Berkman

Lance Berkman hit his major-league-leading 16th homer, and now has 129 total bases and a .399 avg. after 43 games. At this rate, he'd get about 60 HR and (get this) 486 total bases. Oh, yeah, and he's got a .800 slugging pct.

Chipper Jones has a .423 average over 1/4th through the season, but would seem a poor bet to be the first .400 hitter in 67 years--he's a .309 career hitter, with a previous high of .337 (last year) and is now 36 years old.

Halladay's a Throwback

Roy Halladay has 5 complete games in 8 starts. Complete games have become so rare in the majors of late that only one of the well over a hundred other starters in the majors this year has even half that--James Shiels of the surprising Tamba Bay Devil Rays. Halladay has shown an unusual talent for (and his manager a willingness to let him) finishing what he starts. He's completed 35 of 230 starts in his career, including 31 of his last 147 (21%).

Bluejays' Closers

And the Bluejays have three relievers with FOUR or more saves already: B.J. Ryan (with a 0.00 ERA!), Scott Downs, and (apparently deposed closer) Jeremy Accardo.

Brewers' Saves All Around

Dang! I just found another team with a struggling closer--the Brewers with Greg Gagne--whose staff has SIX different relievers with a save...

Yeah, I'm Back!

The Cards' closer Jason Isringhausen is struggling this year, but that has allowed the relief staff a luxury that used to be more common, but is rarely seen now--where most everyone gets an occasional shot at a save. The Cards already have 5 relievers with a save (Izzy still has 11 out of the team's 16).

Cards, I-Rod

My St. Louis Cards reached .500 (for a day anyway). Not bad for a team 8 games under earlier this month. Now Pujols is playing like the monster he is, the pitching is decent, and Rick Ankiel's comeback as a position player after flunking out as a wild pitcher is inspiring. It helps, too, that they play in the weakest division in the majors!

Ivan Rodriquez doesn't get the attention he deserves. At age 35, Pudge is already the all-time leader in doubles among catchers with 498, having passed Ted Simmons earlier this year. He should have about 2500 hits by the end of the year, which gives him a pretty decent shot at being the first catcher ever to achieve 3000 hits. Cooperstown should be awaiting his arrival whether he makes that milestone or not.

Reyes' SB's

Another note: Jose Reyes, with 70 Stolen Bases and over a month left in the season, is on pace to become the first 80+ base stealer since 1988, when some guy named Rickey Henderson (ha!) had 93. In fact, SB individual totals took a precipitous drop in those years--after 6 100+ seasons in the 1980's (3 each by Henderson and by Vince Coleman), no one had more than 78 in the 1990's, and 70 was tops through 2006 this decade.

I'm Back: Granderson's Triples, A-Rod's HR's

Hey, if anyone out there has been noticing the absence of blog entries--sorry, we've been in transition with packing, moving, intermittent access to the internet and starting grad school. Don't know how regular this will be the rest of the way...

Anyway, how about that Curtis Granderson? He has 21 triples with over a month left in the season--and he missed getting number 22 by failing to stop at third and continuing on for an inside-the-park home run today. (I wonder if any others of his 17 HR's this year were "extended triples.") The last time anyone had more than 21 triples was 58 years ago, 1949, when Dale Mitchell had 23. (Willie Wilson in '85 and Lance Johnson in '96 each had 21). If Granderson should get as many as 24, that would be the most since Kiki Cuyler had 26 in 1925!

Meanwhile, the doublers have slowed down considerably. Whereas earlier it looked like we might have the first 60+ doubles season since 1936, that ain't gonna happen with Magglio Ordonez and Matt Holliday tied for the major league lead with 43 each.

And, finally, I must agree with those who say Bonds' homer record won't last a generation--A-Rod is way ahead of the pace with 507, having just turned 32 last month. To put that in perspective--Frank Thomas, a renowned slugger and future Hall-of-Famer, is over seven years older and has exactly one more homer (A-Rod will pass him any time now for 20th place). Put another way, every other active player with 375+ homers (just 3/4's of the way to 500) is 35 or older!

Stolen Base and Base on Balls Highs & Lows

Fewest Base on Balls (plate appearances per, min. 5900 PA)

Shawon Dunston, 203 BB, 6276 PA, 30.92 PA/BB
Charlie Comiskey, 197, 6005, 30.48
Ozzie Guillen, 239, 7133, 29.84
Art Fletcher, 203, 6039, 29.75
Hal Chase, 276, 7939, 28.76
Everett Scott, 243, 6373, 26.23
Tom Corcoran, 382, 9339, 24.45
Enos Cabell, 255, 6304, 24.34
Willie Davis, 418, 9822, 23.50
Ivy Olson, 285, 6630, 23.26

Most Base on Balls (plate appearances per, min. 5900 PA)

Ted Williams, 2019 BB, 9769 PA, 4.84 PA/BB
Barry Bonds (thru 6/28/07), 2504, 12397, 4.95
Babe Ruth, 2062, 10617, 5.15
Mickey Mantle, 1733, 9871, 5.70
Eddie Yost, 1604, 9164, 5.71
Jim Thome (thru 6/28/07), 1412, 8094, 5.73
Mark McGwire, 1317, 7660, 5.82
Frank Thomas (thru 6/28/07), 1596, 9461, 5.93
Joe Morgan, 1865, 11329, 6.07
Rickey Henderson, 2190, 13346, 6.09

Fewest Plate Appearances per Stolen Base (min. 5900 PA)

Vince Coleman, 752 SB, 5970 PA, 7.94 PA/SB
Billy Hamilton, 912, 7576, 8.31
Rickey Henderson, 1406, 13346, 9.49
Lou Brock, 938, 11235, 11.98
Willie Wilson, 668, 8317, 12.45
Jack Doyle, 516, 6570, 12.73
Tim Raines, 808, 10359, 12.82
Davey Lopes, 557, 7340, 13.18
Hugh Duffy, 574, 7745, 13.49
Delino DeShields, 463, 6652, 14.36

Most Plate Appearances per Stolen Base (min. 5900 PA)

Cecil Fielder, 2 SB, 5939 PA, 2969.5 PA/SB
Jay Buhner, 6, 5927, 987.8
Frank Howard, 8, 7353, 919.1
John Olerud, 11, 9063, 823.9
Ernie Lombardi, 8, 6349, 793.6
Vic Wertz, 9, 7020, 780.0
Carlos Delgado (thru 6/28/07), 11, 7577, 688.8
Mark McGwire, 12, 7660, 638.3
Rico Petrocelli, 10, 6170, 617.0
Deron Johnson, 11, 6620, 601.8

Loney's no Baloney

First baseman James Loney of the Dodgers is making major league pitching look like Little League stuff. He's now batting .478 (22 for 46) since being called up a few weeks ago. He's slugging .848 with 14 RBIs, has hit safely in all 10 starts and is 3 for 4 as a pinch-hitter. Whoa, Nellie--think he can keep it up? He showed promise in his first big league stint last year, batting .284 and slugging .559. Twenty-four of his 51 career hits are for extra bases, inclding an impressive 7 triples in just 148 career at bats! And he strikes out less than once every 10 ABs! This dude looks for real!

Trouble Hitting Triples

Congrats to Frank Thomas on his 500th homer today. Frank is now one of the elite in touching all four bases. But his record is less auspicious when it comes to triples--he's only hit 11 for his career. His rate of at bats per triple is the "highest" (i.e., worst) of any player who ever had 7000+ ABs, and third-worst among those with 6000+ . And all three of those worst are active or recent player. Here's the list:

Mark McGwire, 6 triples in 6187 AB, 1031.2 AB per triple
Mike Piazza (active), 7 in 6705, 957.9
Frank Thomas (active), 11 in 7666, 696.9
Boog Powell, 11 in 6681, 607.4
Eric Karros, 11 in 6441, 585.5
John Olerud, 13 in 7592, 584.0
Robin Ventura, 14 in 7064, 504.6
Jose Canseco, 14 in 7057, 504.1

The old Bash Brothers of Oakland may have bashed plenty over the walls, but they were more crash than dash when it came to legging it out on a gapper. Those two form the top and bottom slice of bread on this triple-less sandwich.

More on Fewest Saves

Expanding the lowest save percentage to include those with between 500 and 600 career games pitched in relief (GPIR), we find two active guys with miniscule save percentages!

Rheal Cormier, 575 GPIR, 2 saves, 0.35 %
Ray King, 543GPIR, 2 S, 0.37 %

Both these guys are lefties who usually are brought in to face only one or sometimes two batters, and so rarely finish games. Others of note:

Felix Heredia, 509, 6, 1.18 %
Tony Fossas, 567, 7, 1.23 %
Dennis Cook, 594, 9, 1.5 %
Russ Springer, 528 (thru 6/26/07), 8, 1.5 %

One guy with just under 500 GPIR:

Jason Grimsley, 480, 4, 0.83 %

And another Jason with a HIGH percentage just under 500 GPIR:

Jason Isringhausen, 485, 263, 54.2 %


Most of the highest and lowest percentage guys are from recent years. It would seem that, whereas pitching staffs used to spread the saves around a bit more (quality guys like Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage only had saves in 37.6 % and 32.1 % of appearances, respectively), they now specialize to such an extent that one guy often has 95+ % of a team's saves in any given year. So if guys go their whole career without ever being the main closer, the saves are few and far between, instead of still collecting around 5 or so a year as in earlier years (1960s-80s).

Hot Young Hitter

The dude that just hit a walk-off 3-run pinch-hit homer for Cleveland, 27-year-old Kelly Shoppach, is now batting .382 (26 for 68) with 8 doubles, 4 homers, and 9 walks for a .676 slugging pct. and .455 on-base pct. The catcher is not getting many starts because he's on the same team as catcher Victor Martinez, who's having a career year with .313 avg., 14 HR and 62 RBI's. But Shoppach is either gonna have to find another position, or the Indians will be trading one of them, because Shoppach's stats aren't those of a back-up catcher!

Relievers with Lowest & Highest Percent of Saves

I didn't realize before just how unlikely it was that Alan Embree, at age 37 and in his 13th year as a reliever in the majors, would at this stage in his career get a chance (due to Huston Street's injury) to be a closer. A little research reveals that, before this season, Embree actually had the LOWEST EVER percentage of saves in relations to games pitched in relief among those who've pitched 600+ games in relief. Before this year, he had 8 career saves in 704 games pitched in relief, for a percentage of 1.1. In 12 seasons, his high in saves was 2, achieved exactly twice. Four other years, he had 1 save, and six times he had zero. Now, in the last month or so, he's doubled his career total with 8 more! He's also moved "down" (or is it"up"?) the list of "top" (bottom?) 10 in terms of LOWEST percentage of saves to games pitched in relief:

Rich Rodriguez, 607 games in relief, 8 saves, 1.3 %
Mike Myers, 848 (thru 6/25/07), 14 S, 1.7 %
Mark Guthrie, 722, 14, 1.9 %
Steve Reed, 833, 18, 2.161 %
Alan Embree, 740 (thru 6/25/07), 16, 2.162 %
Chuck McElroy, 647, 17, 2.6 %
Paul Quantrill, 777, 21, 2.7 %
Hector Carrasco, 636 (thru 6/25/07), 19, 3.0 %
Bob Groom, 771, 27, 3.5 %
Julian Tavarez, 615 (thru 6/25/07, now starting), 22, 3.6 %

And the HIGHEST percentage of saves to games in relief, among those with 600+ such games:
Trevor Hoffman, 849 (thru 6/25/07), 501, 59.0 %
Mariano Rivera, 737 (thru 6/25/07), 422, 57.3 %
Dennis Eckersley, 710, 390, 54.93 %
John Wetteland, 601, 330, 54.91 %
Troy Percival, 605 (thru 6/25/07), 324, 53.6 %
Billy Wagner, 684, 339, 49.6 %
Rick Aguilera, 643, 318, 49.5 %
Rob Nen, 639, 314, 49.1 %
Randy Myers (no relation to Mike), 716, 347, 48.5 %
Tom Henke, 642, 311, 48.4 %
Lee Smith, 1016, 478, 47.0 %
Bruce Sutter, 661, 300, 45.4 %

Just one more entry full of fascinating, totally useless information!

A Good Hart

How's this for a hot streak: Corey Hart (who I just added to my Fantasy team a week ago) has gone: in his last 8 games: 14 hits in 38 AB (.368) with 5 homers, 11 runs and 13 RBI's (and 3 stolen bases)
In the month of June (19 games so far): 25 for 77 (.325) with 8 HR, 19 runs, 18 RBI's and 7 SB's.
Hart is a 25 year old rightfielder with the Brewers who played just over half a season as an official rookie last year after a 21-game stint in 2005.
Perhaps most impressive is his speed/power combo. 30 HR and 30 RBI's is the well established standard. 40-40 has only been accomplished a handful of times. Consider this: if his most recent 19-game rate were extended across a 162-game season, he'd have approximately 68 homers and 60 SB's! If there ever were a 60-60 guy, the world would crown him superman!
By the way, 2007 could be the first season in quite a few years without a 30-30 guy. As we near the midpoint of the season, the best prospects are Brandon Phillips (13 HR, 15 SB) and Jimmy Rollins (13 each). But Phillips' previous career high in HR's is 17, and Rollins' HR production has fallen off (4 in last 51 games) after an explosive April.

Next come David Wright (12 HR, 16 SB), Grady Sizemore (11 and 22), Eric Byrnes (11 and 14) and Ian Kinsler (13 and 11).

My Doggie, Part II

My wife reminds me that I should mention how Bowser got his name. My wife was watching her Braves on TBS one night soon after we brought the pup home, and heard them talking about Jeff Blauser. "Blauser," she repeated. "That would make a good name for our dog." Not wanting him saddled with the handle of a 3rd-rate infielder from my rival team, I talked her into dropping the "l" and changing the spelling to the standard doggie name.

My Doggie

On a personal, completely non-baseball note (although he is a big Cardinals fan, despite my wife's claims of seeing him do the Tomahawk Chop): Happy 14th Birthday to Bowser, our miniature schnauser. He's deaf and slow these days, but precious to us, all the more so after life-saving emergency surgery last Sept. I'm glad he's still here to celebrate another birthday. Can you tell we're kind of sweet on this mutt of ours?!

Gagne's Back

It looks like closer Eric Gagne is back in top form after overcoming some serious injury problems the past two years, and on into this year. Gagne was unimpressive in his first two years in the bigs as a starter. Then the Dodgers moved him to closer in 2002. And it was lights out! For the next three years, through 2004, he had 52, 55, and 45 saves in consecutive years (152 total saves in three consecutive seasons is a record that may last a long, long time). His ERA's during those years? 1.97, 1.20, and 2.19. Oh, yeah, and he had, for the 3 years combined, 365 K's in 247 innings! In 2003, way over half (137, or very close to it) of the 247 outs he recorded were by strikeout. I believe he set an unbelievable record for number of consecutive saves in save opportunities (i.e., wihtout blowing any saves) during that time.
Then, as I said, injuries came into play, limiting him to 16 games and 9 saves in 2005-6. This year, he's missed some time in both April and May. Beginning with May 29, however, he's saved 5 games (and won one today!) and allowed no runs in 8 2/3 innings with 10 K's. He'd have considerably more saves were he not with the hapless Texas Rangers. Still, his 0.50 ERA so far has to be encouraging. If he's back all the way, and can sustain it without injury, at age 31 he still can be one of if not THE greatest, most ting closer ever (most folks, I suppose, would rank Eckersley or possibly Rivera, who seems to be back on track, for best ever as of now).

Ryan who? Ludwick, that's who!

Outfielder Ryan Ludwick's walk-off homer for the Cardinals in the 14th inning last night was his fourth homer in his past 24 at bats, this after having no home runs in the previous 58 at bats this season. I think this guy likes the clutch: his other 3 homers are a tie-breaking (eventually game-winning) three run shot in the 7th (he had a 2-run hit in the ninth in that game, too), a 9th inning pinch hit homer, and a game-tying pinch homer in the 7th inning. Not bad for a dude I'd never heard of until a month or so ago. He's 28 years old, and has shown promising power (13 HR in 227 AB) in parts of three seasons from 2003-05 with the Indians (he apparently spent all of 2006 in the minors). The hang up has been (and continues to be) his average: now .238 for his 137-game career. Here's hoping that improves, and he resembles Mike Schmidt (whose early average problems improved as his career went on) more than Dave Kingman (whose average remained miserable for most of his career).

Most Strikeouts in Season by Pitching Teammates

665 Randy Johnson (372) and Curt Schilling (293), 2001 D'backs
650 R. Johnson (334) and Schilling (316), 2002 D'backs
624 Nolan Ryan (383) and Bill Singer (241), 1973 Angels
592 Sandy Koufax (382) and Don Drysdale (210), 1965 Dodgers
588 Nolan Ryan (327) and Frank Tanana (261), 1976 Angels
557 Sandy Koufax (306) and Don Drysdale (251), 1963 Dodgers
550 Rube Waddell (349) and Eddie Plank (201), 1904 Philadelphia A's
547 Nolan Ryan (367) and Frank Tanana (180), 1974 Angels
547 Sam McDowell (283) and Luis Tiant (264), 1968 Indians
546 Nolan Ryan (341) and Frank Tanana (205), 1977 Angels
544 Mickey Lolich (308) and Joe Coleman (236) 1971 Tigers