Fun With Retrosheet: Do Only Slow Runners Ground into a Lot of DPs?

There was a discussion recently on SABR-L about whether we can reliably determine that a player was slow from his offensive statistics. Several markers were proposed: low stolen base totals, a poor SB success rate, and few triples were some of those that were mentioned. So was a high number of grounded into double-plays (GIDP). […]

Multiple Hitting Streaks

While writing another article, I noticed that on April 18, 1931, Freddie Lindstrom and Mel Ott both extended long hitting streaks at the Baker Bowl, Lindstrom hitting in his 36th straight game there and Ott in his 29th straight. Of course, a hitting streak in a specific ball park is a rather obscure record and […]

Fun With Retrosheet: Nelson Cruz Made Me Do It

Normally, I try to find someone else to blame for suggesting one of these posts, but this silly one is all mine. After noticing that Nelson Cruz had seven RBIs in the eleventh innings of Texas’ playoff series with the Tigers, I wondered what player had the most extra-inning HRs and RBIs in a season […]

Fun With Retrosheet: League Leaders With the Fewest Games Played

Cliff Blau recently mentioned to me that Vince Barton led the NL in getting hit by pitches in 1931 despite playing only 66 games and wondered what were the fewest games for players leading their respective leagues in a hitting category. So since major league baseball returned to a 150+ game schedule in 1904 (and […]

Fun With Retrosheet: Players With The Highest Percentage of Post-Season Homers

A quick one today: here are the players who have hit the highest percentage of their home runs during the post-season: Player First Last REG POST PCT Mickey Lolich 1963 1979 0 1 1.0000 Don Gullett 1970 1978 0 1 1.0000 Joe Blanton 2004 2011 0 1 1.0000 Paul Goldschmidt 2011 2011 8 2 .2000 […]

Fun With Retrosheet: Come-From-Behind Batting Champions, An Update

John Pastier was wondering (among other things) about the record for the most days leading the league in batting average without winning the title. Here’s the list: Player Year LED DNL DNQ First Last Pete Reiser 1942 131 36 0 5-11 9-24 Lenny Dykstra 1990 125 37 10 5-11 9-14 Larry Walker 1997 124 57 […]

Fun With Retrosheet: Come-From-Behind Batting Champions

Trent McCotter sent me a note yesterday pointing out that Matt Kemp has very nearly closed a recent 19-point gap in the NL batting race as part of his three-prong effort to capture the triple-crown. Which got us to wondering about the largest deficits overcome by batting champions. Since 1918, here they are: Days ToGo […]