Looking at the Game of Baseball from all ends of the Spectrum
Baseball Referenceâs Stat of the Day blog does the numbers work and determines who among active players has the most plate appearances with 0 homers.
Most are pitchers, of course, though #1 on the list is Angel OF Reggie Willits with 785 plate appearances.
What struck me is the number of Cubs and former Cubs on the list. Most notably, Ryan Dempster who ranks #6 with 491.
Thatâs ok, thatâs not his job.
The New York Daily News has a pretty objective breakdown (a FAQ, if you will) on last weekâs court ruling centered around 2003 drug test.
Q:Was the ruling a surprise?
A:Not exactly. It upheld previous rulings by other federal judges, and the bulk of the opinion’s reasoning was a reiteration of established legal precedents, especially concerning probable cause and other protections of the Fourth Amendment.
Maybe a bit dry reading for those who just want to skip to part where hang those taking PEDs but *I* found the article interesting.
Oh, the interesting things I get in my inbox when Iâm signed up for mlb.comâs Cubs email list.
Today, in MLBâs ongoing effort to justify their bottom line, I got an ad for Dunkinâ Donuts disguised as a contest. âWin Coffee for a Year!â they claim. But yeah, the fine print says you gotta sign up for their annoying DD Perks which no doubt means you give them all your personal information first.
The gist of it all is that nothing baseball related coming from this email. Unless their giving the hint that folks should be drinking more coffee at games and less beer.
I suppose I shouldnât complain. Itâs better than getting another email and hearing that the Cubs lost to the Nationals once again.
Say what you want about Milton Bradley but it doesnât look like heâs having a good time in right field. According to beat writer Carrie Muskat, Bradleyâs enduring a fair amount of âhatredâ during games courtesy of Cub fans.
Bradley doesnât hold back:
"All I’m saying is I pray the game is nine innings, so I can go out there the least amount of time possible and go home."
Wow. Good natured ribbing or fan abuse? Or just a over-sensitive rightfielder?
Either way, maybe the fans are targeting the wrong guy. Itâs easy to look at Bradleyâs season batting average of .259 and think heâs not pulling his weight. But look at his stats in the last 20 days. In that period, heâs batting .306 with a nifty .411 OBP (and thatâs not including tonightâs game when he hit a homerun).
Since heâs moved to the second spot, the Cubs have leveraged his on base potential the best that a team in their position can. MB has had two 4-hit games in that same period.
So Cub fans, go easy on the guy. Pick on the beer vendor.
Courtesy of Sporcle.com, can you name all pitchers with 3000 career strikeouts?
Sporcleâs cool quiz interface gives you a time limit but does allow you to keep guessing till you get it right.
(Iâll give you one hint: one last name is a two-for-one)
Ironically, it was the current ones that I had the hardest time with.
Baseball Reference is now on Twitter.
From what I can tell theyâll be including updates to the B-R blog and their always interesting Stat of the Day blog.
I found a wealth of historical baseball knowledge in LA84 Foundationâs archives. They have digitized much of Baseball Magazineâs contents from the early 1900âs. Iâve spent a good hour just reading and browsing the material and itâs fantastic! Even the advertisements are great!
You can get a list of articles from 1908, 1909, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1917, and 1918 (click on each year and it will take you to their individual yearâs archive). All articles are in pdf format.
I have some favorites already. Thereâs a preview of the 1912 Giants-Red Sox World Series. Then thereâs The Art of Big League Trading by none other than John McGraw.
And no magazine is complete without ads and Jake Stahl is hawking Ide Silver Collars in the 1912 archives (âYour Collar is the âHigh-Lightâ of Your Dressâ).
What I found amazing is that baseball media back in the early 1900âs was not so much different than it is now. As I said, I saw previews for important postseason series. There was an article comparing stats on all the NL secondbasemen in the league. Whoâs whos, interviews, retrospectives, everything you would see in a pre-season baseball mag or maybe even say, a baseball blog.
I guess the technology has certainly changed but the tried, true formulas of good sports journalism has remained strikingly similar.
Anyway, this is indeed, a treasure trove, especially for those who love old baseball history.
When comparing baseball stats between seasons, I sometimes catch myself when I come across a stat from maybe 1994 or perhaps 1981. Then one second before I realize âOh yeah, the strike-shortened yearâ or whatever.
So for my own edification then anything, here are the list of baseball seasons that were shortened by labor strikes, lockouts, or whatever reason and the number of actual games played that season.
Disclaimer: The amount of games played indicated are approximate figures. Obviously in the cases of mid-season interruptions, some teams played more, some less.
1918 |
129 games played |
The season was shortened due to World War I.
1919 |
140 games played |
Team owners decided to shorten the season to 140 games in 1919 in anticipation of low attendance (because of WWI in the previous years). Attendance actually surprised them and was high and they turned a profit.
1972 |
156 games played |
Due to the 1972 Major League Baseball Strike.
1981 |
111 games played |
Due to the 1981 Major League Baseball Strike.
1994 |
117 games played |
Due to the 1994 Major League Baseball Strike.
1995 |
144 games played |
The 1995 season was abbreviated to 144 games because of the strike the previous year.
Also note that in the years 1901-1903 in both leagues, the seasons only consisted of 140 games.
The Cubs managed to avoid a sweep and more embarrassment as Rich Harden pitched a gem of a game against the Padres. Harden only allowed a hit in seven frames.
The best part of it is that Cubs came through with some offense too. Milton Bradley and Aramis Ramirez both banged out homers for the good guys.
Bradley, though he gets a lot of flack, has improved over the season. His second half number are looking a whole lot better. Since the All-Star break, heâs hitting .301 and perhaps more importantly, his OBP is .431.
Wednesdayâs win is just one game, yes, but I think if it was a loss, weâd be seeing a whole lot more about the Cubs in todayâs sport columns. And it wouldnât be a fun read.
Thatâs not to say there hasnât been calls already by the sports media for this seasonâs demise for the Cubs . Some of it probably fueled by GM Jim Hendryâs statement to the press that sounded almost apologetic:
”If things don’t go well, certainly it’s my responsibility. ‘That being said, we’ve got a real good team. We just haven’t played up to our capabilities. It’s kind of a mystery to all of us. We’ve got a lot of guys that have hit their whole lives who haven’t hit. We’ve done a very, very poor job all year of hitting with men on base. So it’s frustrating.
Before Cub fans start pushing the panic button, they should consider this:
Right now though, the Cubs need to focus on the here and now. And the here and now is the Los Angeles Dodgers. Tom Gorzelanny will be facing Jeff Weaver tonight.
Interesting pre-game stat: Aaron Miles is 6 for 15 lifetime against Weaver.
Go Cubs!
In honor of Kevin Gregg, I played around with Baseball Referenceâs Play Index and came up with a list of closers with the highest ERA. More specifically, these are the pitchers with the most saves in a season among those with an adjusted ERA of 70 or less.
Player SV ERA+ ERA Year Age +----+-----------------+--+----+------+----+---+ 1 Shawn Chacon 35 69 7.11 2004 26 2 Mike Williams 28 69 6.14 2003 33 3 Derrick Turnbow 24 66 6.87 2006 28 4 Jose Mesa 24 61 6.52 2003 37 5 Brad Lidge 23 60 7.21 2009 32 6 Matt Capps 21 64 6.41 2009 25 7 Rob Dibble 19 62 6.48 1993 29 8 Dave Smith 17 65 6.00 1991 36 9 Willie Hernandez 15 67 5.74 1989 34 10 Darold Knowles 15 66 5.81 1975 33
Only 2004 Shawn Chacon of (you guessed it) the Colorado Rockies, breaks the 30 save mark. He had a 1-9 record to go with his 7.11 ERA.
Five more over 20 and it pretty much dissolves after that.
In 1998, Mark Wohlers of the Braves managed to get 8 saves in 27 games with an ERA in the double digits (10.18)