TRIVIA 2020

i'm going to be very sad when i run out of random old baseball games on youtube to watch

answer to the triples > HR question:

1979 astros

I was sure it was the '85 or '87 Cards, and if not them, one of those late 70's or early 80's Royals teams? I wasn't close to thinking of the right answer, but having seen it then of course it makes perfect sense.

shows how much has changed, i guess. 85/87 cards were too early for me to have but the fuzziest memories of, but i remember the (also extremely weak) '91 cardinals so well, watching every single game i could. now, it's kind of unfathomable for a team to have more triples than HRs.

just checking for 2021, the highest ratio of triples to homeruns was...

overall for baseball (2021), there were 671 triples and 5,944 HRs, for a 0.113 ratio.

the pirates came in highest (or worse), with 35 triples vs 124 HRs (.282). ARI was next highest, with 31/144/.215.
on the other side, the blue jays had only 13 triples vs 262 HRs, putting them at 0.050.

Checked a few early HOF'ers (Cobb, Speaker, Sam Crawford) and, as expected, they all had more career triples than HR--many more. I suppose that, on a timeline of when they played, Ruth was the first HOF'er with the reverse.

i know it's impossible, but i wish there was crystal clear, HD footage of one game of 1890s-era baseball. the spitball, drinking and smoking, the murder of the home plate umpire, everything

Rod Carew has to be the last HOF'er with more triples than HR (119-92). Gwynn, Boggs, and even Ichiro all had more HR.

Gwynn and Boggs weren't know for speed tho. Thinking to the "hall of very good", no one comes to mind for me. i checked Lofton and he was also HR>3b

tim raines
113 triples, 170 HRs

oh wait, I KNOW

THE WIZARD

69 triples, 28 HRs (and every single one of those the best moment of the day)

Great! Should have thought of him. He'll surely be the last, unless there's some sea-change. My first guest, by the way, was only half-a-century off: Paul Waner, who retired in '45. Then I found Nellie Fox, then Carew.

"He'll surely be the last"

see, i doubt that! i think of billy hamilton, especially - someone who would be so valuable, considering his speed and defense, that he could be HOF worthy - if ONLY HE COULD HIT AT ALL! but i can easily imagine someone like him coming along that is an above-average contact hitter with zero power and just flies around the bases

however, it should be noted that i'm always rooting for this kind of player to exist, even among minor league prospects i follow. i think it's the most identifiable kind of player to me

or relatable, i meant

juan pierre: 94 triples, 18 homers

Brett Butler 131:54

Willie Wilson: 147:41

but hall of famers, no

though i guess butler and wilson came a lot closer than i thought!

I don’t think either got many votes.

That's it--there'll be lots of players who do it, but I just don't see anyone who'll be HOF-bound. If you don't hit at least a few homers today--10+ a season, say--you have to do a whole bunch else well to keep a job: hit for a high average, get on base a lot, not strike out, steal bases, play a key defensive position well. To end up in the Hall, you'd have to do them exceptionally well.

Having said that, Ichiro came very close: 96 triples, 117 HR. If his career hadn't partly been spent in the PED era, maybe those numbers would be reversed.

with ichiro, there's also the 1992 (?! - amazing to imagine him playing pro in 1992, at 18) to 2000 stats, where he was hitting 15-25 HRs a year while usually putting up around 5 triples or so per year.

also one sort of gets the sense that ichiro *could* have hit more homers if he'd wanted to -- he just didn't bother

i mean, not really, but still

They always said the same thing about Carew and Boggs, too (don't remember specifically hearing it about Gwynn). Carew had a couple of years where he hit 14, Boggs had his big year with 24 (a huge HR year across both leagues, it should be pointed out), and Gwynn got up to 16 and 17 late in his career (same caveat: outset of the PED era). Who knows?

I’m trying to think of what active players have succeeded the best with a 3b>hr ratio. Jarred Dyson is the only guy that comes to mind, but I’m sure there’s a better example.

Posted those two questions in a FB group, and someone responded with this piece:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29222915/tim-kurkjian-baseball-fix-hard-believe-history-triple

In 1943, Stan Musial had 20 triples and 18 strikeouts.

By the way: I was looking at the '79 Astros, and they didn't have a single player hit 10 or more HR. Has that been done since? They had a winning record, too. And two players who were at the opposite ends of player evaluation in the earliest Abstracts: Jose Cruz (sabermetric hero) and Enos Cabell (sabermetric villain). And, except for walks--a big "except," I know--their '79 batting lines were virtually the same.

Jayson Nix was a blue jay?!

Most times retired by each given fielder, MLB history:

𝙱. 𝚁𝚘𝚋𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚘𝚗
𝙱𝚘𝚐𝚐𝚜 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝

𝙰𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚘 𝚁𝚘𝚜𝚎
𝙿𝚞𝚓𝚘𝚕𝚜 𝚁𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚈𝚊𝚣
𝙰𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚗

— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) March 10, 2022

the wording of this is a little unclear, but for example, this means that albert pujols has hit into more outs to 3B than any other player. interesting that hank aaron popped out to catcher so much! (also, of course, he had a hell of a lot of PAs, as did rose...all these guys did, obv)

you know it had to happen.... interestingly doesn't include WAR as a category

WARdle #3 - 4/8

⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

https://wardle.app

lol of course. (got it on my 8th try)

NL starting lineup, 1969 All-Star game (with manager, no pitcher):

https://phildellio.tripod.com/lineup.jpg

I got the three obvious ones plus one more, then accidentally looked at the list of names before trying any more. I think I would have got 7 or 8 out of the 9.

Here are the answers, you can check them yourself: Red Schoendienst, Matty Alou, Don Kessinger, Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey, Ron Santo, Cleon Jones, Johnny Bench, and Felix Millan.

i don't know the answer to this, but what is the team (which team, which year) that had the most hall of famers on the roster at the same time? I'm assuming the 1927 yankees are way up there. But what about the modern era? is it some 90s or early 2000s yankees team?

current cardinals team has about 3. pujols (100% hof), yadier molina (98%, i am not saying he deserves it, please don't throw things at me), arenado and goldschmidt (i can imagine both making it, i can imagine neither one making it. let's say one of them makes it), and wainwright (i think he still has very little chance, but if he did manage to put in a couple more strong years before retiring, he might have a veteran's committee chance in like 40 years)

These are the some of the teams I'd check:

'27 Yankees
'30 A's
'41 or '47 Yankees
'55 Dodgers
'67 Cardinals
'70 Orioles
'75 Reds
'98 Yankees

'98 yankees are surprisingly light! jeter and a late-career tim raines on the batting side, only rivera on the pitching side, i think? in addition to those three, they had kind of astounding number of hall of the very good kinds of players - david cone, david wells, paul o'neill, bernie williams, knoblauch, strawberry

'55 dodgers seem to have 6:

jackie robinson, duke snider, campanella, pee wee reese, and now gil hodges. only one pitcher (a young koufax) unless you also count nutrition shake expert tommy lasorda

The most I found was the '55 Dodgers with seven: Robinson, Campanella, Snider, Reese, Hodges, Koufax, and, with 4 GP and zero PA, Tommy Lasorda (Walt Alston would make eight, plus one or two in the front office, probably). But the real answer, according to a Reddit thread, is nine:

1) "The Yankees from 1928 had 9 HoFer's: Earle Combs, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, Babe Ruth, Bill Dickey, Leo Durocher, Waite Hoyt, Herb Pennock, and Stan Coveleski. Their manager Miller Huggins and President Ed Barrow are also inductees."

2) "It's the 1931-33 Yankees with nine: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Red Ruffing, Bill Dickey, Joe Sewell, Tony Lazzeri, Herb Pennock, Lefty Gomez and Earle Combs."

Yeah, even the best modern teams seem to max out at three or four, with lots of borderline guys who missed.

'75 reds (3) joe morgan, johnny bench, tony perez. no pete rose, because betting on baseball is not allowed in stadiums that do not have official partnerships with daily fantasy baseball betting

'70 orioles (3) frank robinson, brooks robinson, jim palmer

'67 cards (4) orlando cepeda, lou brock, steve carlton, bob gibson (cepeda and brock probably should not be in the HoF. tim mccarver and curt flood probably both should be, for non-playing reasons. I feel like mccarver had a 50% hall of fame playing career and a 75% broadcasting career, and his longevity and counting stats put him over the bump)

(it's very possible i'm miscounting on some of those - just scanning the rosters and going off of memory)

Same numbers I had, I think. The Orioles really surprised me--they only won one WS, but from '69 to '71, they were as good as it gets.

The mid-'90s Braves have four (the big three starters plus Chipper), and could easily end up with six (McGriff and Andruw Jones).

I’m not sure how easy McGriff and Jones will be.

Jones, maybe, but I agree with Posnanski that Baines' induction makes McGriff's a certainty next time he's eligible.

"McGriff will surely be elected by a veterans committee the very first year he is eligible.

He has to be elected by the veterans committee. I mean, you simply cannot vote for Baines and not vote for McGriff. It would be like voting for a Jack in a game of poker but not voting for a King. Baines and McGriff were both left-handed power hitters who played for a very long time and posted wonderful career numbers...it’s just that McGriff was better than Baines in just about every way."

https://theathletic.com/2276390/2020/12/22/the-outsiders-no-23-fred-mcgriff/

Letting baines in opens the door for literally hundreds of players. I can’t make much sense of a lot of the things they do, so I don’t feel like any player is a lock with these guys. For sure McGriff is better, but does it matter tho them?!

Yeah, electing baines was like eliminating the filibuster

You could project a bit (a lot) with the 2019 Astros: Altuve, Correa, Verlander, Cole, and Greinke.

I'm not totally sure why he zeroed in on McGriff--their careers weren't aligned on a timeline, and McGriff only DH'ed ~200 games--but maybe their reputations figured in: good guys who weren't PED users.

I think the Astros would have produced a few for sure, it'll just be a matter of how the scandal is viewed down the road for the hitters.