak). Everyone else was under 90 (Clemente 89,Groat 85, Skinner 83)

They scored 734 and allowed 593 runs.

Must have been a pitching team? Well no...they hadnt scored over 700 runs in 12 years. But Pitching played a role. The hadnt allowed less then 600 runs in 36 years.
Thier top 6 Pitchers by IP ended up with a career Win % of .507.

But they didnt give free passes.

In 1399.2 innings they gave up 386 walks....61 of which where intentional. They aslo had 811ks as a staff for a 2.10 K/bb ratio.


They beat the NYY 4-3 in the WS, which just plain makes them awesome.

[Freddy Linn]

Nick Johnson is back on the DL. Every season in his career he has been injured

2000: Missed the entire season with a strained muscle in his right hand, suffered on a check swing in spring training.

2001: Technically, he wasn't on the big-league DL this year, staying healthy for all of 23 games after his Aug. 21 debut. But he was on the minor-league DL, with a strained left thumb.

2002: Went on the DL with a strained left wrist.

2003: On the DL with a broken bone in his right hand.

2004: On the DL twice, first with a strained lower back and then with a broken right cheekbone.

2005: On the DL with a right heel contusion.

2006: Avoided the DL! But he broke his right leg and needed surgery. It was in September, with no 25-man roster limit, so he wasn't put on the DL.

2007: Missed the entire season recovering from the broken leg. Had two more surgeries on the leg.

2008: Spent most of the year on the DL, with a right wrist injury.

2009: On the DL with a strained right hamstring.

2010: Spent most of the year on the DL, with a right wrist injury.

2011: Was in the minor leagues the entire year. Was on the DL twice.

2012: Placed on the DL Thursday with a sprained right wrist..

Edited by Freddy Linn, 29 June 2012 - 04:44 PM.

[Gagliano]

Joey Votto hasn't hit an infield popup since last July. I think he's only hit ten in his career.

[soxhop411]

Plouffe has 18!!!!! Home runs

[The Jester of Tortuga]

Speaking of Billy Hamilton...The new Billy Hamilton, the Red SS prospect, has 96 steals through 76 games. He has also be caught 21 times and barely has more hits than steals with 102.

[bakahump]

Jackie Robinson never....

Hit 20 HRs in a season (19 2x)
Had more then 40 doubles (39 once 38 2x)
Stole 40 bases (37 once 29 once)
Had multiple 100RBI seasons (1 time 124 in MVP 1949 season, Next highest was 95)
Struck out more then 41 times in a season (40 once)

Despite (some of) these he is 121st in oWar ahead of:

Todd Helton ( 16 years 22nd in Career Doubles)
Ralph Kiner (10 years, led the league in HRs 7 years in a row)
Ivan Rodriguez (22 years ....never really led the league in anything.. which is kinda a "Holy Crap")


Ivan Rodriguez "has only a 37" for a Gray Ink Score.

Dwight Evans has 113 GI score
Juan Gonzalez has a 105 GI score
Derrick Lee has a 52 GI score
Ron Cey had an 80 GI score
Miguel Tejada had a 80 GI score
Nomar has a 78 GI score
Ron Santo has a 147
Fisk 54
Jason Kendall 26
Yogi Berra 138
Mike Piazza 101
Victor Martinez 31
Russell Martin 2
Varitek 2
Joe Mauer 32

[glennhoffmania]

Joey Votto hasn't hit an infield popup since last July. I think he's only hit ten in his career.

This is probably the most amazing thing I've read in this thread.

[OttoC]

Joey Votto hasn't hit an infield popup since last July. I think he's only hit ten in his career.

Rarest Of Species: A Boggs Pop-up Rarest Of Species
September 22, 1985|By Jerome Holtzman, Chicago Tribune.

"I find it hard to believe, too, but Boston`s Wade Boggs, in his first 589 at-bats (through Thursday`s action) has popped up only once this season. A pop-up is defined as a flyball handled by an infielder. Moreover, Boggs` lone pop-up wasn`t routine. It was foul and handled by the third baseman, who had to hustle halfway down the left-field line."

He apparently ended up with three for the 1985 season in 758 plate appearances.

[glennhoffmania]

Ok I happened upon this accidentally but it seemed thread-worthy- from Grandal's CBS player page:

Padres catcher Yasmani Grandal homered Monday against the Diamondbacks for the third time since his recall Saturday. Grandal then singled for his fourth career hit, after hitting home runs for each of his first three. The last player whose first three hits were homers was Keith McDonald for St. Louis in 2000 -- those turned out to be the only three hits he got in the majors.

[Gagliano]

Maury Wills, despite his speed and hitting leadoff, never hit 20 doubles in a season. Most years he had more caught stealing than doubles.

[Gagliano]

Speaking of Billy Hamilton...The new Billy Hamilton, the Red SS prospect, has 96 steals through 76 games. He has also be caught 21 times and barely has more hits than steals with 102.

And, the funny thing about him is that he isn't even the fastest guy on the team. But, he has an amazing ability to go from 0 to max speed in nothing flat, sort of like a Herb Washington that can play baseball.

[OttoC]

Ok I happened upon this accidentally but it seemed thread-worthy- from Grandal's CBS player page:

And, of course, we all know that Mike Greenwell's first three hits in the majors were home runs.

While we're on the topic of home runs, Ted Williams hit home runs in 4 consecutive at bats (encompassing 9 PA over 5 games) during his incredible streak in September of 1957 when he reached base in 16 consecutive plate appearances--hr/w/hr/iw,hr,w,w/w,hr,1b,w/1b,w,w,w,hp.

One of my favorite disparities came in Lloyd Waner's rookie year (Pirates--1927) when he scored 133 runs and had 27 RBI.

[Orel Miraculous]

Brett Lawrie is currently the AL leader in rWAR at 5.0 (Trout is next at 4.5, followed by Sale and Verlander). Of those 5 wins, 3.6 came on the defensive side of the diamond. How is it possible that a third baseman can contribute 3.6 wins just with his glove in half a season? Seems completely and utterly implausible.

[riboflav]

Plouffe has 18!!!!! Home runs

He was on my fantasy opening day roster... sigh.

[kieckeredinthehead]

Brett Lawrie is currently the AL leader in rWAR at 5.0 (Trout is next at 4.5, followed by Sale and Verlander). Of those 5 wins, 3.6 came on the defensive side of the diamond. How is it possible that a third baseman can contribute 3.6 wins just with his glove in half a season? Seems completely and utterly implausible.

Forget where I saw it, but it's due to the new and more frequent shifts that teams are employing, so he's getting a lot of put outs that either the SS or possibly 2B would have handled.

[Dehere]

Anybody notice that Zack Grienke was credited with a loss last night after throwing just four pitches and being ejected in the 1st inning? He allowed one run but it was not decisive.

How does that work? I guess there's some special provision in the rule for ejections but I don't know what it is.

[shawnrbu]

The Astros never lost the lead after the first run was charged to Greinke.

[David Laurila]

Trever Miller had 240 consecutive appearances without being changed with a loss.

[Lose Remerswaal]

Anybody notice that Zack Grienke was credited with a loss last night after throwing just four pitches and being ejected in the 1st inning? He allowed one run but it was not decisive.

How does that work? I guess there's some special provision in the rule for ejections but I don't know what it is.

The pitcher who is responsible for the run when his team falls behind for good always gets the loss.

Milwaukee fell behind 1-0 on a run charged to Grienke and never tied the game up. Therefore, he gets the loss. Always been this way.

The interesting HOLY CRAP thing here is that he also started yesterday's game, AND will be starting the Brewers first game after the break, on Friday. Becoming the first pitcher in nearly 100 years to start 3 consecutive games.

[DrewDawg]

In addition to the Votto pop-up thing (10 in his career, 2 were in one game against Ricky Nolasco), per Tom Verducci, Votto has only pulled a ball foul into the stands ONCE in his career. No idea where he came up with that.


Also, David Wright is the only player to have walk-off hits against Jonathan Papelbon and Mariano Rivera.

[MakMan44]

In addition to the Votto pop-up thing (10 in his career, 2 were in one game against Ricky Nolasco), per Tom Verducci, Votto has only pulled a ball foul into the stands ONCE in his career. No idea where he came up with that.


Also, David Wright is the only player to have walk-off hits against Jonathan Papelbon and Mariano Rivera.

I was watching Intentional Talk and the woman on there had 3 crazy facts about Votto, that was one of them, the pop up the second but I cant remember the third one. Needless to say that Votto is a really really good hitter

Edit: Found it "The average NL hitter bats .198 when he is behind in the count. Votto hits .300 when he is behind in the count."

Edited by MakMan44, 09 July 2012 - 07:51 PM.

[bakahump]

After checking some numbers about the HR Derby here is what I found
Name Year Before/After HRs, % of HRs hit after the Derby
Sammy Sosa- 2000 23/27 54%
Luis Gonzalez -2001 35/22 38.5%
Jason Giambi-2002 22/19 46%
Garret Anderson-2003 22/7 24%
Miguel Tejada -2004 15/19 55.8%
Bobby Abreu -2005 18/6 25%
Ryan Howard -2006 26/30 53%
Álex Ríos -2007 17/7 29.1% Vlad Guerrero 14/13 48%
Justin Morneau -2008 14/9 39% Josh Hamilton 21/11 34.3%
Prince Fielder -2009 22/24 52% Nelson Cruz 22/11 33%
David Ortiz -2010 18/14 42.4% Hanley Ramirez 13/8 38%
Robinson Cano -2011 15/13 46.4% Adrian Gonzalez 17/10 37%

Average % of Home Runs Hit after the Derby 41%

Only 4 (25%) times has someone hit 50%+

Prince Fielder should hit under 30 HRs this year and statistically could hit only 25 based on average.
Fielder is however one of the 4 guys I checked who actually hit over 50% of his HRs after the derby.
If personal history continues Fielder should hit 31.

Jose Bautista should hit 19 More (total of 46) based the average.
However Bautista actually only hit 12 of his 43 (28%) after finishing 6th in the 2011 Derby.
If personal history continues Bautista should hit 37 or 38.

Numbers based on the last 5 years Winners and Runners Up and the 7 Winners previous to them.

[derekson]

Brett Lawrie is currently the AL leader in rWAR at 5.0 (Trout is next at 4.5, followed by Sale and Verlander). Of those 5 wins, 3.6 came on the defensive side of the diamond. How is it possible that a third baseman can contribute 3.6 wins just with his glove in half a season? Seems completely and utterly implausible.

This is a bit out of date, and the numbers have gotten even sillier, but Colin Wyers clearly explains the issue with DRS and shifts in this article. Lawrie is a particular issue because Farrell's Blue Jays swap him into shallow RF on the over shift, instead of moving everyone over. So Escobar and Kelly Johnson stay near their normal positions while Lawrie crosses the diamond and sets up in RF.

Since revamping their WAR statistic this year, BB-ref has been relying on DRS for the defensive side for all of the years that it is available. They previously used Total Zone (and I believe they still do for the years that precede the availability of DRS). DRS is also known as Plus/Minus.

Edited by derekson, 10 July 2012 - 12:07 PM.

[Toe Nash]

Forget where I saw it, but it's due to the new and more frequent shifts that teams are employing, so he's getting a lot of put outs that either the SS or possibly 2B would have handled.

Not exactly. Most of the times when teams overshift, they pull the 3b to the normal shortstop position, the SS to the first-base side of second and the 2b moves into short right field. The Blue Jays are essentially leaving everyone but Lawrie where they usually play and moving Lawrie into short right field. So, when he makes a play from this position, DRS (which b-ref uses for the defensive component of WAR) is giving him a ton of credit for making a play that basically 0% of third basemen would make, because it's assuming third basemen are responsible for a specific "zone."

In short, it's a big error with DRS and you'd think they would have corrected it by now.

Wyers at BP explains it in more detail here:
http://www.baseballp...articleid=17183

[kieckeredinthehead]

Not exactly. Most of the times when teams overshift, they pull the 3b to the normal shortstop position, the SS to the first-base side of second and the 2b moves into short right field. The Blue Jays are essentially leaving everyone but Lawrie where they usually play and moving Lawrie into short right field. So, when he makes a play from this position, DRS (which b-ref uses for the defensive component of WAR) is giving him a ton of credit for making a play that basically 0% of third basemen would make, because it's assuming third basemen are responsible for a specific "zone."

That is, in fact, exactly what I was saying.

[Toe Nash]

That is, in fact, exactly what I was saying.

I explained it in more detail, and posted the link that you couldn't remember. (and was beaten to that, anyway)

Regardless, it's now been covered multiple times.

Edited by Toe Nash, 10 July 2012 - 03:23 PM.

[SumnerH]

After checking some numbers about the HR Derby here is what I found
Name Year Before/After HRs, % of HRs hit after the Derby
Sammy Sosa- 2000 23/27 54%
Luis Gonzalez -2001 35/22 38.5%
Jason Giambi-2002 22/19 46%
Garret Anderson-2003 22/7 24%
Miguel Tejada -2004 15/19 55.8%
Bobby Abreu -2005 18/6 25%
Ryan Howard -2006 26/30 53%
Álex Ríos -2007 17/7 29.1% Vlad Guerrero 14/13 48%
Justin Morneau -2008 14/9 39% Josh Hamilton 21/11 34.3%
Prince Fielder -2009 22/24 52% Nelson Cruz 22/11 33%
David Ortiz -2010 18/14 42.4% Hanley Ramirez 13/8 38%
Robinson Cano -2011 15/13 46.4% Adrian Gonzalez 17/10 37%

Average % of Home Runs Hit after the Derby 41%

Only 4 (25%) times has someone hit 50%+

Prince Fielder should hit under 30 HRs this year and statistically could hit only 25 based on average.
Fielder is however one of the 4 guys I checked who actually hit over 50% of his HRs after the derby.
If personal history continues Fielder should hit 31.

Jose Bautista should hit 19 More (total of 46) based the average.
However Bautista actually only hit 12 of his 43 (28%) after finishing 6th in the 2011 Derby.
If personal history continues Bautista should hit 37 or 38.

Numbers based on the last 5 years Winners and Runners Up and the 7 Winners previous to them.

You shouldn't expect a 50/50 split, just based on the number of games played: the derby appears at the All-Star break. That's always after the midpoint of the season, sometimes considerably so (e.g. Garret Anderson played 92 games before the break and 70 after the break; Cano and Gonzalez it was a 91/71 split).

If about 54% of games are played before the break, then instead of 4/17 you have 7/17 players who exceeded expectations in the 2nd half and things look pretty well within the norms of random variation.



You should really probably control against the rest of MLB's HR rate if you're to isolate a HR derby effect; MLB always hits more homers before the break than after (in 2008 it was 57% of all homers hit before the break). That would help account for not only the schedule but any weather or other effects.

[Gdiguy]

There's also a circular selection bias there - you get selected for the HR derby based on hitting a lot of HR's during the first half of the season, which means either a) you're a very good HR hitter having a good season (sustainable), or b) you're a good hitter that had an unsustainable HR rate in the first half. On the other hand, if you're a good HR hitter that has a poor first half, you're most likely not going to get picked.

In other words, you're imposing a selection for the people that had unexpectedly high HR rates, and selecting against those who had unexpectedly low HR rates. So you'd naturally expect that when you look over the rest of the season, the people selected for the derby will either stay at their current rate or regress back to their career averages, but are less likely to increase their HR rate.

(This is actually a serious problem in biology analysis sometimes - if you do an experiment and pick the most different things, they're more likely than not to be less changed in a repeat experiment. It's unintuitive, but because you're selecting for the most extreme changes, you're artificially enriching for the changes that are due to random variation or errors that are more likely to regress back to average in the future.)

[bakahump]

SumnerH,

I admit I was playing fast and loose with the 50/50 break. I did not realize however that the 4% made that much of an impact.

My math is only sometimes as good as my english

Edited by bakahump, 12 July 2012 - 02:23 PM.

[Rudy Pemberton]

Aaron Cook has pitched 22 2/3 innings for the Sox. He has 2 wins and 2 losses. He has given up 2 runs, with 2 walks and 2 strikeouts. He has allowed 2 homeruns.

[kieckeredinthehead]

Aaron Cook has pitched 22 2/3 innings for the Sox. He has 2 wins and 2 losses. He has given up 2 runs, with 2 walks and 2 strikeouts. He has allowed 2 homeruns.

Well, he did give up 2 runs on his way to allowing 13 (11 earned).

[Rudy Pemberton]

Haha, dammit.

Franklin Morales is the only Red Sox pitcher who has started a game and has an ERA under the team average.

Mark Melancon has pitched so well since coming back from the minors that his ERA is now better than that of Daisuke Matsuzaka, Justin Thomas, and Darnell McDonald.

[SoxScout]

[Lose Remerswaal]

Cook now has two starts of more than 5 innings with zero walks and zero strikeouts. Last Red Sox pitcher to do that in a season was Bob Stanley, in 1979

[Catcher Block]

STL rookie Trevor Rosenthal became the 2000th different player to appear for the Cardinals in their history when he entered the game today.

2000 players is the most in MLB history; the Cubs are 2nd with 1,911. (In case you're wondering, The Red Sox are 11th with 1,662 players).

Full list at baseball-reference.

[LogansDad]

So, with the rate of attrition, we should expect the Red Sox to pull ahead at about this time next year?

[bakahump]

The Yankees are the all time leaders for team HRs with 14,674

Their top 10 HR Hitters Have hit 25.6% of their HRs.

Their top 10 HR Hitters have averaged 376 HRs (with their team).

Other teams
SF 13,701 24.8% 341
Chi(n) 12,971 24.1% 313
Braves 12,728 27.2% 346
Det 12,604 21% 267
Bos 12,365 26.1% 323
Cin 12,125 21.1% 256
Philly 12,038 21.7% 251
Tor 5754 31% 181
Sea 5387 36% 197
KC 5213 31% 165
SD 5181 24.6 127
Col 3529 51% 181
Fla 2901 43% 124
Ariz 2512 44.9 112
TBR 2288 42.2 96

Fred Mcgriff is on 3 teams top 10 all time HR hitters list:
Toronto
SD
TB

He is not terrible far off of Atlantas either.

[Dummy Hoy]

...dWAR numbers...

I was surprised to not see Dom Dimaggio's name on the list. Of course his short career is probably the cause.

What's bothered me for years as a crazy stat is the incredibly low number of doubles that Mickey Mantle hit. For someone with his speed and power, and a park with some open ground, I'm amazed he only averaged 23 doubles a year. He had 37 in his second year, and never hit more than 28 again. I always figured Mantle would get 40 a year.

[OttoC]

...
What's bothered me for years as a crazy stat is the incredibly low number of doubles that Mickey Mantle hit. For someone with his speed and power, and a park with some open ground, I'm amazed he only averaged 23 doubles a year. He had 37 in his second year, and never hit more than 28 again. I always figured Mantle would get 40 a year.

Harmon Killebrew is another batter whose doubles total always amazed me; He had almost exactly twice as many home runs as doubles (573 to 290) with a high of 27 doubles.

[worm0082]

And still, somehow, Ricky Henderson played forever and made it to #2 all time in career walks.

IMO Henderson is still the rightful owner of the walks record. He was the leader until Bonds came along with his steroids and obliterated it with all his intentional and "unintentional/intentional" walks. It was such a joke to the point where its noted on Rickey's HOF plaque that he is the all time leader in unintentional walks.

Edited by worm0082, 27 July 2012 - 02:48 AM.