By Tom Ruane
A while back, I started collecting my Retrosheet posts in a place on the web-site. This series eventually grew to encompass several articles. Here are the others:
Fun With Retrosheet Data Fun With Retrosheet Data, the Sequel Fun With Retrosheet Data, Episode 3 Fun With Retrosheet Data, Episode 4 Fun With Retrosheet Data, Episode 5 Fun With Retrosheet Data, Episode 6
I hope at least some of this is of general interest and, as always:
Thanks for your patience.
A note on the scope of the data presented in these articles:
As of this writing, the data used in these articles does not include any of the Negro Leagues that are now considered by MLB to be part of the "Major Leagues" as of December 2020. These leagues are the Negro National League from 1920 to 1931 and 1933 to 1948, the Eastern Colored League from 1923 to 1928, the 1929 American Negro League, the 1932 East-West League, the 1932 Negro Southern League, and the Negro American League from 1937 to 1948.
This omission is not in any way a reflection upon the major league status of those leagues (or for that matter any additional leagues that may come under the Major League umbrella in future years), only that I did not have access to data associated with these leagues while I was researching and writing these articles. In light of this, any data presented in this article, as well as my use of the term "major leagues," should be viewed in light of this omission.
List of Articles (starting with most recent)
Three-Out Innings with No Official At-Bats (April 16, 2023) ERA Qualifiers and the Number of Batter-Pitcher Matchups (November 7, 2021) Fun With Batting Orders (August 5, 2021) Most Consistent Pitchers (May 11, 2021) The Most Homogeneous Batting Orders (May 6, 2021) Most Consistent Hitters (April 25, 2021) Pitchers Doing Random Things In The Most Consecutive Games (February 2, 2021) Players Doing Random Things In The Most Consecutive Games (January 24, 2021) Extra-Inning Season and Career Batting Records (October 19, 2019) Extra-Inning Single Game Batting Records (September 29, 2019) Second (and third) Generation Major League Players (September 14, 2019) Perhaps the Most Improbable Comebacks From 1901 to 2018 (May 13, 2019) Runs Produced By The Most and Fewest Hits (September 12, 2018) Changes In Pitch Outcomes: 1988-2016 (July 2, 2017) Fun with a Team's OPS (June 20, 2016) A Look at Run Differentials (June 18, 2016) Starting Pitching Lines (May 24, 2015) The Greatest Incomplete Starts (May 20, 2015) Most Surprising Pitching Performances (July 5, 2014) Both Starting Pitchers Making MLB Exits (May 26, 2014) Both Starting Pitchers Making MLB Debuts (May 19, 2014) The Age of Starting Lineups (May 5, 2014) Hot Starts to Careers, the Pitching Edition (April 29, 2014) Hot Starts to Careers, the Batting Edition (April 28, 2014) Hard to Hit Pitchers (April 5, 2014) Unique Batting Lines (August 26, 2012) Come-From-Behind Wins and Losses (July 8, 2012) A Tour of Team Pitching Logs (July 7, 2012) A Tour of Team Batting Logs (July 5, 2012) Consecutive Winless Starts (June 23, 2012) Low-Hit Clusters (June 19, 2012) When Winning Streaks Collide (June 14, 2012) Defensive Juggling (May 8, 2012) Incomplete Games By Position (April 8, 2012) A Look at Triple-Crown Leaders (December 19, 2011) Do Only Slow Runners Ground into a Lot of DPs? (December 15, 2011) The Homering-est Teammates (and Multiple Debuts) (December 12, 2011) Multiple Hitting Streaks (November 29, 2011) The Most Exciting Games (October 28, 2011) League Leaders With the Fewest Games Played (October 14, 2011) Nelson Cruz Made Me Do It (October 15, 2011) Players With The Highest Percentage of Post-Season Homers (October 7, 2011) Doubling Their Home Runs (September 27, 2011) Top Hitting Streaks By Batting Order and Defensive Position (September 27, 2011) Come-From-Behind Batting Champions, An Update (September 26, 2011) Best Career Marks By Park (September 24, 2011) Come-From-Behind Batting Champions (September 23, 2011) Best Career Hitters By Lineup Position (September 18, 2011) Best Hitters By Lineup Position (September 16, 2011) More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About 1-0 Games (September 15, 2011) Best/Worst Month for a Team's Pitchers (September 14, 2011) Batters Supporting Starting Pitchers (September 10, 2011) Most Strikeouts Between Hits Allowed... And Then Some (September 5, 2011) Double-Digits In Strikeouts and Hits Allowed (September 3, 2011) Bases-Loaded Plate Appearances (August 31, 2011) Palindromic At-Bat Line (August 27, 2011) Most At-Bats With the Bases Loaded (August 25, 2011) Starting Infields, Then And Now (August 24, 2011) Easy schedule runs (July 15, 2011) Parity Comes to MLB (May 29, 2011) Two .400 Hitters on a Team (May 3, 2011) Pitcher versus Team (July 22, 2010) Expected Pitcher Match-Ups (July 21, 2010) Consecutive Starts With IPs greater than or equal to Hits (July 19, 2010) Consecutive Starts With Ks greater than or equal to IPs (July 17,2010) Pitcher Match-Ups (July 16, 2010) Most Blown Saves Combo (June 3, 2009)
I've spent a lot of time over the last six weeks or so generating discrepancy files1 for the early Deadball Era, work that has required me to compare long columns of numbers associated with each player's batting, pitching and fielding logs. That is even more exciting than it sounds, and while I was doing this, I got to wondering what player had exactly four (or three or two or--you get the idea) at-bats in the most consecutive games. So I promised myself that once I was done with the discrepancy files, I was going to find the answer to that question, at least as it relates to major league baseball since 1901, and that once I knew the answer, I would write an article about it. And so this is that article.
Now people familiar with these articles of mine already know what to expect, but if you're new here, what follows will be a series of arcane and at times silly tables interspersed with some explanatory text. My only hope in presenting these is that some of it ends up being interesting (in a dull sort of way). Most of this verges dangerously close to a parody of what can be done with a mountain of easily accessible data and no sense of restraint. And almost all of it would not have been possible twenty or so years ago, before Retrosheet started making play-by-play and boxscore data freely available to the public. Well, some of it would have been possible with an enormous amount of effort, but as you'll quickly see below, the fruits of all that work would have been a meager return on a decade or more of your available free time.
Now that that's out of the way, one ground-rule: unless otherwise mentioned these streaks do not span seasons. So the player with the most consecutive games with no at-bats is not a DH-league relief pitcher (with apologies to Jose Mesa).2
Let's start with at-bats. Here's the list:
AB Streak Player Start End
0 92 Herb Washington 4- 4-1974 10- 1-1974
Pedro Feliciano 4- 7-2010 10- 2-2010
1 37 Bill Taylor 4-13-1955 7-10-1955
2 13 Brett Myers 7-10-2010 9-13-2010
3 13 Todd Cruz 7-15-1980 8- 7-1980
4 20 Fred McGriff 6-29-1996 7-22-1996
5 12 Red Schoendienst 6-21-1945 7- 1-1945(2)
6 4 Quilvio Veras 7-10-1997 7-13-1997
7 2 Done 21 times, last by Ben Revere in 2014.
8+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
One thing that surprised me was that there was a single record-holder for each number of at-bats from one through six. Going into this, I figured there would be, say, four or five players who had exactly three at-bats in twelve consecutive games or some such, but that wasn't the case.
With the exception of Herb Washington, Oakland's pinch-running specialist who went the entire 1974 season without an at-bat, and Pedro Feliciano, the Mets short-stint left-handed relief specialist, you could not have predicted the appearance of anyone on this list. Okay, Giant fans of a certain age might have guessed that left-handed pinch-hitting specialist Bill Taylor, who walked only once in 1955, might have held the single at-bat mark, but the rest of the list is a crap-shoot. I was surprised that a pitcher held the two at-bat mark, but Brett Myers was remarkably consistent in 2010, coming within a single out of finishing the sixth inning in all of his starts that season while, since he was pitching in the modern era, completing only two.
Bill Taylor ended his string with the only sacrifice fly of his season on July 16th or it could have gone on until July 26th, when he was announced as a pinch-hitter only to be replaced when the opposing manager brought in a lefty reliever. He had only himself to blame for being pulled, having struck out in all five of his previous career at-bats against lefties. And of course, the next time he faced one, he homered.
A similar chart for runs scored:
R Streak Player Start End
0 94 Salomon Torres 4- 3-2006 10- 1-2006
1 12 Jimmie Foxx 5-13-1932 5-23-1932
Marv Rackley 8-11-1948 8-25-1948
Johnny Groth 8-14-1950 8-25-1950
Mike Schmidt 6-17-1976 6-28-1976
2 7 Don Baylor 6-28-1979 7- 4-1979
3 3 Done 18 times, last by Jeff DaVanon in 2003.
4 2 Done 8 times, last by Hunter Pence in 2016.
5+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
As above, the first entry on the list encompassed an entire season. Had Torres pitched in the AL, he could've bumped Herb Washington and Pedro Feliciano out of the top spot on the at-bat list as well. Don Baylor hit seven home runs during his streak, and added two more the game after it ended. Jimmie Foxx was also one of the 18 players with three straight games of three runs scored, doing it in August 1939. I was kind of surprised that no one since 1901 has scored three runs in more than three consecutive games.
On to the hit chart:
H Streak Player Start End
0 92 Herb Washington 4- 4-1974 10- 1-1974
Pedro Feliciano 4- 7-2010 10- 2-1974
1 16 Ted Sizemore 6- 1-1975 6-18-1975
2 11 Tony Perez 8- 8-1973 8-20-1973
3 6 George Brett 5- 8-1976 5-13-1976
4 4 Milt Stock 6-30-1925 7- 3-1925
5 2 Hi Myers 8-21-1917 8-22-1917
Roberto Clemente 8-22-1976 8-23-1976
6+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
I suppose it's not too surprising that a player without an at-bat in 92 games would also not have a hit. Salomon Torres managed a hit in his five at-bats in 2006, removing him from another top spot. Hi Myers got more than his share of chances to get his back-to-back 5-hit games, getting his fifth hit in the tenth inning on August 21 and in the twenty-first inning the next day. In that last game, Carson Bigbee had six hits and Jim Hickman five. To be fair, Clemente also benefited from extra opportunities in his games as well, getting his fifth hit in the first game in the sixteenth inning.
The first of the extra-base hit charts:
2B Streak Player Start End
0 122 Rafael Belliard 4- 6-1988 10- 2-1988
1 9 Bo Bichette 7-31-2019 8- 8-2019
2 3 Done 11 times, the last by in 2019.
3 2 Joe Dugan 9-24-1920 9-25-1920
Earl Sheely 5-20-1926 5-21-1926
Carl Reynolds 7- 3-1929 7- 4-1929(1)
Red Schoendienst 6- 5-1948 6- 6-1948(1)
Hank Majeski 8-27-1948(1) 8-27-1948(2)
4+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
I think it's pretty amazing that even a poor-hitting middle-infielder like Belliard could get only four extra-base hits in 286 at-bats--all of them triples. Bo Bichette started his double-a-game run in his third career game. He also hit four homers, and unlike his father didn't play his home games in Coors Field.
Since I mentioned discrepancy files at the beginning of this article, I should point out that Earl Sheely is credited with hitting 40 doubles in 1926, but we think he should have 41, since it appears as if a double credited to Bill Hunnefield on August 14th should have gone to Earl instead. Had he played in the NL, that extra double would have given him sole ownership of the league lead, but over in the AL, he would still have been a mile behind George Burns, who had eclipsed 41 doubles on July 24th on his way to a record 64.3
And no one has hit as many doubles in a single day since 1901 as Hank Majeski did during the double-header in the chart above, but Art Griggs came close with five in a double-header on the last day of the 1918 season. It would also be the last day of Griggs' major league career. He added two singles in the second game, but his seven hits that day weren't enough to convince Detroit to keep him on once Harry Heilmann returned from military service in 1919.
The triples chart:
3B Streak Player Start End 0 163 Todd Zeile 4- 2-1996 9-29-1996 1 4 Done 13 times, the last by Nomar Garciaparra in 2003. 2 2 Elmer Flick 7- 6-1903(2) 7- 7-1903 3+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
Lots of hitters have completed seasons without hitting any triples. Todd Zeile's season above was the middle of three straight without a triple. He played for two teams in 1996 and managed to become the only player to appear in as many as 163 games without a three-base hit. The next year, he played 160 games without tripling. If you permit streaks to span seasons, Mark McGwire once went 1398 games between triples, a span of more than eleven years.
I was surprised that no one has had back-to-back games with two triples since 1903. Six players have hit a total of four in back-to-back games, but all but Flick have done that with a three/one split.
HR Streak Player Start End
0 162 Jimmy Barrett 4-14-1904 10- 8-1904
Juan Pierre 4- 2-2007 9-30-2007
1 8 Dale Long 5-19-1956 5-28-1956
Ken Griffey 7-20-1993 7-28-1993
2 3 Gus Zernial 5-13-1951(2) 5-16-1951
Frank Thomas 8- 1-1962 8- 3-1962
Lee May 5-24-1969 5-28-1969
Jeff DaVanon 6- 1-2003 6- 4-2003
3+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
Once again, Barrett and Pierre make the chart because they played the most games in their homer-free seasons. The only thing surprising is that the two seasons were 103 years apart. Barrett's Tigers played ten tie games in 1904, making the length of his season look oddly modern. Once we get past those two and into the players who actually homered their way onto the list, many of the names and their streaks are well known. The outlier, of course, is Jeff DaVanon. These were the only multi-homer games in his career, and apart from that June, he never hit more than two home runs in any one month.
Don Mattingly, who shares the record with Long and Griffey for the most consecutive games with at least one home run missed making the list above because on two occasions he hit a pair.
Next up: RBIs:
RBI Streak Player Start End
0 97 Jack Reed 5- 1-1963 9-28-1963
1 10 Frank White 6-10-1983 6-21-1983
2 5 Done 10 times, the last by Josh Hamilton in 2008.
3 4 Done 6 times, the last by Frank Catalanotto in 2005.
4 3 Lou Gehrig 8-29-1931 8-31-1931
Travis Hafner 5- 1-2006 5- 3-2006
5 2 Done 17 times, the last by Nelson Cruz in 2019.
6 2 Rusty Greer 8-22-1997 8-23-1997
Geoff Jenkins 4-28-2001 4-29-2001
7+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
This only covers 1920 to 2020 since RBIs are unofficial and somewhat incomplete prior to that.
For the first time, the top entry on the list doesn't represent a player's entire season, but it comes close. Jack Reed, normally a late-inning defensive replacement, got into the game early on April 24th when Roger Maris injured his left hamstring in the second inning. Reed then proceeded to hit a double and a triple, the last driving in his first run of the season, and the last of his major league career. He is most known today for the role he played in the longest game in Yankee history, which I wrote about elsewhere.
Frank White was in a mild slump during his string of single-RBI games, going 8-36 (.222) with an OPS under .600. In one hitless three-game stretch, only sacrifice flies kept his streak intact.
Lou Gehrig came within one RBI in the first game of the September 1st double-header of knocking in four runs in five straight games. Those games were part of six straight with a homer, including three grand-slams.
Just a few more, starting with walks:
BB Streak Player Start End
0 106 Mike Marshall 4- 8-1974 10- 1-1974
1 15 Chipper Jones 8-20-1999 9- 5-1999
2 6 Jack Clark 7-29-1987 8-10-1987
David Justice 9-25-1991(1) 9-29-1991
Barry Bonds 6-22-2004 6-27-2004
3 4 Mickey Mantle 7- 2-1957 7- 4-1957
4 2 Don Hurst 7- 3-1928(2) 7- 4-1928
Max Bishop 7- 8-1934(1) 7- 8-1934(2)
Babe Young 6-29-1941 6-30-1941
Eddie Stanky 8-29-1950 8-30-1950
Pete Runnels 8-14-1959 8-15-1959
5+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
Mike Marshall, during his record-setting season with the Dodgers, had more opportunities to walk that you might expect of a relief pitcher, with 36 plate appearances. Salomon Torres, who is tied for the second-most relief appearances in a season, pitching 32 years later, had only 5 plate appearances.
David Justice walked three times in the game before his streak began, but Barry Bonds topped that by walking four times in the first game after his. For Bonds, that was one of seven games that year with four or more walks.
Roy Cullenbine, the player who had one or more walks in 22 consecutive games in 1947, the longest since at least 1901, doesn't appear on the list above, much as Joe DiMaggio doesn't appear on this list.
SO Streak Player Start End
0 115 Joe Sewell 5-19-1929 9-19-1929
1 15 Bruce Dal Canton 5-10-1971 7-31-1971
2 7 Dick Ellsworth 7-20-1968 9- 3-1968
Dave Kingman 7- 6-1972 7-12-1972
J. Saltalamacchia 6-26-2008 7- 5-2008
Melvin Upton 8- 2-2016 8- 8-2016
Miguel Sano 8-17-2019 8-24-2019
3 5 Jorge Soler 8-12-2020 8-17-2020
4 2 Done 15 times, the last by Matt Davidson in 2018.
5+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
This only covers 1914 to 2020 since strike out data is unofficial and largely incomplete prior to that.
Joe Sewell's ability to make contact is well-known. He struck out only four times in 1929, but he had two other seasons (1924 and 1931) with an even lower strikeout rate.
Bruce Dal Canton's run of single strikeout games could have been even longer had he not been shelved for a month with shoulder problems after it had reached fifteen. He never got to bat the rest of the year, making three relief appearances and two brief starts.
Miguel Sano actually hit pretty well in his seven games listed above. Despite striking out in nearly half of his at-bats, he also managed to hit two doubles and four homers in those seven games.
Despite not appearing above, Aaron Judge set the current mark in 2017 with 37 games in a row with at least one strikeout (38 if you count his appearance in that years All-Star game). When the streak started on July 9th, he was leading the AL with 30 homers and was hitting .330 with a 1.149 OPS on his way to an historic rookie season. What followed was a six-week slump (his slash-line4 during these games was .176/.333/.351) that was largely forgotten when he rebounded to hit 13 home runs in his last 19 games.
SB Streak Player Start End
0 163 Justin Morneau 3-31-2008 9-30-2008
1 7 Honus Wagner 8- 4-1904 8-12-1904
Josh Devore 7-27-1911 8- 5-1911
Clyde Milan 4-24-1913 5- 3-1913
Davey Lopes 9- 2-1976(2) 9- 9-1976
Ron LeFlore 6- 8-1980(1) 6-14-1980
2 4 Jose Altuve 6-26-2014 6-29-2014
3 2 Done 12 times, the last by Leonys Martin in 2013.
4+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
If you let the streak span seasons, Jesse Orosco replaces Morneau in the first row, with no career stolen bases in 1252 games pitched. If you eliminate pitchers, he is replaced by Cecil Fielder, who was playing in his 1097th game when he swiped the first bag of his major league career on April 2, 1996.
Except for Justin Morneau (obviously) and Leonys Martin, all of the players above stole at least 50 bases in their season. Clyde Milan's streak would have been two games longer had he stolen one less base on May 5th.
Bert Campaneris set the mark since 1901 by stealing at least one base in twelve straight games, and in the last six of those he stole a single base, just missing being included on the list above.
That's probably more than enough for now. For those of you who think this has been a pointless exercise, focused primarily on statistical anomalies, I don't necessarily disagree, but in my defense, there are a host of tables (intentional walks, sacrifice hits/flies, caught stealing and catcher interference) that I didn't include. So it could have been worse.
Notes:
1Discrepancy files attempt to document instances where the game by game data on our site differs from more official accounts (either official league dailies or ICI accounts). A random sample is here.
2Jose Mesa may or may not be the record-holder if you allow the streak to span seasons. I just picked him because I know he was playing in his 868th game when he got his first major league at-bat.
3A record that was eclipsed five years later by Earl Webb. Unlike Webb, who had more than half of his career doubles in his record season, George Burns had three other years with more than forty doubles, including 51 in 1927.
4For the non-stat nerds out there, a slash line is simply batting average / on-base percentage / slugging percentage.
This is a lot like my previous article, but with pitchers. I wasn't going to do this originally, but then I figured it wouldn't hurt to look at the data, and right off the bat saw that two different pitchers once failed to retire a batter in five consecutive games and decided that this was a story that simply had to be told.
As before, these are single-season streaks, although I will occasionally note if there were longer ones that span seasons.
With a few exceptions, I'm only going to show instances where the longest streak happened once, the thinking being that if more than one player managed to do something, it couldn't have been extraordinary enough to merit a place here. So if you see an elided value on occasion, that's why. And you'll also notice that I've changed the way I display the date ranges. Since I'm only dealing with streaks within a single season, it seemed silly to repeat the year. And besides, as several sharp-eyed readers politely pointed out, I had quite a few typos where the years didn't match.
So without further ado, the innings pitched chart:
IP Streak Player Start - End
0 5 Joey Eischen 7- 6 7-17-2005
Trever Miller 4-17 4-28-2011
0.1 13 Tim Byrdak 5- 4 5-22-2012
1 65 Greg Holland 4- 9 9-29-2013
1.1 5 Sean Doolittle 9- 6 9-15-2013
1.2 5 Brad Voyles 5-31 6-10-2002
2 10 Lindy McDaniel 4-18 5-11-1965
3 9 Daniel Norris 8-11 9-25-2019
3.1 4 Rich Monteleone 6- 1 6-12-1993
4 5 Alex White 8- 7 8-25-2012
4.2 4 Clint Zavaras 8-24 9-19-1989
5.2 4 Jake Westbrook 4-16 5- 3-2003
6 8 Luis Perdomo 8- 2 9-10-2017
7 8 Jacob deGrom 8-17 9-25-2019
7.2 3 Philip Humber 5-26 6- 7-2011
8 10 Bill Carrick 7- 4 8- 5-1901(2)
9 14 Noodles Hahn 8- 5 9-28-1902
Bill Bernhard 4-29 7- 6-1903(1)
13 2 Harry Coveleski 7-20 7-24-1916
13.1+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
I like this one because of what it tells us about how pitching usage has changed in the last decade or so. Had the two pitchers at the top come in the 1930s (to pick an older decade), it would have been surprising that a manager kept them around after they'd gotten hammered over and over again. But Joey Eischen and Trevor Miller were LOOGYs (lefty one-out guys), which for the most part meant that they'd simply failed to retire their one guy five times. Not good, but not career- (or at least season-) ending bad. Miller faced only five batters and Eischen six during their out-free appearances and in one of his games, Eischen intentionally walked the only batter he faced.
Another more successful LOOGY has the longest run of appearances lasting a third of an inning. In those games, Tim Byrdbak walked the first batter he faced on May 4th before retiring thirteen straight in as many games, six of them by strikeout.
Greg Holland's near season-long string of single-inning appearances show the morphing of the closer role into a ninth-inning specialist. After closing 2013 with his streak intact, he entered the opening game of the 2014 season with the scored tied and one out. There were men on first and third and the first batter he faced singled to end the game. He then assumed his customary role of being on the mound at the start of the ninth and proceeded to finish that inning in 46 of his next 47 appearances.
Lindy McDaniel was in the Cubs' bullpen in 1965, back when two-innings were a reasonable day's work for a middle-reliever. He pitched 129 innings in relief that year, and while it was only the second-most on his team (behind closer Ted Abernathy's' 136 1/3 innings), it is more relief innings that any pitcher has thrown in a year since 1986.
By the time we get to Daniel Norris' run of three-inning games, the chart starts to deal almost exclusively with starting pitchers. Norris started all of the games referenced above and was restricted to three innings by design. In seven of the nine games, he allowed one run or less. Not surprisingly, this didn't help his won-loss record, as barring shortened games, starting pitchers can only lose outings of less than five innings. So despite a respectable 3.33 ERA in those nine starts, he went 0-4.
A (hopefully) brief digression. Here are the shortest and longest average outings by starting pitchers since 1901:
Shortest Longest IP Year IP Year 4.783 2020 8.301 1902 5.179 2019 8.297 1904 5.361 2018 8.219 1901 5.512 2017 8.211 1903 5.645 2016 8.004 1905 5.787 2007 7.982 1906 5.807 2008 7.806 1907 5.810 2015 7.696 1918 5.814 2009 7.695 1908 5.824 2006 7.632 1909
Clearly 2020 is an outlier, for a variety of reasons, but there's been a steady but significant drop in how long a starting pitcher is allowed to stay in the game. Here are the teams with the shortest average outings:
IP Year Team 3.852 2018 TB A 4.092 2020 DET A 4.100 2020 BOS A 4.194 2020 ATL N 4.204 2019 ANA A 4.256 2020 TOR A 4.300 2020 TB A 4.335 2019 TB A 4.391 2019 TOR A 4.450 2020 BAL A
The last two years dominate this list. Only two teams from years earlier than 2019 crack the top 32 spots, the 2012 Rockies, in 20th place, and the 2018 Rays, at the top. The Rays that year basically divided their starting rotation into two groups: Cy Young award winner Blake Snell and everyone else:
AVG GS IP ER W L ERA
Blake Snell 5.828 31 180.2 38 21 5 1.89
The Others 3.384 131 443.1 217 14 31 4.41
Relief Crew 824.1 378 55 36 3.79
The pitchers behind Blake in the rotation were almost exactly league average pitchers (AL starters had a 4.39 ERA in 2018), but were only allowed to record on average ten outs per game. Not coincidentally, Tampa Bay's Ryan Yarbrough pitched the most innings in relief (118.2) since Duane Ward in 1990. Unlike Ward, who pitched 73 games out of the pen, Yarbrough pitched only 32 times in relief, and the average length of his relief outing (3.7 IP) was longer than the average length of the non-Blake starters. He was usually the second pitcher into the game and was treated as if he were a second starting pitcher. But since he wasn't the starting pitcher, he was eligible to win any time he inherited a lead and his team didn't lose it. As a result, he went 14-4 in relief, winning as many games in his 32 relief outings as all of the non-Blake starters won in 131 games.
By the way, no pitcher with at least 30 relief appearances pitched more innings per outing than Yarbrough. The only other pitcher who averaged 3.5 innings or more per relief appearance was Bob Stanley in 1982, who pitched 168 innings in 48 games. The pitcher who retired the fewest batters per outing was LOOGY Randy Choate who pitched 27 1/3 innings for the Cardinals in 2015, but took 71 games to do it. Chaote also set a record that year by failing to retire a batter in 20 games. The runner-up is Sean Runyanr with 17 games without an inning pitched in 1998.
Getting back to the innings pitched chart, Alex White in 2012 was an early version of Daniel Norris and came within one out of having a nine-game run when he was removed with 2 outs in the top of the fourth on August 31st. He didn't pitch poorly, with an ERA of 3.60 in the 20 innings, and emerged from the streak with a best-case record of 0-0.
Four times in a five-game span in 2011, Phillip Humber got within one out of finishing eight innings for the first time in his career only to get taken out. In his second start of 2012, he got two outs in the eighth again, but this time not only completed the game but completed a perfect game. It would be the last time he would pitch past the seventh inning in his career.
The six, seven, eight and nine inning streaks all reflect an understanding of just how far it was reasonable to expect a hurler to go into the game. Perdomo was routinely taken out after six innings regardless of how he was pitching and only pitched into the seventh on three occasions that year. DeGrom, coming off one Cy Young Award season and on his way to another, was allowed to finish the seventh but went past that barrier only once in 2019. DeGrom held his opponents scoreless in eight starts that year, but didn't take the mound in the eighth in any of them.
And the eighth and ninth inning entries reflect a time when a pitcher was expected to finish what he started. As soon as I saw that Bill Carrick had a long run of eight-inning starts in 1902, I knew he had been on a long, unpleasant road trip full of complete game losses. And sure enough, his only home game was an eight-inning relief stint while the only other game he didn't lose was a complete-game tie. Both Noodles Hahn (12-2) and Bill Berhnard (11-3), on the other hand won the lion share of their fourteen straight nine-inning complete games. Bernhard started his in the second start of his season and only a 2 1/3 inning relief outing prevented it from reaching seventeen before a badly broken finger on his pitching hand ended his season in late July.
So much for the innings pitched chart. I promise to pick up pace.
Next up: the longest streaks of games started, complete games, games finished, saves, wins and losses (I told you we were picking up the pace).
Streak Player Start - End
GS: 49 Wilbur Wood 4-15 10- 1-1972
CG: 37 Bill Dinneen 4-16 10-10-1904(1)
SHO: 6 Don Drysdale 5-14 6- 4-1968
GF: 59 Mike Williams 4- 3 9-25-2002
SV: 24 John Wetteland 5-31 7-14-1996
W: 15 Rube Marquard 5- 7 7- 3-1912(1)
L: 13 Lum Harris 7-31(1) 9-30-1943
John Wetteland opted for free agency after the 1996 season and was replaced as the Yankees' closer by Mariano Rivera. Were it not for two brief relief appearances, Marquard's record would have been 19 and begun on opening day. Once his streak was broken, he lost his next three, going 7-11 the rest of the year. Walter Johnson also had a lengthy winning streak that year, one that reached 16 before he was given a controversial loss on August 26th, when he was charged with the inherited runners who scored the tying and go-ahead runs for the Browns. The issue of whether that game should have ended his winning streak became moot when he lost his next four games as well.
H Streak Player Start - End 0 20 Randy Choate 4-25 6-13-2011 1 11 Jim Mecir 7-27 8-31-2002 2 8 Mike MacDougal 9- 6 9-27-2009 3 6 Sam Leever 8-20 9- 5-1910(1) 4 6 Dave Lemanczyk 6-11(1) 7-27-1975(1) 5 7 Joe Engel 8- 4 9- 2-1913 7 7 Wilbur Wood 6-20 7- 9-1972(1) 8 6 Larry Jackson 5-14(1) 6- 5-1967 9 7 Togie Pittinger 8-27 9-23-1904 10 5 Bob Stanley 5-19 6- 8-1987 13 3 Bill Hubbell 8-30(1) 9- 7-1921(2) 14 3 Jack Taylor 4-19 4-27-1901 15+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
We've already talked about Randy Choate's role as a left-handed one-out guy. Here is his line for those 20 hitless games:
IP H R ER BB SO HBP 8.2 0 0 0 2 12 1
His streak ended in the second game of the July 15th double-header with the Phillies when, after retiring the first two batters he faced, Placido Polanco doubled.
And most of what remains in the chart (as well as most of the ones below) are simply statistical curiosities. That's not an apology, since statistical curiosities are sort of the point of this (and the last) article.
R Streak Player Start - End 0 38 Craig Kimbrel 6-14 9- 8-2011(1) 2 7 Cy Morgan 6-11 7-21-1908(2) 4 7 Pat Mahomes 6- 4 7- 5-1994 7 4 Ed Doheny 6-13 6-27-1901(1) 11 2 Jamie Moyer 8- 9 8-14-2000 12+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
So to reiterate, the missing rows indicate that there were multiple pitchers with the same streak. In the case of the run chart, 3 different pitchers allowed a single run in 7 straight games, 7 different pitchers allowed 3 runs in 6 straight games, and so on.
Kimbrel's scoreless streak reached 39 innings by the time it ended. It came within a single out of tying Brad Ziegler's record for the longest scoreless streak by a relief pitcher. Ziegler set the mark from the start of his career, not allowing a run until his 30th major league game.
If you look at scoreless games across seasons, Ryan Pressly tops Kimbrel's mark with 40 straight games from August 15, 2018 to May 20, 2019.
BB Streak Player Start - End 0 33 Yimi Garcia 6- 7 9-28-2015 2 9 Jamey Wright 5- 1 6-13-2006 3 8 Ed Willett 8-22(1) 9-27-1913(2) 6 4 Wilson Alvarez 5-18 6- 4-1993 8 3 Nolan Ryan 5-10 5-19-1974(1) 9+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
Yimi Garcia pitched 34 consecutive innings without a walk in 2015, which is far from the longest among relief pitchers, that being the 49 1/3 straight walk-less innings Tom Morgan pitched between his two walks in his first game of 1958 and the two he walked 32 games later on August 14th1.
Dennis Eckersley has the longest multi-season string of games without a walk with 41 from August 17, 1989 to June 10, 1990.
SO Streak Player Start - End 0 21 Randy Choate 7- 7 8-24-2009 1 12 Aaron Heilman 8-30 10- 2-2010 2 8 Mychal Givens 5-29 6-22-2019 3 6 Chris Stratton 6- 6 7- 3-2018 4 7 Bob Turley 8-10(2) 9-12-1958 6 6 Whitey Ford 7-20(2) 8-13-1958 8 5 Bob Gibson 4-13 5- 6-1969 12 4 Randy Johnson 6-19 7- 5-1998 15 2 Pedro Martinez 5- 7 5-12-1999 16 2 Dwight Gooden 9-12 9-17-1984 17+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
Once again, Randy Choate didn't pitch a lot of innings in those 21 games. I showed his composite line in his hitless games above, so here is the same for these:
IP H R ER BB SO HBP 9.1 16 9 9 2 0 0
In case you were wondering which was better for a pitcher to avoid: hits or strikeouts.
Not surprisingly, this isn't close to being the most consecutive relief innings pitched without a strikeout. That mark is held by Benny Frey who failed to strike out a single batter in his last 29 1/3 relief innings in 19332. If you allow streaks to span seasons, he nearly doubles that mark to 57 1/3 innings from August 26, 1933 to April 18, 1935.
Whitey Ford and Bob Turley both turned joined the list above while pitching for the 1958 Yankees, and for a few days that August their streaks overlapped.
HBP Streak Player Start - End
0 99 Mike Marshall 4- 8 9-21-1974
1 7 Jamey Wright 7-24 8-25-2001
Pedro Martinez 5-28 7- 1-2004
4+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
Jamey Wright hit two batters in the games both before and after hitting a single batter in seven straight games. It was part of his record-tying (at least since 1901) ten consecutive games with a hit batsman. Casey Fossum also did it in 2005.
WP Streak Player Start - End 1 8 Jaime Cocanower 6-14 7-25-1985 4 2 R.A. Dickey 5-24 7-30-2017 5+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row. BK Streak Player Start - End 1 5 Steve Carlton 5-21 6-10-1979 3+ 1 No one has had more than one of these in a row.
I don't have much to add to these last two charts. Steve Carlton is not just the major league career leader in committing balks, he has twice as many as the next person on the list, Bob Welch. The league-leading eleven balks Carlton was charged with in 1979 was a career high, but he led or tied for the NL lead on seven other occasions as well. He had a total of four balks in his first nine seasons. Something must have changed then in either the way he was holding runners on base or in the way umpires viewed his pickoff move, because he averaged more than six balks a year over his next fifteen seasons.
Before leaving, I did want to point out that this and the preceding article are based upon Retrosheet's box score and play-by-play data from 1901 to 2020. I selected that starting point because at present 1901 is as far back as their data goes, not because of any lack of interest in 19th century baseball. When earlier years are available, I will use them, and I suspect the charts above will look quite a bit different than they do now.
Notes:
1There are people out there who insist that a pitcher who gives up a lead-off homer before retiring the side without further damage, ends that inning with an active streak of 0 scoreless innings since the inning, properly speaking, wasn't scoreless. And while they have a point, this introduces a painful level of complexity to what should be a joyous endeavour, leading to questions such as: "What if the pitcher was removed after the home run--would the reliever get credit for a scoreless inning?" Or: "What if the pitcher was taken out after retiring the first two batters and the reliever gives up a run?" And so on and so on. So when I talk about consecutive inning streaks, I really mean the number of outs recorded between events divided by three.
2Note that these are consecutive RELIEF appearances. Benny Frey started games during the streak, and struck out batters in those games (well, not a lot of batters), and for the purpose of his relief streak these games are ignored.
First, a disclaimer: this post isn't actually about Retrosheet data, since it only deals with seasonal data which Retrosheet licenses from Pete Palmer. But despite that, hopefully what follows is mildly interesting.
Second, another disclaimer: there is at least a decent chance that something very similar to what I am about to do has been done before, and if so, probably better than I am about to do it. If so, my apologies. In my defense, I did do a few Google searches before proceeding.
So with those out of the way, recently I've been spending more time than is good for me looking at statistical data associated with the Deadball Era as part of writing Retro-Reviews of those years. And in my travels, I noticed that Christy Mathewson was a very consistent hitter from 1901-1905, at least when it came to at-bats and hits, going in succession: 28-130, 26-130, 28-124, 30-133 and 30-127. And so I decided to measure that consistency to see if this was really anything unusual.
My methodology was simple: look at each five-year period in each player's career and determine the variance of a statistic (ignoring the range if the mean was less than some threshold--needed to eliminate all the DH-era pitchers with their extremely consistent batting stats of all zeroes). Then divide the variance by the mean. And finally, generate a bunch of dull tables until everyone is fast asleep.
So I started with at-bats. Here are the players with the most consistent number of at-bats over a five-year period (with a minimum average of 60):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Albert Pujols 2001 0.001 590.8 590 590 591 592 591 Mike Cameron 1999 0.026 540.8 542 543 540 545 534 Billy Williams 1965 0.034 642.2 645 648 634 642 642 Pete Rose 1974 0.036 657.8 652 662 665 655 655 Tom Seaver 1969 0.043 92.0 91 95 92 89 93 Bobby Abreu 2000 0.054 577.4 576 588 572 577 574 Sam Crawford 1907 0.065 584.8 582 591 589 588 574 Rocky Colavito 1961 0.068 592.2 583 601 597 588 592 Dennis Martinez 1989 0.068 71.0 72 68 72 74 69 Christy Mathewson 1901 0.073 128.8 130 130 124 133 127
I eliminated overlapping ranges above, including two other Billy Williams ranges (starting in 1964 and 1966), a Tom Seaver range from 1968-1972, and one from Sam Crawford starting in 1908. So Mathewson wasn't even the most consistent pitcher, but at least he did (just barely) make the top ten.
And yes, Billy Williams was by far the most consistent hitter, at least with regard to at-bats over a seven-year period:
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Billy Williams 1964 0.034 641.7 645 645 648 634 642 642 636 Rudy York 1941 0.095 582.7 590 577 571 583 595 579 584 Prince Fielder 2006 0.115 578.4 569 573 588 591 578 569 581 Steve Garvey 1974 0.134 646.1 642 659 631 646 639 648 658 Sam Crawford 1906 0.144 581.1 563 582 591 589 588 574 581
Here are the most consistent hit totals (with a minimum average of 15):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 G. Van Haltren 1891 0.018 178.0 180 179 179 175 177 Rob Ducey 1988 0.025 16.0 17 16 16 16 15 Mark Grace 1995 0.033 181.0 180 181 177 184 183 George Gore 1883 0.040 134.2 131 134 138 135 133 Bobby Abreu 2001 0.044 172.0 170 176 173 173 168 Fred Pfeffer 1886 0.052 128.6 125 133 129 128 128 Fred McGriff 1997 0.054 158.8 156 160 164 157 157 Nick Markakis 2007 0.067 186.0 191 182 188 187 182 Albert Pujols 2006 0.069 183.6 177 185 187 186 183 Lou Brock 1969 0.070 196.6 195 202 200 193 193
There were no overlapping entries this time around. Pujols is still on the list, but for the five-year period immediately following the one on the previous list. Mathewson drops out of the top ten, down to 16th place. The most interesting thing to me was the appearance of Rob Ducey. I'd expected that any player who collected between 15 and 17 hits for five straight years would have had to have been a pitcher, not a reserve outfielder. Ducey spent most of 1988, 1990 and 1991 playing for the Syracuse Chiefs of the International League, but still managed to play enough with the parent club to collect his 16 or 17 hits each season.
And here is the list for both at-bats and hits (where we average the two results, applying the same minimums):
Player Year Var Means Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Bobby Abreu 2001 0.063 579.8 172.0 588-170 572-176 577-173 574-173 588-168 Rocky Colavito 1961 0.075 592.2 165.2 583-169 601-164 597-162 588-161 592-170 Christy Mathewson 1901 0.076 128.8 28.4 130- 28 130- 26 124- 28 133- 30 127- 30 Rudy York 1942 0.104 581.0 156.6 577-150 571-155 583-161 595-157 579-160 Steve Garvey 1976 0.105 644.4 199.6 631-200 646-192 639-202 648-204 658-200 Mike Cameron 1999 0.127 540.8 138.6 542-139 543-145 540-144 545-130 534-135 Allie Reynolds 1948 0.133 80.6 15.0 83- 16 78- 17 81- 15 76- 14 85- 13 Nellie Fox 1955 0.134 630.2 192.8 636-198 649-192 619-196 623-187 624-191 Carl Hubbell 1932 0.156 110.6 24.0 108- 26 109- 20 117- 23 109- 26 110- 25 Evan Longoria 2013 0.163 617.6 163.8 614-165 624-158 604-163 633-173 613-160
This time I removed overlapping ranges (with the starting years) for: Abreu (2000). York (1941), Garvey (1974 and 1975), and Nellie Fox (1954). And this time Christy Mathewson moves up to third place, justifying this exercise.
As you might expect, Garvey leads the pack by quite a bit over a seven-year stretch:
Player Year Var Means Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Steve Garvey 1974 0.129 646.1 201.1 642-200 659-210 631-200 646-192 639-202 648-204 658-200 Nellie Fox 1953 0.204 629.4 191.9 624-178 631-201 636-198 649-192 619-196 623-187 624-191 Bobby Abreu 2000 0.225 574.7 172.1 576-182 588-170 572-176 577-173 574-173 588-168 548-163 Lou Brock 1968 0.229 646.4 194.4 660-184 655-195 664-202 640-200 621-193 650-193 635-194 Rudy York 1941 0.249 582.7 153.1 590-153 577-150 571-155 583-161 595-157 579-160 584-136
Next up: lists for the three flavors of extra-base hits, starting with doubles (5 doubles minimum):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Adrian Beltre 2011 0.007 32.6 33 33 32 33 32 Rick Leach 1986 0.018 13.4 14 13 13 14 13 Kip Selbach 1898 0.020 28.2 28 28 29 29 27 Pablo Sandoval 2011 0.022 25.8 26 25 27 26 25 Brayan Pena 2009 0.023 10.4 10 10 11 10 11 Home Run Baker 1914 0.024 23.2 23 23 24 24 22 Del Ennis 1953 0.024 23.2 22 23 24 23 24 Dave Rader 1972 0.027 15.0 14 15 16 15 15 Terry Turner 1912 0.029 14.0 14 13 14 14 15 Perry Werden 1890 0.030 21.4 22 20 22 22 21
This time, the only overlapping range was Beltre's starting in 2012 (he hit 31 doubles in 2016).
The triple list (2.5 triples minimum):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Jake Beckley 1891 0.000 19.0 19 19 19 19 19 Mickey Doolin 1910 0.000 6.0 6 6 6 6 6 Don Kolloway 1942 0.000 4.0 4 4 4 4 4 Sherry Robertson 1946 0.000 3.0 3 3 3 3 3 Ben Zobrist 2013 0.000 3.0 3 3 3 3 3 Duke Farrell 1890 0.019 12.6 12 13 13 13 12 Germany Smith 1891 0.028 5.8 5 6 6 6 6 Richie Ashburn 1953 0.029 8.4 9 8 9 8 8 Sam Rice 1924 0.029 14.0 14 13 14 14 15 Jackie Brandt 1959 0.031 5.2 5 6 5 5 5
Zobrist actually hit three triples in a season in six consecutive years, while Don Kolloway and Lee Lacy hit either three or four triples in a season for eight straight years:
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Don Kolloway 1941 0.050 3.8 3 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 Lee Lacy 1978 0.071 3.5 4 3 4 4 3 3 3 4 Joe Pepitone 1962 0.083 3.0 2 3 3 3 4 3 3 3 Fred Schulte 1927 0.104 5.9 5 6 5 5 7 6 7 6 Fred Clarke 1901 0.134 13.9 15 14 15 11 15 13 13 15
On to home runs (back to a 5 minimum):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Fred Lynn 1983 0.007 22.8 22 23 23 23 23 Adam Dunn 2005 0.016 39.6 40 40 40 40 38 Cal Ripken 1983 0.024 26.4 27 27 26 25 27 Yadier Molina 2006 0.026 6.2 6 6 7 6 6 Curt Walker 1925 0.026 6.2 6 6 6 6 7 Orlando Cabrera 2005 0.029 8.4 8 9 8 8 9 Bill Virdon 1957 0.029 8.4 8 9 8 8 9 Gil McDougald 1954 0.031 13.0 12 13 13 13 14 Brandon Phillips 2009 0.035 18.4 20 18 18 18 18 Duke Snider 1953 0.035 41.4 42 40 42 43 40
Those with overlapping ranges (with the starting years): Dunn (2006), Lynn (1982 and 1984), and Walker (1924). Given Lynn's two overlapping entries, it's not too surprising that he tops the seven-season list:
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Fred Lynn 1982 0.055 22.9 21 22 23 23 23 23 25 Curt Walker 1923 0.070 5.9 5 5 6 6 6 6 7 Fred McGriff 1988 0.090 34.6 34 36 35 31 35 37 34 Cal Ripken 1982 0.092 26.1 28 27 27 26 25 27 23 Brian McCann 2008 0.102 21.7 23 21 21 24 20 20 23
Combining all three forms of extra-base hits (with the same minimums for each):
Player Year Var Means Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Frank Robinson 1956 0.249 29.0 5.4 33.0 27- 6-38 29- 5-29 25- 6-31 31- 4-36 33- 6-31 Sam Crawford 1907 0.281 32.8 16.0 5.8 34-17- 4 33-16- 7 35-14- 6 26-19- 5 36-14- 7 Dolph Camilli 1936 0.283 27.2 11.2 25.6 29-13-28 23- 7-27 25-11-24 30-12-26 29-13-23 Tony Pena 1982 0.285 26.0 2.6 12.2 28- 4-11 22- 3-15 27- 2-15 27- 2-10 26- 2-10 Babe Ruth 1926 0.297 28.4 7.2 51.2 30- 5-47 29- 8-60 29- 8-54 26- 6-46 28- 9-49 Hunter Pence 2008 0.305 30.6 4.2 24.2 34- 4-25 26- 5-25 29- 3-25 38- 5-22 26- 4-24 Del Unser 1973 0.320 17.8 3.2 11.2 20- 4-11 18- 5-11 18- 2-10 19- 4-12 14- 1-12 Ian Desmond 2012 0.321 30.6 2.6 22.0 33- 2-25 38- 3-20 26- 3-24 27- 2-19 29- 3-22 Harry Heilmann 1925 0.323 42.0 9.0 13.0 40-11-13 41- 8- 9 50- 9-14 38-10-14 41- 7-15 Ivan Rodriguez 2002 0.336 32.2 3.2 16.2 32- 2-19 36- 3-16 32- 2-19 33- 5-14 28- 4-13
With the only duplicate being Frank Robinson's 1957-1961 range.
The runs scored list (minimum 10):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Erick Aybar 2009 0.029 69.0 70 69 71 67 68 Asdrubal Cabrera 2015 0.032 66.8 66 65 66 68 69 Dick Higham 1873 0.034 58.0 57 58 56 59 60 Bill Dahlen 1901 0.037 68.8 69 67 71 70 67 Rafael Palmeiro 1998 0.039 98.6 98 96 102 98 99 Frank Thomas 1991 0.040 105.2 104 108 106 106 102 John Anderson 1902 0.041 62.2 60 65 62 62 62 Jack Powell 1898 0.044 14.4 15 13 15 14 15 Fred Luderus 1914 0.048 54.6 55 55 52 57 54 Everett Scott 1916 0.054 39.8 37 40 40 41 41
There were no overlapping entries.
The RBI list (minimum 10):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Chipper Jones 1996 0.020 109.8 110 111 107 110 111 Johnnie LeMaster 1979 0.035 29.6 29 31 28 30 30 Fred Pfeffer 1889 0.036 77.0 77 80 77 76 75 Muddy Ruel 1924 0.048 54.6 57 54 55 52 55 Amos Strunk 1913 0.052 46.0 46 45 45 49 45 Jack Burns 1931 0.054 70.2 70 70 71 73 67 Heinie Groh 1920 0.055 48.4 49 48 51 48 46 Bobby Abreu 2003 0.056 103.2 101 105 102 107 101 Christy Mathewson 1908 0.056 11.4 11 12 10 12 12 Leo Durocher 1928 0.059 31.4 31 32 32 29 33
I removed overlapping lists for Muddy Ruel (1923), Bobby Abreu (2005) and Johnnie LeMaster (1980), the players in the top three spots of the six-season list:
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Muddy Ruel 1923 0.041 54.5 54 57 54 55 52 55 Bobby Abreu 2004 0.055 103.0 105 102 107 101 100 103 Johnnie LeMaster 1979 0.056 30.0 29 31 28 30 30 32 Bobby Murcer 1971 0.089 92.3 94 96 95 88 91 90 Chipper Jones 1996 0.094 108.5 110 111 107 110 111 102
And Abreu tops the list if you add in a seventh season:
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Bobby Abreu 2003 0.052 102.7 101 105 102 107 101 100 103 Bobby Murcer 1971 0.092 91.9 94 96 95 88 91 90 89 Chipper Jones 1997 0.155 106.7 111 107 110 111 102 100 106 Joe DeMaestri 1953 0.163 36.6 35 40 37 39 33 38 34 Don Kessinger 1970 0.167 41.0 39 38 39 43 42 46 40
The walks list (minimum 10):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Heinie Manush 1931 0.004 35.8 36 36 36 36 35 Elmer Flick 1901 0.015 52.0 52 53 51 51 53 Ichiro Suzuki 2004 0.020 49.2 49 48 49 49 51 Bill Bradley 1900 0.021 26.2 27 26 27 25 26 Ron Santo 1966 0.025 95.0 95 96 96 96 92 George Bell 1988 0.032 32.4 34 33 32 32 31 Fred Clarke 1898 0.032 50.0 48 49 51 51 51 Rich Aurilia 2002 0.038 36.2 37 36 37 37 34 Max Carey 1913 0.039 57.6 55 59 57 59 58 Leon Durham 1982 0.040 66.4 66 66 69 64 67
I removed duplicates for Bill Bradley (1901) and Elmer Flick (1902).
The strikeouts list (minimum 10):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Dan McGann 1902 0.019 29.8 30 30 29 31 29 Jim Delsing 1951 0.027 38.6 39 37 39 38 40 Aubrey Huff 2007 0.029 88.8 87 89 87 91 90 Robb Quinlan 2004 0.030 27.0 26 26 28 27 28 Mike Scioscia 1988 0.031 30.8 31 29 31 32 31 Gil Hodges 1955 0.034 90.4 91 91 91 87 92 Larry French 1930 0.035 16.2 17 15 16 17 16 Johnny Damon 2001 0.042 70.8 70 70 74 71 69 Nellie Fox 1958 0.046 12.2 11 13 13 12 12 Eddie Plank 1909 0.047 17.0 16 18 17 18 16
There were no overlapping entries.
The stolen bases list (minimum 6):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Lu Blue 1926 0.019 12.4 13 13 12 12 12 Cap Anson 1886 0.029 28.0 29 27 28 27 29 Jake Daubert 1917 0.036 11.0 11 10 11 11 12 Fred Tenney 1904 0.039 16.6 17 17 17 15 17 Josh Hamilton 2008 0.050 8.0 9 8 8 8 7 Bing Miller 1922 0.062 10.4 10 9 11 11 11 Stan Hack 1935 0.075 16.0 14 17 16 16 17 Jack Tobin 1921 0.078 7.2 7 7 8 6 8 Carl Yastrzemski 1962 0.078 7.2 7 8 6 7 8 George Wood 1887 0.089 19.8 19 20 18 20 22
Lu Blue had an overlapping entry that tied for the most consistent starting in 1927. He stole 13 bases in 1931, the same as in 1926. And I also removed Carl Yastrzemski's entry starting in 1961.
That's all for now. I suspect that at some point, I will do something similar for pitching statistics, but I'm sure there's no rush.
I know I threatened to do something having to do with consistent pitching statistics next, but then I thought of an even sillier subject.
On August 24, 1905, the Boston Americans beat the Cleveland Naps 8-6 in eleven innings. Cy Young won the game in relief while the losing pitcher, Bill Bernhard went the distance, giving up ten hits to go along with the eight runs. In looking over the boxscore, I noticed that eight different players scored for Boston, and nine different players got hits. The first eight batters in the lineup had five at-bats each and the two pitchers in the ninth slot (Bill Dinneen in addition to Young) had four at-bats between them. It seemed to be an unusually homogeneous batting order.
But was it? In order to answer that question (and who among us hasn't wondered about the level of homogeneity of a team's lineup?), I decided to compute the variances of each team's at-bats, runs and hits (sorry, this is 1905 so no RBIs) by batting order position. The idea being that the lower the sum of these three variances, the more similar the batting order. Note that when more than one player appeared in the same batting order (like the two players batting ninth in the game above), I will combine their stats to form a single line.
So here are the characteristics of each of the three variances with a value less than 0.5:
Var Differences
0.0000 None
0.0987 +1 or -1 (One number differs by one)
0.1728 +1,+1 or -1,-1 (Two numbers differ by one in the same direction)
0.2222 +1,-1 (Two numbers differ by one, cumulative difference 0)
+1,+1,+1 or -1,-1,-1 (Three numbers differ by one in the same direction)
0.2469 +1,+1,+1,+1 or -1,-1,-1,-1 (Four numbers differ by one in the same direction)1
0.3210 +1,+1,-1 or -1,-1,+1 (Three numbers differ by one, cumulative difference +/-1)
0.3951 +1,+1,+1,-1 or -1,-1,-1,+1 (Four numbers differ by one, cumulative difference +/-2)
+2 or -2 (One number differs by two)
0.4444 +1,+1,-1,-1 (Four numbers differ, cumulative difference 0)
+2,+1 or -2,-1
0.4691 +2,+1,+1 or -2,-1,-1
So since every slot in Boston's batting order had five at-bats except one with four (Var=0.0987), and each scored a run except the one who didn't (Var=0.0987), and each had a single hit except the one with two (Var=0.0987), the sum of these variants is 0.2963.
Before we try to determine just how unusual this game was, it should be clear that, if we restrict ourselves to looking at the games with a sum less than 0.500 (and we will actually be restricting ourselves more than that), we will only see values that are a combination of the nine listed above.
Here are the # of games in the lowest variant groups (combined variants of 0.35 or lower) from 1901 to 2020 along with the first game we encountered in the group that scored 0, 1, 2 ,... runs.
VAR Cnt Date Team AB R H AB-VAR R-VAR H-VAR
0.0000 27 05-05-1904 PHI A 27 0 0 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
0.0988 65 05-02-1904 BOS A 27 0 1 0.0000 0.0000 0.09882
0.1728 32 07-01-1902 BAL A 27 0 2 0.0000 0.0000 0.17283
04-21-1997 PIT N 36 2 9 0.0000 0.1728 0.0000
0.1975 162 08-02-1902 WAS A 28 0 1 0.0988 0.0000 0.0988
06-18-1924 BRO N 36 1 8 0.0000 0.0988 0.0988
0.2222 69 07-15-1901 STL N 27 0 0 0.2222 0.0000 0.00004
0.2469 13 09-14-1903(2) STL N 14 0 0 0.2469 0.0000 0.00005
04-06-2013 TEX A 36 4 9 0.0000 0.2469 0.0000
0.2716 267 05-12-1901 PIT N 34 1 9 0.1728 0.0988 0.0000
06-11-1901 NY N 17 0 2 0.0988 0.0000 0.1728
08-11-1925 NY A 36 2 10 0.0000 0.1728 0.0988
0.2963 33 08-24-1905(2) BOS A 44 8 10 0.0988 0.0988 0.0988
07-21-1914 STL A 19 1 1 0.0988 0.0988 0.0988
0.3210 313 08-31-1901(2) CLE A 19 0 3 0.0988 0.0000 0.2222
05-26-1907 NY A 15 1 0 0.2222 0.0988 0.0000
05-04-1981 MIN A 36 3 8 0.0000 0.2222 0.0988
06-11-1987 BAL A 36 6 10 0.0000 0.2222 0.0988
08-25-2016 TEX A 33 9 8 0.2222 0.0000 0.0988
0.3457 392 09-27-1901(2) CIN N 25 0 2 0.1728 0.0000 0.1728
09-23-1905(1) NY A 32 1 9 0.2469 0.0988 0.0000
09-12-1929 PHI A 36 4 10 0.0000 0.2469 0.0988
09-22-1967 NY A 36 2 7 0.0000 0.1728 0.1728
09-28-2004 CLE A 36 5 10 0.0000 0.2469 0.0988
So Boston's score that day of 0.2963 put them in a 33-way tie for 636th place, which may not sound like much, but this is out of 401,312 scores and it's the lowest score by any team scoring more than four runs.
I'm sure pretty almost everyone can guess what almost all of the games with a variance of 0.000 look like: 27, 0, 0. And of the 27 games since 1901 with a perfect match in every spot in the order, all but one has that line. The exception? The game played by the Red Sox on April 6, 2014 when they got shut out on nine hits by three Milwaukee pitchers and every spot in their order had one hit in four at-bats. I was surprised that out of all the games played since 1901, there has only been one in which the players up and down the order all went 1-4 without scoring a run.
Obviously, a well-pitched game has a better chance of getting a lower score than a slugfest. With apologies in advance for the overly large table, here are the lowest variances for games with zero to thirty runs:
VAR Runs Date Team AB R H AB-VAR R-VAR H-VAR
0.0000 0 05-05-1904 PHI A 27 0 0 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
0.1975 1 06-18-1924 BRO N 36 1 8 0.0000 0.0988 0.0988
04-19-1970 SD N 27 1 1 0.0000 0.0988 0.0988
09-10-1999 NY A 27 1 1 0.0000 0.0988 0.09886
08-03-2018 NY A 27 1 1 0.0000 0.0988 0.09887
0.1728 2 04-21-1997 PIT N 36 2 9 0.0000 0.1728 0.00008
0.3210 3 05-04-1981 MIN A 36 3 8 0.0000 0.2222 0.0988
0.2469 4 04-06-2013 TEX A 36 4 9 0.0000 0.2469 0.0000
0.3457 5 09-28-2004 CLE A 36 5 10 0.0000 0.2469 0.0988
0.3210 6 06-11-1987 BAL A 36 6 10 0.0000 0.2222 0.0988
0.3704 7 09-07-1941(1) CIN N 37 7 10 0.0988 0.1728 0.0988
05-23-1988 TOR A 35 7 8 0.0988 0.1728 0.0988
0.2963 8 08-24-1905(2) BOS A 44 8 10 0.0988 0.0988 0.0988
0.3210 9 08-25-2016 TEX A 33 9 8 0.2222 0.0000 0.0988
0.4444 10 06-28-1935(1) DET A 38 10 11 0.1728 0.0988 0.1728
0.5185 11 05-31-1995 CIN N 41 11 17 0.2469 0.1728 0.0988
0.6173 12 08-09-1936(2) CIN N 45 12 20 0.2222 0.2222 0.1728
07-03-1967 CHI N 34 12 9 0.1728 0.2222 0.2222
0.7407 13 04-13-1984 DET A 44 13 16 0.3210 0.2469 0.1728
07-17-1999 LA N 40 13 14 0.2469 0.2469 0.2469
0.6667 14 09-17-2003 ATL N 44 14 19 0.0988 0.4691 0.0988
0.8395 15 08-10-1937(1) WAS A 38 15 12 0.3951 0.2222 0.2222
07-05-2019 MIN A 42 15 20 0.2222 0.4444 0.1728
0.8889 16 07-04-1951(2) PIT N 34 16 17 0.1728 0.3951 0.32109
0.7160 17 05-29-1992 MIN A 36 17 16 0.4444 0.0988 0.1728
0.9877 18 07-14-1997 BOS A 46 18 21 0.3210 0.4444 0.2222
0.9630 19 04-24-1906 BOS A 50 19 20 0.2469 0.3210 0.3951
1.4568 20 04-07-2018 PHI N 42 20 20 0.6667 0.3951 0.3951
1.4568 21 09-20-2018 OAK A 44 21 22 0.7654 0.4444 0.2469
1.4074 22 06-19-2000 NY A 47 22 19 0.3951 0.6914 0.321010
2.1481 23 07-10-1943 BRO N 43 23 20 0.3951 1.1358 0.6173
1.8272 24 08-25-1979 CAL A 52 24 26 0.6173 0.6667 0.5432
2.0741 25 07-31-2018 WAS N 50 25 26 0.9136 0.3951 0.7654
2.8148 26 08-12-1948(2) CLE A 55 26 29 0.7654 1.2099 0.8395
2.6173 27 07-07-1923(1) CLE A 43 27 24 1.5062 0.4444 0.6667
3.1852 28 07-06-1929(2) STL N 53 28 28 0.5432 0.7654 1.8765
3.6790 29 04-23-1955 CHI A 54 29 29 0.4444 1.7284 1.5062
2.6173 30 08-22-2007(1) TEX A 57 30 29 0.4444 1.3333 0.8395
With the exception of the first (zero) row, where I only show the first, every game with the same variance for that run value is displayed.
Looking only at regulation-length games, here are the ones with the highest variances (from zero to nine runs scored as well as the one with the highest variance regardless of score):
VAR Runs Date Team AB R H AB-VAR R-VAR H-VAR 3.3086 0 07-12-1926 CHI N 31 0 7 1.8025 0.0000 1.5062 4.0741 1 05-27-1911(1) NY A 35 1 10 1.8765 0.0988 2.0988 4.2963 2 08-05-1923 DET A 31 2 8 2.0247 0.1728 2.0988 5.6543 3 09-22-1970 OAK A 33 3 10 2.2222 0.4444 2.9877 5.2593 4 05-28-1922 STL A 32 4 10 3.1358 0.4691 1.6543 5.0864 5 09-09-2014 SF N 33 5 11 0.8889 0.9136 3.2840 5.2840 6 05-06-2008 HOU N 34 6 12 1.2840 1.5556 2.4444 6.4198 7 05-31-1974 HOU N 33 7 13 3.1111 1.0617 2.2469 5.5309 8 06-12-1984 LA N 33 8 10 1.1111 1.4321 2.9877 6.0000 9 08-27-1997 LA N 42 9 18 1.3333 1.5556 3.1111 8.1728 TOP 07-30-1917 DET A 45 16 21 0.4444 3.5062 4.2222
In the first game in the list, the high variance is caused because Sparky Adam collected four of the team's seven hits, while Cliff Heathcote had no at-bats in the second slot because of his three walks and a sacrifice. In the case of the Tigers game in 1923, Ty Cobb and Harry Heilmann combined for all but one of the team's eight hits, while both Fred Haney and Johnny Bassler had only one at-bat each due the Haney's three sacrifices and Bassler's three walks. In the Dodgers 1997 game, four of the players had a combined 21-9-15 line with the other five finishing at 21-0-3. And in the regulation game with the highest variance, Ossie Vitt, Ty Cobb and Tommy Veach each had five hits and combined to score twelve runs. Here how they did compared to the next best hitters that day and then the worst:
Cobb and Co. 17 12 15 Rest of 1-6 13 2 6 Bottom third 15 1 0
If you include extra-inning games, that Tigers' game drops down to a distant second place, replaced by a game that truly needs no introduction:
VAR Runs Date Team AB R H AB-VAR R-VAR H-VAR 8.7160 17 07-10-1932 CLE A 83 17 33 1.9506 1.4321 5.3333
And finally, here are the highest variances in regulation games for at-bats, runs and hits:
VAR Date Team AB R H AB-VAR R-VAR H-VAR
ABs 4.2716 05-22-1996 CIN N 27 4 4 3.7778 0.2469 0.2469
Runs 7.8519 08-15-2015 BOS A 47 22 26 1.2840 4.4691 2.0988
Hits 6.9630 06-22-1938 CHI A 41 16 17 0.9136 1.7284 4.3210
In a classic case of Two out of the Three True Outcomes, the third, fourth and fifth place hitters in the 1996 game combined for eleven walks and a strikeout. In the second entry above, the bottom four slots in the batting order scored eighteen runs. And finally, four White Sox hitters were responsible for all but one of the team's seventeen hits, including six by Hank Steinbacher.
I'm sure that's more than enough for now.
Notes:
1In games where plate appearances equal at-bats (so no walks, hit batters, sacrifices or catcher's interference), a team's at-bat variance must be either:
0.0000 (ninth spot makes the last out), or 0.0997 (first or eight batter makes the last out), or 0.1782 (second or seventh batter makes the last out), or 0.2222 (third or sixth batter makes the last out), or 0.2469 (fourth or fifth batter makes the last out),
unless someone bats out of turn during the game.
2These first two games represent back-to-back starts by Rube Waddell. On May 2nd, he shut out Boston on one-hit, and on May 5th, Cy Young pitched a perfect game to defeat him.
3Another Rube Waddell game. This was his first home game as an Athletic and Rube pitched a two-hit shutout, striking out thirteen without walking a batter.
4Christy Mathewson's first no-hitter.
5Red Ames' no-hit major league debut.
6Boston's Pedro Martinez strikes out 17 Yankees and gives up only one hit, a homer by Chili Davis. The only other base runner is Chuck Knoblauch. who is hit by a pitch leading off the game.
7Boston's Rich Porcello strikes out 9 Yankees and gives up only one hit, a homer by Miguel Andujar. The only other base runner is Brett Gardner. who is hit by a pitch leading off the game.
8This game, as well as the next two, are games in which every spot in the batting order went 1-4 and no player scored more than one run. The weird thing is there has never been a game like this where a single run was scored.
9Ralph Kiner had been suspended prior to the game, but apparently the Pirates never got the memo, because he played and hit a grand-slam in the third inning and a three-run homer in the fourth before the game was called in the middle of the sixth. The Reds protested the game to no avail.
10From here on out we are dealing with very small sample sizes. The number of games in each row:
Runs Games 22 34 23 25 24 15 25 6 26 8 27 1 28 1 29 3 30 1
This is a companion piece to my earlier article on the most consistent hitters. So if you've gotten this far, I'm assuming there's at least a chance you'll find some of what follows interesting.
So as before, I going to take a series of statistics and compute their variance over some number of years. In all of these charts, if a pitcher appears more than two times, the shortest and longest ranges will be shown along with a note indicating the elided rows. But before we get started, I'd like to show just how many ranges were have. Obviously, the longer the range, the fewer the candidates (since a pitcher has to have pitched in at least that many years to be considered. So here are the number of entries for each range:
Length 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 # Ranges 44724 34731 27712 22345 18052 14510 11590 9200 7193 5545 4197 3127 2267 1616 1127 767 527 362 245 160 103 60 33 18 8
By the 25-year range, the only pitchers still in the running are Charlie Hough, Tommy John, Jim Kaat, Jamie Moyer and Nolan Ryan.
Let's start with wins shown over ranges of 5 to 20 years (if different, the leaders with an average of 10 or more, and 20 or more are also shown):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 Y13 Y14 Y15 Y16 Y17 Y18 Y19 Y20 Steve Howe 1985 0.000 3.0 3 3 3 3 3 Steve Howe 1987 0.000 3.0 3 3 3 3 3 Warren Spahn 1957 0.008 21.2 21 22 21 21 21 Mark Buehrle 2009 0.011 12.8 13 13 13 13 12 13 Steve Howe 1983 0.039 3.1 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 Hal Schumacher 1936 0.043 12.4 11 13 13 13 13 12 12 Mark Buehrle 2008 0.074 13.4 15 13 13 13 13 12 13 15 Greg Maddux 1994 0.129 17.4 16 19 15 19 18 19 19 17 16 16 Warren Spahn 1947 0.315 20.1 21 15 21 21 22 14 23 21 17 20 21 22 21 21 21 18 23 Greg Maddux 1988 0.251 17.0 18 19 15 15 20 20 16 19 15 19 18 19 19 17 16 16 16 13 15 14 Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 Y13 Y14 Y15 Y16 Y17 Y18 Y19 Y20
Steve Howe also led all pitchers over 6 years (starting in 1985). During his 6 straight three-win seasons, Howe pitched in 204 games and went 18-13 with 32 saves.
Warren Spahn also led pitchers with 20 or more wins over 6 to 8 years (starting in 1956), all pitchers over nine years (starting in 1953), and 20 or more over 10 to 11 years (starting in 1953), 12 years (starting in 1949 and 1950), 13 to 15 years (starting in 1949), and 16 years (starting in 1948).
Before generating these lists, I'd expecting Spahn to be the most consistent 20-game winner in history. For example, over a 10 year stretch, the top six entries are all overlapping ones from Spahn:
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Warren Spahn 1953 0.139 20.5 23 21 17 20 21 22 21 21 21 18 Warren Spahn1954 0.139 20.5 21 17 20 21 22 21 21 21 18 23 Warren Spahn 1952 0.313 20.1 14 23 21 17 20 21 22 21 21 21 Warren Spahn 1949 0.325 20.2 21 21 22 14 23 21 17 20 21 22 Warren Spahn 1950 0.325 20.2 21 22 14 23 21 17 20 21 22 21 Warren Spahn 1951 0.325 20.2 22 14 23 21 17 20 21 22 21 21 Kid Nichols 1890 0.489 29.8 27 30 35 34 32 27 30 31 31 21 Eddie Plank 1902 0.642 20.8 20 23 26 24 19 24 14 19 16 23 Christy Mathewson 1905 0.683 26.4 31 22 24 37 25 27 26 23 25 24
Greg Maddux also led all pitchers over 10 years (starting in 1995), 11 years (starting in 1994), 12 years (starting in 1993), 13 years (starting in 1992), and 14 to 19 years (starting in 1988),
The last entry above for Mark Buehrle cover the last 8 years of his career.
Losses shown over 5 to 20 years (if different, the leaders with an average of 5 or more, and 10 or more are also shown):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 Y13 Y14 Y15 Y16 Y17 Y18 Y19 Y20 Steve Trout 1984 0.000 7.0 7 7 7 7 7 Rich Garces 1997 0.000 1.0 1 1 1 1 1 1 Carl Hubbell 1930 0.012 11.8 12 12 11 12 12 12 Carl Hubbell 1929 0.017 11.7 11 12 12 11 12 12 12 Jack McDowell 1988 0.024 9.6 10 9 10 10 10 9 10 9 Stan Coveleski 1916 0.036 13.4 13 14 13 12 14 13 14 14 Todd Jones 1997 0.056 4.4 4 4 4 4 5 4 5 5 5 Stan Coveleski 1916 0.081 13.7 13 14 13 12 14 13 14 14 16 Jim Kaat 1962 0.173 12.1 14 10 11 11 13 13 12 13 10 14 Mike Cuellar 1966 0.208 10.9 10 11 11 11 8 9 12 13 10 12 13 Doyle Alexander 1972 0.222 8.6 8 8 9 8 9 11 10 7 11 7 7 8 Jack Powell 1898 0.268 16.5 15 19 17 19 17 19 19 14 14 16 13 16 Milt Pappas 1958 0.251 10.1 10 9 11 9 10 9 7 9 11 13 13 10 10 Todd Jones 1994 0.214 4.3 2 5 3 4 4 4 4 5 4 5 5 5 6 4 Livan Hernandez 1998 0.261 12.4 12 12 11 15 16 10 15 10 13 11 11 12 12 13 Jack Powell 1898 0.365 16.3 15 19 17 19 17 19 19 14 14 16 13 16 11 19 17 Milt Pappas 1958 0.372 10.2 10 9 11 9 10 9 7 9 11 13 13 10 10 14 7 12 Don Sutton 1971 0.475 10.4 12 9 10 9 13 10 8 11 15 5 9 9 13 12 10 11 11 Doyle Alexander 1971 0.308 8.7 6 8 8 9 8 9 11 10 7 11 7 7 8 6 10 10 10 11 David Wells 1988 0.703 7.7 5 4 6 10 9 9 7 8 14 10 4 10 8 7 7 7 8 7 5 9 Don Sutton 1968 0.711 11.1 15 18 13 12 9 10 9 13 10 8 11 15 5 9 9 13 12 10 11 11 Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 Y13 Y14 Y15 Y16 Y17 Y18 Y19 Y20
Three pitchers, Garces in the two overlapping streaks and Pat Neshek, lost a single game in five straight years. Garces went 20-6 during his six years with a single loss, including a 19-3 mark from 1999 to 2001.
Todd Jones also led all pitchers over 10 years (starting in 1995 and 1996), and over 11 to 13 years (starting in 1995).
Doyle Alexander also led all pitchers over 15 to 17 years (starting in 1972).
Don Sutton also led pitchers with 10 or more losses over 18 and 19 years (starting in 1970).
Carl Hubbell's streak of losing either 11 or 12 games for 7 straight seasons ended when he went 26-6 in 1936. His record over those 7 years was 134-82.
So combining them, gives us the most consistent win-loss records over 3 to 12 years (with an average of more than one win and loss):
Player Year Var Means Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 Red Ruffing 1937 0.005 20.7- 7.0 20- 7 21- 7 21- 7 John Smoltz 1989 0.072 13.8-11.8 12-11 14-11 14-13 15-12 Milt Wilcox 1979 0.037 12.0-10.0 12-10 13-11 12- 9 12-10 11-10 Milt Wilcox 1978 0.062 12.2-10.3 13-12 12-10 13-11 12- 9 12-10 11-10 Mark Buehrle 2008 0.130 13.1-11.0 15-12 13-10 13-13 13- 9 13-13 12-10 13-10 Warren Spahn 1954 0.156 20.5-12.1 21-12 17-14 20-11 21-11 22-11 21-15 21-10 21-13 Warren Spahn 1954 0.167 20.2-12.3 21-12 17-14 20-11 21-11 22-11 21-15 21-10 21-13 18-14 Mark Buehrle 2004 0.264 13.4-10.4 16-10 16- 8 12-13 10- 9 15-12 13-10 13-13 13- 9 13-13 12-10 13-10 15- 8 Player Year Var Means Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12
Mark Buehrle also led pitchers over 10 years (starting in 2006), and 11 years (starting in 2004). And his last entry covers the last 12 years of his career.
Games pitched leaders for 6 through 14 year ranges:
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 Y13 Y14 Jose Quintana 2014 0.000 32.0 32 32 32 32 32 32 Jose Quintana 2013 0.004 32.1 33 32 32 32 32 32 32 James Shields 2008 0.007 33.4 33 33 34 33 33 34 34 33 James Shields 2009 0.007 33.4 33 34 33 33 34 34 33 33 James Shields 2008 0.007 33.3 33 33 34 33 33 34 34 33 33 Jon Lester 2009 0.009 32.1 32 32 31 33 33 32 32 32 32 32 Jon Lester 2008 0.013 32.1 33 32 32 31 33 33 32 32 32 32 32 31 Greg Maddux 1996 0.025 34.1 35 33 34 33 35 34 34 36 33 35 34 34 33 Warren Spahn 1948 0.061 38.6 36 38 41 39 40 35 39 39 39 39 38 40 40 38
Jon Lester also led over 11 years (starting in 2008). His last entry on the list above extended to 2019 and ended when the shortened 2020 season resulted in him pitching in only 12 games
Greg Maddux last range extended to the end of his career and started after the strike-shortened 1994 and 1995 seasons reduced his games in those years to 25 and 28 games.
Since these are all durable starting pitchers, I thought I'd raise the minimum to an average of 50 games to show the consistent relief pitchers (5 through 12 year ranges):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 John Wetteland 1996 0.006 62.0 62 61 63 62 62 John Wetteland 1995 0.014 61.7 60 62 61 63 62 62 Lee Smith 1985 0.035 64.6 65 66 62 64 64 64 67 Lee Smith 1982 0.126 66.0 72 66 69 65 66 62 64 64 64 67 70 63
John Wetteland's last entry began in a strike-shortened season and extended to the end of his career.
Lee Smith also led over 8 to 11 years (starting in 1983) and his last entry was ended by the 1994 strike.
Complete games are next. Here are the leaders in the 5 to 12 year ranges:
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 Wilbur Cooper 1918 0.038 27.4 26 27 28 29 27 Wilbur Cooper 1919 0.038 27.4 27 28 29 27 26 Wilbur Cooper 1917 0.113 26.4 23 26 27 28 29 27 26 25 Red Ruffing 1932 0.201 21.0 22 18 19 19 25 22 22 22 20 Red Ruffing 1931 0.200 20.8 19 22 18 19 19 25 22 22 22 20 Warren Spahn 1953 0.273 20.7 24 23 16 20 18 23 21 18 21 22 22 Warren Spahn 1952 0.263 20.6 19 24 23 16 20 18 23 21 18 21 22 22
This list doesn't show Mark Portugal, who had one complete game each year from 1990 to 1996.
Wilbur Cooper also led over 6 to 7 years (starting in 1918).
Red Ruffing's last entry covers his first 10 full seasons with the New York Yankees.
Warren Spahn led the NL in complete games in the last 7 years of the streaks shown above.
Games saved over 5 to 9 years, this time only showing those averaging 5 saves or more a year (otherwise Cal McLish's seven straight seasons with one save from 1956 to 1962 would dominate the list):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Aroldis Chapman 2012 0.093 36.2 38 38 36 33 36 Randy Moffitt 1973 0.193 12.8 14 15 11 14 11 12 Lee Smith 1983 0.193 31.8 29 33 33 31 36 29 Jonathan Papelbon 2006 0.223 36.7 35 37 41 38 37 31 38 Lee Smith 1983 0.311 30.9 29 33 33 31 36 29 25 31 Jonathan Papelbon 2006 0.366 36.1 35 37 41 38 37 31 38 29 39
Innings pitched shown over 5 to 12 years (if different, the leaders with 100 or more are also shown):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 Cody Allen 2014 0.017 68.3 69.2 69.1 68.0 67.1 67.0 Matt Cain 2008 0.023 219.9 217.2 217.2 223.1 221.2 219.1 Cody Allen 2013 0.022 68.6 70.1 69.2 69.1 68.0 67.1 67.0 Mark Buehrle 2010 0.063 203.7 210.1 205.1 202.1 203.2 202.0 198.2 John Wetteland 1994 0.060 63.1 63.2 61.1 63.2 65.0 62.0 66.0 60.0 Frank Viola 1984 0.092 253.1 257.2 250.2 245.2 251.2 255.1 261.0 249.2 David Robertson 2010 0.103 64.2 61.1 66.2 60.2 66.1 64.1 63.1 62.1 68.1 David Robertson 2010 0.136 64.8 61.1 66.2 60.2 66.1 64.1 63.1 62.1 68.1 69.2 Santiago Casilla 2007 0.390 54.8 50.2 50.1 48.1 55.1 51.2 63.1 50.0 58.1 58.0 58.0 59.0 Mark Buehrle 2005 0.527 208.7 236.2 204.0 201.0 218.2 213.1 210.1 205.1 202.1 203.2 202.0 198.2 Alan Embree 1997 0.573 56.3 46.0 53.2 58.2 60.0 54.0 62.0 55.0 52.1 52.0 52.1 68.0 61.2 Warren Spahn 1952 0.685 273.2 290.0 265.2 283.1 245.2 281.1 271.0 290.0 292.0 267.2 262.2 269.1 259.2 Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12
John Wetteland's entry covers the last 7 years of his career.
Mark Buehrle also led all pitchers with 100 or more innings over 8 and 9 years (starting in 2006), and led all pitchers over 10 years (starting in 2006). And his last entry covers the last 11 years of his career.
Hits Allowed shown over five to twelve years (if different, the leaders with 100 or mores are also shown):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 Mike Munoz 1995 0.026 53.2 54 55 52 53 52 Bartolo Colon 2001 0.043 218.4 220 219 223 215 215 Kyle Gibson 2014 0.088 178.8 178 186 175 182 177 175 F. Rodriguez 2003 0.130 50.4 50 51 45 52 50 54 51 Mike Boddicker 1984 0.243 221.0 218 227 214 212 234 217 225 Troy Percival 1995 0.157 39.6 37 38 40 45 38 42 39 38 Tom Seaver 1971 0.269 211.0 210 215 219 199 217 211 199 218 Troy Percival 1995 0.265 39.3 37 38 40 45 38 42 39 38 33 43 Tom Seaver 1967 0.438 214.0 224 224 202 230 210 215 219 199 217 211 199 218
Kyle Gibson's streak ran up until the shortened 2020 season limited him to 12 games,
Troy Percival also led all pitchers over 9 years (starting in 1995), and his last entry covers the first 10 years of his career.
Tom Seaver also led all pitchers with 100 or more over 9 years (starting in 1970), and over 10 years (starting in 1967), and all pitchers over 11 years (starting in 1968). His last entry covers the first 12 years of his career.
Runs Allowed shown over 5 to 12 years (if different, the leaders with 50 or more are also shown):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 Kevin Correia 2009 0.015 89.8 92 89 90 89 89 Frank Tanana 1987 0.070 103.3 106 105 105 104 98 102 Frank Tanana 1986 0.190 103.1 95 106 105 105 104 98 102 110 CC Sabathia 2004 0.178 89.8 90 92 83 94 85 96 92 87 89 CC Sabathia 2003 0.184 89.3 85 90 92 83 94 85 96 92 87 89 Billy Wagner 1998 0.307 18.5 19 14 19 19 21 18 16 17 22 22 17 Mike Mussina 1997 0.454 91.2 87 85 88 105 87 103 86 91 93 88 90 Billy Wagner 1997 0.356 18.9 23 19 14 19 19 21 18 16 17 22 22 17 Mike Mussina 1997 0.451 90.7 87 85 88 105 87 103 86 91 93 88 90 85
Frank Tanana also led all pitchers over 7 years (starting in 1987), and his last entry covers the final 8 years of his career.
Mike Mussina's last entry covers the final 12 years of his career.
Walks shown over 5 to 12 years (If different, the leaders with 40 or more, and 100 or more are also shown):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 Dave Smith 1987 0.033 19.6 21 19 19 20 19 Burt Hooton 1976 0.043 61.6 60 60 61 63 64 Tommy Bridges 1932 0.226 112.2 119 110 104 113 115 Zack Greinke 2013 0.101 43.0 46 43 40 41 45 43 Tommy Bridges 1931 0.212 111.5 108 119 110 104 113 115 Larry Jackson 1962 0.214 58.4 64 54 58 57 62 54 60 Hal Newhouser 1943 0.285 105.9 111 102 110 98 110 99 111 Dave Smith 1984 0.101 19.6 20 17 22 21 19 19 20 19 Mark Buehrle 2006 0.255 46.8 48 45 52 45 49 45 40 51 46 Hal Newhouser 1941 1.719 107.3 137 114 111 102 110 98 110 99 111 81 Mark Buehrle 2004 0.333 46.5 51 40 48 45 52 45 49 45 40 51 46 Early Wynn 1950 2.004 103.6 101 107 132 107 83 80 91 104 104 119 112 Santiago Casilla 2007 0.419 22.1 23 20 25 26 25 22 25 15 23 19 22 20 Larry Jackson 1957 0.443 58.9 57 51 64 70 56 64 54 58 57 62 54 60
Dave Smith also led all pitchers over 6 years (starting in 1986), and 7 years (starting in 1984).
Larry Jackson also led all pitchers with 40 or more over 8 years (starting in 1961), and his entries extend to the end of his career.
Mark Buehrle also led all pitchers over 10 years (starting in 2005).
Hal Newhouser also led all pitchers with 100 or more over 8 to 9 years (starting in 1942).
Santiago Casilla's streak goes to the end of his career.
Strikeouts shown over 5 to 12 years (if different, the leaders with 100 or more, and 150 or more are also shown):
Player Year Var Mean Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7 Y8 Y9 Y10 Y11 Y12 Jon Garland 2002 0.046 112.0 112 108 113 115 112 Dizzy Dean 1932 0.054 194.0 191 199 195 190 195 Jeff Suppan 2002 0.104 110.2 109 110 110 114 104 114 Matt Cain 2006 0.297 175.8 179 163 186 171 177 179 Cole Hamels 2010 0.321 205.1 211 194 216 202 198 215 200 Ray Kremer 1924 0.367 63.2 64 62 74 63 61 66 58 58 Andy Benes 1991 0.429 171.8 167 169 179 189 171 160 175 164 Mike Timlin 1996 0.661 53.6 52 45 60 50 52 47 50 65 56 59 Cole Hamels 2007 1.094 197.7 177 196 168 211 194 216 202 198 215 200 Jason Frasor 2004 0.804 53.9 54 62 51 59 42 56 65 57 53 48 46 Jeff Suppan 1999 1.498 107.5 103 128 120 109 110 110 114 104 114 90 80 Andy Benes 1990 1.613 162.9 140 167 169 179 189 171 160 175 164 141 137 Dan Plesac 1988 0.950 57.2 52 52 65 61 54 47 53 57 76 61 55 53 Tommy John 1967 2.235 115.3 110 117 128 138 131 117 116 78 91 123 124 111 Don Sutton 1966 2.413 185.3 209 169 162 217 201 194 207 200 179 175 161 150
Jeff Suppan also led all pitchers over 7 years (starting in 2001), pitchers with 100 or more strikeouts over 8 years (starting in 2000), all pitchers over 9 years (starting in 1999), and pitchers with 100 or more over 10 years (starting in 1999).
Cole Hamels also led pitchers with 150 or more over 9 years (starting in 2008).
Ray Kremer's streak covers the first 8 years of his career.
James Frasor's streak covers all but the last year of his career.
When I wrote my original Retro-Review of 1914, one of the things I looked at was the best and worst team performances by batting order position. Here is what I wrote back then:
Begin (sort of) old stuff.
Here are the teams with the weakest hitters (in terms of OPS) in each spot in the batting order (along with the player with the most plate appearances there) from 1914 to the present:
Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS PAs Player Pos
1st 1969 SD N 675 51 132 23 3 3 29 35 1 115 3 7 3 15 12 .196 .237 .252 .489 305 Jose Arcia 2B/SS
2nd 1916 BOS A 591 55 115 15 5 0 40 38 53 15 49 14 .195 .261 .237 .498 284 Jack Barry 2B
3rd 1917 NY A 584 70 121 8 5 0 38 70 41 1 27 29 .207 .293 .238 .531 310 Fritz Maisel 2B
4th 1992 CAL A 640 61 128 19 1 16 74 29 5 113 4 2 5 6 6 .200 .237 .308 .545 287 Hubie Brooks DH
5th 1988 STL N 639 63 136 23 1 7 62 40 5 85 3 5 6 11 4 .213 .260 .285 .545 247 Terry Pendleton 3B
6th 1967 CHI A 599 48 115 17 2 4 54 42 1 104 6 6 6 7 6 .192 .250 .247 .497 90 Ken Berry OF
7th 1914 WAS A 537 47 96 12 6 1 25 42 78 7 22 17 .179 .247 .229 .476 349 George McBride SS
8th 1918 PHI N 432 23 81 5 1 0 22 35 35 2 14 9 .188 .252 .204 .455 239 Bert Adams C
9th 1964 HOU N 517 22 59 7 1 1 12 28 0 194 4 24 1 0 0 .114 .165 .137 .303 83 Ken Johnson P
I'm sure this list will look quite a bit different once we include the rest of the Dead Ball Era, but I was still surprised at the number of post-expansion teams on the list. Two of those, however, were from the second Dead Ball Era.
And although it doesn't have anything to do with 1914, I suppose I ought to show the list of the teams with the highest OPSs by lineup spot:
Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS PAs Player Pos
1st 1996 BAL A 667 149 192 42 3 45 103 98 6 106 18 5 6 23 9 .288 .390 .562 .953 485 Brady Anderson CF
2nd 1999 NY A 651 148 233 43 9 28 102 94 4 114 10 3 5 17 9 .358 .443 .581 1.024 677 Derek Jeter SS
3rd 1921 NY A 552 182 208 45 17 60 171 144 82 4 5 17 13 .377 .509 .846 1.355 693 Babe Ruth LF
4th 2004 SF N 484 138 175 39 3 48 120 233 115 59 9 0 4 7 2 .362 .571 .752 1.323 609 Barry Bonds LF
5th 1932 PHI A 588 152 214 33 9 58 169 117 96 0 0 3 7 .364 .470 .747 1.216 702 Jimmie Foxx 1B
6th 1995 CLE A 516 94 170 37 1 31 102 98 5 115 8 0 1 6 6 .329 .443 .585 1.028 354 Jim Thome 3B
7th 2003 ATL N 613 92 189 41 6 36 112 45 6 105 5 0 3 1 5 .308 .359 .571 .930 272 Vinny Castilla 3B
8th 1995 CLE A 511 79 148 26 1 27 92 66 5 95 2 1 6 2 1 .290 .369 .503 .872 252 Paul Sorrento 1B
9th 1994 CLE A 412 65 132 25 2 16 52 28 0 58 1 6 1 14 10 .320 .364 .507 .872 97 Alvaro Espinoso IF
Although Vinny Castilla and Alvaro Espinoso have the most plate appearances in the slots above for the Braves and Indians, the teams owe their spot on the list to the other players who appeared there, in particular, Javy Lopez for the 2003 Braves and Sandy Alomar for the 1994 Indians.
End old stuff.
I added some statistical categories to the chart that weren't in my 1914 review. I also added the number of plate appearances for the leader in that batting order slot (PAs) to provide an indication of how stable the team's lineup was (at least when it came to that place in the order). So while you'd expect the leader for the bottom of the 1964 Houston Astros order to be low (since all the pitchers will typically bat ninth), it does show that the awful performance by the 1967 White Sox number seven hitters was a failure by committee.
So as expected, the "worst" list is quite a bit different once you add in the data for 1901 to 1913:
Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS PAs Player Pos
1st 1969 SD N 675 51 132 23 3 3 29 35 1 115 3 7 3 15 12 .196 .237 .252 .489 305 Jose Arcia 2B/SS
2nd 1908 STL N 598 52 113 13 3 1 17 26 58 1 30 17 .189 .224 .226 .450 375 Chappy Charles IF
3rd 1917 NY A 584 70 121 8 5 0 38 70 41 1 27 29 .207 .293 .238 .531 310 Fritz Maisel 2B
4th 1992 CAL A 640 61 128 19 1 16 74 29 5 113 4 2 5 6 6 .200 .237 .308 .545 287 Hubie Brooks DH
5th 1910 CHI A 557 48 97 15 5 1 40 43 76 6 28 24 .174 .241 .224 .465 154 Chick Gandil 1B
6th 1906 PHI N 539 43 108 15 3 0 46 29 46 3 26 18 .200 .245 .239 .485 359 Mickey Doolin SS
7th 1908 STL N 517 29 97 11 4 1 19 25 58 4 19 16 .188 .231 .230 .461 137 Bobby Byrne 3B
8th 1909 BRO N 527 24 81 9 2 1 21 16 73 1 20 6 .154 .180 .184 .364 373 Bill Bergen C
9th 1964 HOU N 517 22 59 7 1 1 12 28 0 194 4 24 1 0 0 .114 .165 .137 .303 83 Ken Johnson P
Two of the entries above are not only from the same year (1908), but from the same team: the St. Louis Cardinals, an outfit that scored the fewest runs per game (2.42) in major league history (ignoring two Union Association teams that played only 9 and 18 games).
If you include the short-season results from 2020, the 3rd and 7th worst spots change:
Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS PAs Player Pos
3rd 2020 TEX A 227 20 33 3 3 3 19 16 0 60 3 0 7 1 0 .145 .206 .225 .430 48 I. Kiner-Falefa 3B/SS
7th 2020 CLE A 206 18 28 6 0 5 24 21 0 71 2 2 4 1 2 .136 .219 .238 .457 59 Domingo Santana RF/LF
And yes, those plate appearance numbers for Kiner-Falefa and Santana are really low, even for a season as short as 2020.
Adding in the 1901-1913 data doesn't do anything to change the "best" list, but including more recent data gives us a new leadoff leader:
Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS PAs Player Pos
1st 2018 BOS A 665 159 221 59 6 38 99 93 8 113 9 0 6 34 9 .332 .418 .611 1.028 608 Mookie Betts RF
And if we also count the 2020 60-game results, we get this addition:
Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS PAs Player Pos
8th 2020 NY N 208 35 67 8 2 12 43 17 0 56 5 0 3 4 2 .322 .382 .553 .935 68 Andres Gimenez IF
So much for updating my previous work. But what interests me this time are the best and worst players relative to the average of the team's OPS. Were there any teams, to take an extreme example, where the ninth-place hitters had the highest OPS? Or the third-place hitter the lowest?
So without further ado, here are the two teams where the ninth slot in the order had the highest OPS on the team:
Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS PAs Player Pos 1980 MIN A 542 77 158 30 7 12 65 38 0 69 2 18 7 7 5 .292 .336 .439 .775 161 John Castino 3B 1984 MIL A 536 60 156 29 6 4 51 44 3 61 2 11 3 9 8 .291 .345 .390 .735 181 Rick Manning CF
These both hail from leagues with designated hitters, which make them less interesting. So here are the best performances by ninth-place hitters if we ignore leagues with the DH:
Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS Ratio PAs Player Pos 1915 BOS A 489 56 119 26 4 6 61 59 0 124 2 33 0 1 0 .243 .327 .350 .677 1.004 98 Rube Foster P 1918 BOS A 397 38 97 13 5 2 39 41 0 63 2 13 0 3 0 .244 .318 .317 .636 .985 118 Carl Mays P 1904 DET A 538 52 121 12 7 2 24 24 0 60 2 15 0 5 0 .225 .261 .284 .545 .953 156 Charley O'Leary SS 2015 CHI N 561 68 135 30 2 15 60 44 0 162 4 7 1 7 3 .241 .300 .381 .681 .953 437 Addison Russell 2B/SS 1910 CHI A 507 41 101 14 8 0 39 30 0 117 2 21 0 6 0 .199 .247 .258 .505 .943 144 Ed Walsh P 1917 BOS A 517 39 117 18 7 2 44 36 0 91 2 22 0 0 0 .226 .279 .300 .579 .920 133 Babe Ruth P 1901 CHI A 472 74 115 14 7 6 56 48 0 46 2 16 0 13 0 .244 .316 .341 .657 .914 131 Roy Patterson P
The Ratio is the OPS divided by the average of all nine slots. So anything over 1 is better than average for the team that year, and as you can see, that happened exactly once, courtesy of Rube Foster and Babe Ruth. One strange thing is that Babe Ruth only had 27 plate appearances while batting last in 1918, and so that Red Sox entry is primarily due to the work of Carl Mays and Bullet Joe Bush. And while Roy Patterson had the most plate appearances in the ninth slot for the 1901 White Sox, they owe their place on the chart above to Nixey Callahan and Clark Griffith.
Since pitchers typically bat last and are the weakest hitters, despite having the fewest plate appearances, the batters in the ninth spot usually have more strikeouts than any other. It's happened 1789 out of the 1885 non-DH teams since 1901 (or 94.9% of the time). Here are some unusual team leaders in various categories (including DH leagues):
CAT PL Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS PAs Player Pos
AB 5th 1914 STL N 596 71 158 29 12 10 58 31 69 5 9 18 .265 .307 .404 .711 597 Chief Wilson RF
R 7th 1985 OAK A 571 103 160 22 2 29 87 62 7 114 3 10 4 9 7 .280 .352 .478 .830 169 Mike Heath C
2B 9th 1982 DET A 547 68 142 33 3 8 57 49 0 60 0 14 7 19 8 .260 .317 .375 .692 439 Alan Trammell SS
2018 BAL A 552 62 125 33 3 10 53 31 0 162 8 5 3 13 1 .226 .276 .351 .628 223 Caleb Joseph C
HR 9th 1904 CHI A 493 45 96 12 1 4 29 37 109 3 17 6 .195 .255 .247 .503 123 Nick Altrock P
1915 BOS A 489 56 119 26 4 6 61 59 124 2 33 1 .243 .327 .350 .677 98 Rube Foster P
1915 WAS A 513 37 93 14 6 3 37 34 118 2 15 2 .181 .235 .250 .484 136 Walter Johnson P
1918 WAS A 459 29 87 11 5 2 45 25 100 3 17 1 .190 .236 .248 .485 145 Walter Johnson P
BB 9th 1977 CHI A 519 83 141 24 3 15 73 88 1 69 2 11 7 3 6 .272 .375 .416 .791 352 Jim Essian C
So only once since 1901 has the fifth spot in the lineup led the team in at-bats, or the seventh spot has led the team in runs, and so on.
It probably goes without saying that none of the teams on the home run list above hit more than a couple each season. Despite having fewer plate appearances than Nick Altrock, Frank Owen hit two home runs out of the ninth-spot for the 1904 White Sox, and they were the only two of his career. And one of the two home runs hit by the 1918 Senators was a gift to Nick Altrock during a season-ending farce in Washington. Here's how the Washington Post described it:
"Nick made the freakiest home run in the history of baseball when he got his turn at bat with two out in the eighth. McAvoy took Watson's place in the box, and did everything but hit the ball for the comedian. Nick fouled off two and then hit one that didn't have enough speed to break a pane of glass over first base. Watson made no effort to field it, and Jamieson turned a couple of somersaults before he retrieved the ball. He threw to second and Nick neglected the formality of touching the middle sack or the far corner either. Catcher Perkins made no effort to take the throw at the plate, and when Billy Evans called Nick safe it went for a home run to send the crowd into near hysterics."1
Here are some surprising (at least to me) team last-place finishes:
CAT PL Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS PAs Player Pos
R 2nd 1982 DET A 690 65 180 28 4 12 69 35 2 105 0 7 6 12 9 .261 .294 .365 .659 314 Enos Cabell 1B/3B
2015 BOS A 663 67 183 35 6 6 59 68 0 109 3 5 6 13 3 .276 .343 .374 .717 286 Dustin Pedroia 2B
H 1st 2001 BAL A 650 85 125 25 3 13 61 77 3 120 10 7 1 25 7 .192 .287 .300 .587 416 Brady Anderson LF/RF
3rd 2020 TEX A 227 20 33 3 3 3 19 16 0 60 3 0 7 1 0 .145 .206 .225 .430 48 I. Kiner-Falefa 3B/SS
SB 1st 1922 BRO N 656 85 168 32 7 5 48 53 17 2 16 2 9 .256 .314 .349 .663 362 Ivy Olson 2B/SS
1929 CLE A 625 98 170 37 8 1 49 74 43 3 14 4 19 .272 .352 .362 .713 359 Charlie Jamieson LF
1939 BOS N 652 85 179 26 5 4 41 47 37 1 7 1 4 .275 .324 .348 .672 259 Debs Garms OF/3B
1975 CIN N 678 118 218 50 4 8 78 90 8 52 11 1 1 2 1 .322 .409 .442 .851 764 Pete Rose 3B/LF
So Brady Anderson went from being one of history's greatest lead-off hitters in 1996 to one of the worst five years later.
Pete Rose actually didn't steal any bases in 1975. He started every game that season in the lead-off spot for the Reds, but the two stolen bases out of that slot in 1975 were turned in by Dave Concepcion, who replaced Rose on defense in the top of seventh on September 12th, singled in the bottom of the eighth and then stole second and third before scoring on Dan Driessen's double.
On eight occasions, the third slot in the batting order has had the lowest OPS, and on six occasions, the fourth slot finished last. All of these were in leagues with the DH.
Relative to the team's average OPS, here are the best and worst batting slots (not counting 2020) since 1901:
The best: PL Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS Ratio PAs Player Pos 1st 1905 STL A 631 85 188 26 13 7 30 62 0 30 7 9 0 29 0 .298 .367 .414 .781 1.366 598 George Stone LF 2nd 1911 CHI N 597 123 189 31 22 19 95 89 0 70 4 19 7 31 0 .317 .405 .538 .942 1.330 497 Frank Schulte RF 3rd 1923 NY A 523 151 206 46 13 41 132 170 0 94 4 3 0 17 21 .394 .545 .767 1.312 1.680 697 Babe Ruth LF/RF 4th 2004 SF N 484 138 175 39 3 48 120 233 115 59 9 0 4 7 2 .362 .571 .752 1.323 1.660 609 Barry Bonds LF 5th 1932 PHI A 588 152 214 33 9 58 169 117 0 96 0 0 0 3 7 .364 .470 .747 1.216 1.486 702 Jimmie Foxx 1B 6th 1942 NY A 566 88 184 35 5 21 113 81 0 87 0 7 0 12 5 .325 .410 .516 .925 1.256 524 Joe Gordon 2B 7th 1979 MON N 583 79 180 39 2 26 86 39 10 110 2 6 2 7 2 .309 .353 .516 .869 1.200 509 Larry Parrish 3B 8th 1981 TEX A 355 45 116 20 1 7 46 42 5 50 2 3 2 3 2 .327 .399 .448 .847 1.217 170 Jim Sundberg C 9th 1980 MIN A 542 77 158 30 7 12 65 38 0 69 2 18 7 7 5 .292 .336 .439 .775 1.108 161 John Castino 3B
The worst: PL Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS Ratio PAs Player Pos 1st 1933 STL A 651 65 124 15 6 2 41 52 0 56 2 15 0 5 11 .190 .252 .241 .494 .728 451 Art Scharein 3B/SS 2nd 1927 CHI N 622 82 141 18 5 2 40 53 0 60 1 44 0 4 0 .227 .288 .281 .570 .765 331 Woody English SS 3rd 1991 MIL A 663 80 164 24 7 6 99 50 4 83 1 8 15 14 9 .247 .295 .332 .627 .858 213 B.J. Surhoff C 4th 2009 KC A 631 72 133 23 2 13 71 54 1 157 8 0 3 3 0 .211 .280 .315 .596 .824 254 Mike Jacobs DH 5th 1982 TOR A 608 70 129 22 2 8 46 54 3 108 2 3 2 11 9 .212 .278 .294 .572 .820 107 Barry Bonnell LF/CF 6th 1936 NY N 617 47 132 14 2 6 73 28 0 63 1 13 0 0 0 .214 .249 .272 .522 .714 333 Travis Jackson 3B 7th 1902 CLE A 503 52 97 17 4 0 40 47 0 26 0 12 0 9 0 .193 .262 .243 .504 .700 505 John Gochnaur SS 8th 2015 CHI N 592 35 88 16 1 6 29 29 3 225 0 16 3 5 1 .149 .188 .209 .397 .555 73 Jake Arrieta P 9th 1951 NY N 547 31 71 6 2 4 34 29 1 146 1 39 0 2 2 .130 .175 .170 .345 .454 122 Sal Maglie P
Note the dramatic difference between these and the earlier best/worst list. The Deadball Era, for example, had six of the nine worst lineup spots and were absent from the "best" list. Once you look at their performance relative to their team's performance, we have one entry on each list.
While Woody English had the most plate appearances batting second for the 1927 Cubs, Eddie Pick is most responsible for their place on the list above, as he hit .171 with a .508 OPS in 201 plate appearances hitting second.
And much like Addison Russell's appearance on the best #9 hitters on an earlier chart, the Jake Arrieta-led group of horrible eighth-place hitters for the 2015 Cubs is due a manager (this time Joe Maddon) batting his pitcher eighth for a couple of years. So how often was this kind of thing done?
Here are the most plate-appearances by pitchers in the first seven lineup spots (the ones not listed all had less than ten):
PL PAs Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS Ratio PAs Player Pos
4th 59 1919 BOS A 483 104 148 35 14 28 118 106 0 61 6 6 0 8 0 .306 .437 .611 1.048 1.539 513 Babe Ruth LF/P
45 1918 BOS A 444 55 118 35 10 5 65 69 0 50 5 13 0 12 0 .266 .371 .423 .794 1.231 314 Babe Ruth OF/P/1B
6th 30 1953 BOS A 584 77 154 32 6 11 65 44 2 68 5 6 0 4 2 .264 .321 .396 .716 1.004 206 Tom Umphlett CF
23 1952 BOS A 583 73 142 30 2 15 75 52 4 104 4 1 0 8 5 .244 .310 .379 .689 .980 143 Dick Gernert 1B
7th 72 1956 PIT N 554 41 131 23 4 7 53 36 5 90 2 16 5 3 2 .236 .283 .330 .613 .900 107 Jack Shepard C
36 1954 WAS A 577 34 145 20 6 2 55 51 7 63 2 4 2 1 2 .251 .313 .317 .630 .937 257 Ed FitzGerald C
30 1916 WAS A 527 53 128 21 8 0 48 56 0 65 8 30 0 16 0 .243 .325 .313 .638 1.025 266 John Henry C
With the exception of the 1956 Pirates, who simply batted poor-hitting pitchers seventh, these all featured pitchers who didn't hit like their brethren, including Babe Ruth (the 1918-1919 Red Sox), Walter Johnson (the 1916 Senators), Mickey McDermott (the 1952-53 Red Sox and the 1954 Senators), Mel Parnell and Willard Nixon (the 1952-53 Red Sox). For most of major league history, there was a similar story with pitchers batting eighth. Here is the breakdown by decade of teams with pitchers getting 50 or more plate appearances batting eighth since 1901:
190x 191x 192x 193x 194x 195x 196x 197x 198x 199x 200x 201x
# 4 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 5 16
The four instances during the Deadball Era all involved either good-hitting pitchers or poor-hitting catchers. The next time this happened was with the 1957 Kansas City Athletics, under the guidance of manager Lou Boudreau, who had his pitchers, regardless of hitting ability, bat eighth during the first few months of the season. After him, no manager would try that strategy again on even a modest scale until Tony LaRussa with the 1998 St. Louis Cardinals.
Here are all the teams with 100 or more plate appearance by pitchers in the eighth spot in the order:
PAs Year Team Manager(s) 162 1904 DET A Ed Barrow Bobby Lowe 159 1957 KC A Lou Boudreau 191 1998 STL N Tony LaRussa 116 2007 STL N Tony LaRussa 379 2008 STL N Tony LaRussa 137 2009 STL N Tony LaRussa 192 2010 STL N Tony LaRussa 134 2015 CIN N Bryan Price 340 2015 CHI N Joe Maddon 124 2017 CHI N Joe Maddon 209 2018 CIN N Bryan Price Jim Riggleman 107 2018 CHI N Joe Maddon 111 2018 NY N Mickey Callaway
After his experiment in 1998 with batting his poorest hitters eighth, LaRusso abandoned the strategy until he dusted it off in 2007 before going all in during 2008. He would toy with this novelty off and on for two more years before (mostly) giving it up during his last year at the helm of the Cards. Joe Maddon and Bryan Price rediscovered it in 2015, followed by Jim Riggleman and Mickey Callaway three years later.
Since I've been talking about eighth and ninth-place hitters, I thought I'd show the records in a number of offensive categories for non-DH leagues for these two slots. First, eighth-place:
CAT Tot Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS Ratio PAs Player Pos
AB 611 1970 SF N 611 51 141 17 2 3 61 41 10 68 2 5 4 2 3 .231 .280 .280 .560 .742 460 Hal Lanier SS
R 100 1930 STL N 569 100 169 38 10 5 77 53 37 2 13 5 0 .297 .359 .425 .784 .933 365 Charlie Gelbert SS
H 189 1934 DET A 564 88 189 30 8 5 86 70 51 4 8 6 4 .335 .412 .443 .855 1.074 351 Marv Owen 3B
2B 47 1931 CHI N 572 74 172 47 7 4 84 64 50 0 9 2 0 .301 .371 .428 .799 1.024 221 Charlie Grimm 1B
3B 15 1903 BOS A 491 63 111 15 15 5 51 36 49 4 17 7 .226 .284 .348 .633 .903 357 Lou Criger C
1921 CIN N 527 46 146 19 15 3 63 44 27 4 10 6 6 .277 .337 .387 .724 1.035 187 Irv Wingo C
1929 PIT N 586 59 163 23 15 1 84 36 38 2 13 2 0 .278 .322 .374 .696 .879 349 C. Hargreaves C
HR 30 2019 ARI N 544 78 124 27 1 30 88 86 16 158 12 2 3 5 1 .228 .344 .447 .791 1.050 291 Carson Kelly C
RBI 112 1938 NY A 575 84 152 32 11 18 112 63 77 1 5 11 3 .264 .338 .452 .790 .978 410 Joe Gordon 2B
BB 111 1929 STL A 481 77 124 20 7 6 66 111 32 7 11 3 5 .258 .404 .366 .770 1.056 277 Wally Schang C
1947 BRO N 516 72 123 16 4 11 67 111 65 1 2 4 0 .238 .374 .349 .723 .970 270 Pee Wee Reese SS
IBB 33 1967 CHI N 523 80 134 21 8 19 79 90 33 109 8 6 2 25 10 .256 .372 .436 .808 1.167 535 Adolfo Phillips CF
SO 225 2015 CHI N 592 35 88 16 1 6 29 29 3 225 0 16 3 5 1 .149 .188 .209 .397 .555 73 Jake Arrieta P
SB 37 1914 NY A 521 53 118 16 3 0 40 61 77 3 7 37 .226 .311 .269 .580 .971 193 Luke Boone 2B
1977 PIT N 556 64 148 28 7 5 47 68 22 96 5 7 4 37 13 .266 .349 .369 .718 .969 209 Omar Moreno CF
While Luke Boone did have the most plate appearances for the 1914 Yankees, Fritz Maisel stole more than half of the bases in the eighth slot that year.
And ninth:
CAT Tot Year Team AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS Ratio PAs Player Pos
AB 586 1929 PIT N 586 60 123 24 8 7 74 24 0 94 1 11 0 1 0 .210 .242 .314 .556 .703 114 Erv Brame P
R 82 1911 PHI A 550 82 129 14 3 2 52 23 0 108 3 23 0 7 0 .235 .269 .282 .551 .731 152 Jack Coombs P
H 152 2008 STL N 569 71 152 19 4 2 40 43 3 57 5 8 4 17 8 .267 .322 .325 .647 .832 315 Cesar Izturis SS
2B 30 2009 CIN N 526 44 97 30 2 7 41 31 1 179 3 56 2 3 1 .184 .233 .289 .522 .737 76 Bronson Arroyo P
2015 CHI N 561 68 135 30 2 15 60 44 0 162 4 7 1 7 3 .241 .300 .381 .681 .953 437 Addison Russell 2B/SS
2019 SF N 550 55 107 30 2 13 50 39 0 253 2 18 1 2 1 .195 .250 .327 .577 .834 70 M. Bumgarner P
3B 14 1921 PIT N 541 56 102 14 14 0 33 25 0 96 3 21 0 3 3 .189 .228 .266 .495 .694 131 Wilbur Cooper P
HR 22 2019 ARI N 562 62 105 16 1 22 72 34 3 220 5 27 1 6 1 .187 .239 .336 .576 .764 60 Robbie Ray P
RBI 81 1930 STL N 545 72 129 23 1 7 81 37 0 150 1 38 0 1 0 .237 .286 .321 .608 .723 98 Bill Hallahan P
BB 72 1960 CHI A 483 43 86 10 2 3 51 72 5 139 3 30 6 2 1 .178 .285 .226 .511 .694 98 Early Wynn P
IBB 8 1967 CHI A 525 28 80 6 2 4 38 27 8 152 5 26 3 1 2 .152 .200 .194 .394 .649 106 Gary Peters P
1975 MON N 545 38 102 9 1 4 36 56 8 159 1 27 3 1 4 .187 .263 .229 .492 .744 92 Steve Rogers P
1983 LA N 546 37 98 14 1 8 44 23 8 158 1 35 1 0 2 .179 .214 .253 .466 .674 105 F. Valenzuela P
SO 271 1968 NY N 548 26 71 6 0 4 23 25 0 271 1 20 1 2 1 .130 .169 .162 .331 .560 101 Tom Seaver P
SB 31 2015 CIN N 566 48 96 13 2 4 36 27 0 178 4 16 3 31 6 .170 .212 .221 .433 .616 226 Billy Hamilton CF
2018 CIN N 554 72 119 17 7 6 37 48 0 174 1 14 3 31 6 .215 .277 .303 .580 .801 412 Billy Hamilton CF
I'm starting to think that showing the player with the most plate appearances doesn't work so well for this chart. A few examples why: Madison Bumgarner did not hit any doubles for San Francisco in 2019, but Pablo Sandoval hit ten in just 48 at-bats while batting ninth; Robbie Ray didn't hit any home runs for Arizona in 2019, but teammates Carson Kelly and Kevin Cron combined to hit nine in just 57 at-bats out of the ninth spot that year; and it will probably surprise no one that Steve Rogers and Fernando Valenzuela weren't walked intentionally even once during the years above.
Next, I wanted to look at batting order stability. What teams continually tinkered with their lineups throughout a season, and which ones settled on a lineup and stuck to it? Obviously injuries (and talent) play a large role in this. A manager without a lot of established talent on his hand might spend an entire season looking for a combination that worked.
So what I did was determine the percentage of a team's total plate appearances that were taken by the players who appeared most often in each of the nine positions in the batting order. First, I looked at the hundred most and least stable teams (at least by this measurement) and broke them down by decade. In other words, is baseball getting more or less stable over the last 120 year?
190x 191x 192x 193x 194x 195x 196x 197x 198x 199x 200x 201x
Most 16 23 19 19 1 2 4 7 2 5 2 0
Least 2 2 0 1 4 9 15 8 4 7 16 32
Clearly, managers are shuffling around their batting orders, if not their personnel, much more than they used to. Here are the ten most and least stable lineups. The most stable:
Year Team Tot Reg Pct W L PL 1903 BOS A 5351 4399 .822 91 47 1 1906 CHI N 5763 4731 .821 116 36 1 1917 CHI A 5876 4568 .777 100 54 1 1925 CHI A 6168 4766 .773 79 75 5 1912 BOS A 5876 4509 .767 105 47 1 1933 NY A 6071 4643 .765 91 59 2 1927 NY A 6220 4738 .762 110 44 1 1934 STL A 5923 4503 .760 67 85 6 1902 PHI A 5272 3990 .757 83 53 1 1921 BOS N 5984 4524 .756 79 74 4
Obviously, it's easier to stick with the same lineup when you have a great one to begin with, but I thought it was interesting that the 1934 Browns did the same with a losing team.
The most stable lineup from this century is the 2007 Detroit Tigers, in 71st place at .680. And to find one after 2009, you need to go down to the 2012 Chicago White Sox, tied for 154th place at .639.
The least stable:
Year Team Tot Reg Pct W L PL 2019 SF N 6170 1439 .233 77 85 3 2008 OAK A 6138 1494 .243 75 86 3 2018 NY N 6177 1542 .250 77 85 3 2018 SF N 6113 1526 .250 73 89 4 1980 MIN A 6130 1540 .251 77 84 3 2018 TB A 6194 1558 .252 90 72 3 2018 LA N 6358 1630 .256 92 71 1 1976 MON N 5992 1545 .258 55 107 6 2014 SD N 5904 1531 .259 77 85 3 2012 HOU N 6012 1572 .261 55 107 6 1902 NY N 5021 1330 .265 48 88 8
I turned the top-ten into a top-eleven list to include at least one team from before the start of divisional play in 1969. Of course, the 1902 Giants were a special case, with John McGraw moving himself along with some of his Baltimore Orioles teammates to the Giants in the middle of the year. And people who have been paying closer attention than I have to the last few seasons might know the reason why four teams from 2018 are among the seven least stable since 1901.
Next, I thought I'd show what the most and least stable teams look like, broken down by each spot in the order. For each of those, I've given the breakdown of plate appearances by defensive position along with the player with the most.
The most stable team since 1901:
Year Team PL P C 1B 2B 3B SS LF CF RF DH PH PAB Player Pos 1903 BOS A 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 652 0 0 0 0 643 Patsy Dougherty LF 1903 BOS A 2 0 0 0 0 636 0 0 0 0 0 0 582 Jimmy Collins 3B 1903 BOS A 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 628 0 0 0 328 Chick Stahl CF 1903 BOS A 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 613 0 0 611 Buck Freeman RF 1903 BOS A 5 0 0 0 8 0 589 0 0 0 0 0 588 Freddy Parent SS 1903 BOS A 6 0 0 583 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 583 Candy LaChance 1B 1903 BOS A 7 0 0 0 557 0 8 0 0 0 0 0 563 Hobe Ferris 2B 1903 BOS A 8 0 538 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 357 Lou Criger C 1903 BOS A 9 507 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 22 144 Cy Young P
It would be an understatement to say that manager Jimmy Collins liked a fixed lineup. With the exception of the double header on September 26th, (where the shortstop and second-baseman swapped positions), Collins' lineup had the same progression of defensive positions in every game: LF, 3B, CF, RF, SS, 1B, 2B, C and P. The nine players listed above made a combined total of two plate appearances all year in a batting order position other than their regular one. And when third-place hitter Chick Stahl was out for two months, Collins put his substitute, Jack O'Brien, into the third slot in the order, despite O'Brien being a significantly poorer hitter than Stahl.
The least stable:
Year Team PL P C 1B 2B 3B SS LF CF RF DH PH PAB Player Pos 2019 SF N 1 0 0 141 282 0 46 55 46 172 0 16 200 Joe Panik 2B 2019 SF N 2 0 101 169 56 6 29 165 35 151 5 24 171 Mike Yastrzemski LF/RF 2019 SF N 3 1 196 83 4 283 2 62 39 15 9 27 202 Evan Longoria 3B 2019 SF N 4 1 193 196 4 153 0 133 0 4 5 10 164 Brandon Belt 1B/LF 2019 SF N 5 0 100 28 21 171 147 38 130 25 10 14 147 Brandon Crawford SS 2019 SF N 6 1 18 19 34 61 165 69 176 97 8 25 219 Kevin Pillar CF/RF 2019 SF N 7 0 17 38 49 8 172 72 164 108 9 14 172 Brandon Crawford SS 2019 SF N 8 6 55 12 205 8 92 62 72 96 0 25 94 Joe Panik 2B 2019 SF N 9 278 14 14 30 6 14 25 12 13 0 204 70 M. Bumgarner P
And finally, I mentioned above that the awful showing by the 1967 White Sox number seven hitters was a failure by committee. But what about teams that hit well by committee? Ignoring strike-shortened seasons (and 2020), here are the five batting order slots with the highest OPS where no one player contributed more than 200 plate appearances:
Year Team PL AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS PAs Player 1930 STL N 6 621 106 214 40 15 15 134 42 0 54 4 10 0 4 0 .345 .390 .530 .920 196 George Watkins 1996 MIL A 6 627 98 188 43 4 37 130 57 8 122 4 2 5 1 5 .300 .359 .558 .918 191 Matt Mieske 1928 PIT N 6 574 99 204 27 12 10 109 59 0 38 3 23 0 11 0 .355 .418 .497 .915 165 George Grantham 1975 BOS A 6 593 96 183 35 11 25 118 67 7 82 4 3 5 7 11 .309 .380 .531 .911 173 Carlton Fisk 1939 STL N 7 571 78 188 43 7 18 103 52 0 51 1 20 0 9 0 .329 .386 .524 .910 164 Don Gutteridge
Here's a look at the players who contributed more than ten plate appearances to three of the teams above. First, the 1930 St. Louis Cardinals:
Player AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS George Watkins 188 33 71 11 4 6 45 6 16 1 1 1 .378 .400 .574 .974 Charlie Gelbert 142 24 47 8 6 1 27 9 9 2 5 1 .331 .379 .493 .872 Showboat Fisher 121 23 44 12 2 5 32 16 9 0 3 1 .364 .438 .620 1.058 Ernie Orsatti 69 14 26 5 2 1 8 6 11 1 0 1 .377 .434 .551 .985 Homer Peel 54 5 8 1 0 0 8 2 1 0 1 0 .148 .179 .167 .345 Ray Blades 27 3 9 2 1 1 5 2 6 0 0 0 .333 .379 .593 .972
Next, the 1996 Milwaukee Brewers:
Player AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS Matt Mieske 171 20 49 14 2 8 34 16 2 30 1 0 3 0 4 .287 .346 .532 .878 Jose Valentin 159 24 41 11 1 11 32 14 4 42 0 1 0 1 1 .258 .318 .547 .865 John Jaha 124 23 40 3 1 10 29 12 0 24 1 0 0 0 0 .323 .387 .605 .992 Marc Newfield 70 8 23 9 0 1 11 1 0 9 1 0 2 0 0 .329 .338 .500 .838 Dave Nilsson 42 10 15 3 0 5 14 4 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 .357 .413 .786 1.199 Jeff Cirillo 28 9 12 2 0 1 6 5 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 .429 .529 .607 1.137 Turner Ward 19 2 4 0 0 1 3 3 0 7 0 1 0 0 0 .211 .318 .368 .687
And finally, the 1975 Boston Red Sox:
Player AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IB SO HP SH SF SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS Carlton Fisk 152 26 52 8 2 7 35 18 2 22 2 0 1 3 2 .342 .416 .559 .975 Dwight Evans 106 21 32 6 4 6 24 12 0 14 2 0 1 2 2 .302 .380 .604 .984 Rico Petrocelli 97 11 26 6 0 1 16 15 1 12 0 0 0 0 0 .268 .366 .361 .727 Cecil Cooper 85 17 37 7 3 8 20 6 4 10 0 0 0 1 2 .435 .473 .871 1.343 Juan Beniquez 28 3 9 1 0 0 3 0 0 3 0 2 1 1 0 .321 .310 .357 .667 Bob Montgomery 27 2 4 2 0 0 4 1 0 5 0 0 0 0 1 .148 .179 .222 .401 Bernie Carbo 27 7 8 2 0 1 4 6 0 6 0 0 0 0 2 .296 .424 .481 .906 Rick Miller 20 1 4 0 0 0 5 3 0 4 0 0 0 0 2 .200 .304 .200 .504 Tony Conigliaro 15 3 1 1 0 0 1 3 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 .067 .211 .133 .344
Notes:
1J.V. Fitz Gerald, "Griff's Men Break Even To Finish Third In League Race As Baseball Suspends." The Washington Post. September 3, 1918. Page 8.
In 1957, the Kansas City A's had no pitchers qualify for the ERA title. If we use the modern criteria of at least one inning pitched for each scheduled game (and ignore teams that didn't either finish or start a season), it was a first in major league history. It would not happen again until the 1995 St. Louis Cardinals. Here is a capsule summary of how often this has occurred throughout major league history:
Year(s) - # 1871-1994 - 1 1995-1998 - 4 1999-2005 - 0 2006-2011 - 2 2012-2015 - 3 2016 - 2 2017 - 5 2018 - 5 2019 - 4 2020 - 6
So it happened twelve times up through 2016 and twenty times from 2017 to 2020. Here are the first ten teams without any qualifiers:
Year Team IP Closest pitcher(s)
1957 KC A 145.1 Ned Garver
1995 STL N 137.1 Mark Petkovsek
1996 OAK A 161.1 Don Wengert
1997 OAK A 134 Don Wengert
1998 STL N 161.2 Kent Mercker
2006 TB A 144.2 Scott Kazmir
2009 CLE A 152 Cliff Lee
2012 COL N 113 Jeff Francis
2013 HOU A 153.2 Lucas Harrell
Dallas Keuchel
2015 COL N 149 Jorge de la Rosa
The fewest innings pitched for the team leader in a 154 or 162 game schedule was 102.1 by Trevor Cahill for the 2019 Angels .
Here are the average number of times a pitcher faced the same batter in a game, along with the percentage of the batters he faced only once:
Years All Starters Relievers
BFP %1 BFP %1 BFP %1
1920s 2.489 34.1 3.086 15.3 1.459 66.6
1930s 2.447 35.6 3.082 15.3 1.438 68.0
1940s 2.347 38.8 3.008 16.3 1.367 72.1
1950s 2.126 45.6 2.842 18.4 1.273 78.1
1960s 1.985 49.9 2.755 17.0 1.175 84.6
1970s 2.066 46.6 2.868 13.0 1.198 82.9
1980s 1.955 49.4 2.812 10.3 1.154 85.9
1990s 1.834 55.0 2.774 8.3 1.080 92.5
2000s 1.762 57.9 2.730 6.9 1.047 95.5
2010s 1.695 59.6 2.636 6.8 1.037 96.5
The 1920s data starts with 1926 and I'm not including 2020 since they played that season with minor-league length double-headers and artificially shortened extra-inning games due to the addition of magical runners at the start of each half-inning, two things that would tend to reduce these kinds of things a small amount.
Here is the drop-off since 2014, along with the data for the 1930s:
Years All Starters Relievers
BFP %1 BFP %1 BFP %1
1930s 2.447 35.6 3.082 15.3 1.438 68.0
2014 1.751 57.8 2.712 5.3 1.030 97.2
2015 1.709 59.1 2.649 6.5 1.031 97.1
2016 1.672 60.2 2.606 6.5 1.033 96.9
2017 1.642 60.9 2.562 6.7 1.036 96.6
2018 1.598 62.4 2.483 8.9 1.046 95.8
2019 1.568 63.6 2.432 10.6 1.057 94.9
Each year since 2015 has set a new low for the fewest times each pitcher has faced the same batter. But something is strange: the percentage of batters facing a starter only once was much higher during the 1930s than it is today, even with the uptick since 2018. Here is the breakdown of the number of batter-starter matchups since the 1920s:
Years 1 2 3 4 5+ 1920s 15.3 14.8 25.0 36.6 8.2 1930s 15.3 14.8 25.3 36.3 8.3 1940s 16.3 15.4 26.6 35.0 6.6 1950s 18.4 18.1 28.9 30.5 4.1 1960s 17.0 20.4 34.9 25.8 2.0 1970s 13.0 19.1 37.9 27.9 2.0 1980s 10.3 21.7 45.4 21.8 0.9 1990s 8.3 22.1 53.7 15.8 0.2 2000s 6.9 23.2 60.0 9.9 0.0 2010s 6.8 28.3 59.6 5.4 0.0
Here are the teams with the highest percentage of starters facing a batter only once:
Year Team 1 2 3 4 5+ 2018 TB A 34.5 34.0 30.4 1.1 0.0 2019 TB A 26.7 35.6 37.0 0.7 0.0 1945 STL N 23.7 14.1 20.1 37.4 4.6 1958 LA N 23.2 22.4 27.6 24.7 2.2 1957 NY N 22.9 20.7 28.8 24.4 3.4
Ryne Stanek started 56 times in 2018 and 2019 and here is his record as a starter in those years:
G GS CG SHO IP H R ER BB SO W L ERA 56 56 0 0 83 57 27 25 31 102 0 3 2.71
I found it kind of amazing that in his 56 starts his team only went behind to stay on three occasions. His career high in innings pitched (up through 2020) is two.
And finally, here is a similar chart with the number of batter-pitcher match-ups for relief pitchers:
Years 1 2 3 4 5+ 1920s 66.6 23.1 8.3 1.8 0.2 1930s 68.0 22.4 7.7 1.7 0.2 1940s 72.1 20.3 6.3 1.2 0.1 1950s 78.1 17.2 4.0 0.7 0.0 1960s 84.6 13.4 1.8 0.2 0.0 1970s 82.9 14.7 2.2 0.2 0.0 1980s 85.9 12.8 1.2 0.1 0.0 1990s 92.5 7.1 0.4 0.0 0.0 2000s 95.5 4.3 0.2 0.0 0.0 2010s 96.5 3.3 0.2 0.0 0.0
As expected, there has been a steady decline in the number of longer relief outings.
Yesterday, Stew Thornley saw Iowa beat Minnesota 18-4 and:
"In the seventh inning, Iowa sent nine batters to the plate and scored five runs on a single, hit batter, five walks, and two sacrifice flies, the latter being an inning-ending double play as the runner on second was doubled off but not before the runner from third crossed the plate. This is something I've long looked for: a complete half-inning in which a team had a batting average of 1.000."
That got me wondering just how rare that was in Retrosheet's collection of play-by-play event files (sorry, no negro leagues data yet), which at present covers all of the post-season and All-Star games, incomplete regular season accounts from 1914 to 1920, and complete seasons (including deduced files as late as 1972) since 1921. And the short answer is that it's rare, but not extremely rare. The Cubs did it twice in fourth game of the 1906 World Series alone (the 7th and 9th innings). Retrosheet has a total of 873 instances of these, including twice from 2022:
Game Team Inn Play strings 2022-08-12 SF N 2 HR/F78XD S7/G5 S7/L7.1-2 53/SH/BG25.2-3;1-2 7/SF/DP/F7L.3-H;2X3(75646) 2022-09-25 PHI N 5 W D7/F7LS.1-3 9/SF/F89XD.3-H;2-3 9/SF/F9LS.3-H W D7/F7D.1XH(862)
The most hits a team has had in one of these innings is eight, done three times:
Game Team Inn Play strings 1928-07-14(1) CHI A 2 T9 S7.3-H S7.1-2 54/SH.2-3;1-2 S7.3-H;2-H D7.1-H S7.2-3 S/BR.3-3;1X2(4) S9.3-H;1-3;BX2(94) 1941-09-06(2) CHI A 1 S8 S6/G.1-2 14/SH.2-3;1-2 D7.3-H;2-H D7.2-H S9.2XH(92);B-2 HR/7.2-H S7/L W.1-2 S9.2-H;1X3(95) 1970-06-24 MON N 5 S7/78 D9/9D.1-H(E9)(NR) S8/G.2-H;B-2(THH) S8/G.2-H 24/SH.1-2 WP.2-3 S8/G.3-H S9.1X3(95);B-2(TH3) S9.2-3;B-2(THH) S7.3-H;2-H;BX2(743)
(Hopefully the play strings make some sense to those of us unfamiliar with Retrosheet's event file syntax.)
But what if you only look at the innings where a team had no official at-bats? Well, that has happened once in the World Series (the first entry below) and only 26 other times in our collection of regular season games, most recently in 2020, courtesy of the idiotic extra-inning runner who starts each inning on second base. Here's the complete list:
Game Team Inn Play strings 1911-10-17 NY N 10 W 13/SH.1-2 OA.2X3(25) W CS2(24) 1914-05-15 BRO N 8 W 99/SH.1-2 CS3(99) W CS2(99) 1914-07-10(1) CLE A 4 W E1/SH/TH2.1-2 13/SH.2-3;1-2 8/SF/DP.3-H(UR);2X3(815) 1916-07-04(1) WAS A 4 W 13/SH.1-2 CS3(25) W PO1(13) 1917-05-22 CLE A 3 W 13/SH.1-2 13/SH/DP.2XH(32) 1922-05-27(1) CIN N 4 HP 13/SH.1-2 W 13/SH/DP.1-2;2XH(12) 1922-06-09 BRO N 5 W E2/TH1/SH.1-2 14/SH.2-3;1-2 IW 7/SF.3-H(UR);2-3;1-2 CSH(12) 1923-06-01(2) PHI A 5 W 99/SH.1-2 PO2(24) W CS2(24) 1923-06-04 BRO N 9 W PB.1-2 W 13/SH.2-3;1-2 W 9/SF.3-H(UR) CS2(24)# 1925-06-03 CHI A 6 HP W.1-2 34/SH.2-3;1-2 8/L/SF.3-H;2-3 W CS2(24) 1927-06-01 BRO N 2 W 34/SH.1-2 8/SF.2-3 W CSH(262) 1929-08-10(2) BRO N 8 W 13/SH.1-2 W CS2(24).2-3# W PO1(13) 1930-04-22 NY A 9 W 13/SH.1-2 8/FDP/SF.2XH(842) 1957-08-04(1) NY N 14 W 34/SH.1-2 IW W.2-3;1-2 7/SF/DP.3-H;1X1(753) 1958-05-20 LA N 4 W W.1-2 W.2-3;1-2 9/SF/L.3-H;2-3 8/SF.3-H CS2(24) 1958-06-22(2) CHI N 5 W FC/SH.1-2 54/SH.2-3;1-2 9/SF/DP.3-H;2X3(935) 1958-08-17 BAL A 5 W E3/SH.1-2 13/SH.1-2;2-3 4(B)25(2)/SF/DP.3-H(UR) 1959-04-17 BAL A 8 W W.1-2 13/SH.2-3;1-2 IW 8/SF.3-H;2-3 CSH(242)# 1961-04-15 DET A 5 W WP.1-2 W 14/SH.2-3;1-2 IW PO3(25)/DP.2X3(546) 1967-09-20 BOS A 5 W 23/SH.1-2 PB.2-3 W PO3(25) CS2(26) 1969-06-21 NY N 6 W W.1-2 13/SH.2-3;1-2 5/SF/DP.3-H;2X3(524) 1981-09-07 LA N 6 HP W.1-2 23/SH.2-3;1-2 IW 9/SF/DP.3-H;1X2(9343) 1983-05-30 OAK A 8 W SB2 W 54/SH.2-3;1-2 8/SF.3-H;2-3 IW POCSH(252) 2002-06-21 MON N 6 W 3/SH.1-2 IW 7/SF.2-H SB2 W CS3(25) 2002-09-22 PHI N 8 W HP.1-2 14/SH.2-3;1-2 8/SF/DP.3-H;2X3(835) 2006-05-19 MIL N 3 W W.1-2 14/SH/BG.2-3;1-2 7/SF/DP.3-H;2X3(754) 2020-07-25 KC A 10 54/SH/BG-.2-3 8/SF/L.3-H(UR) W CS2(24)