Tricycles

If a "cycle" is at least one each of a single, double, triple and homer in the same game, a "tricycle" is a baby cycle, one with three wheels -- only three of the required four events. There are four types of tricycles: a cycle that's missing a homer, one missing a triple, one missing a double, and the hardest tricycle of all, the one missing a single.

Jose Reyes has 5 homerless tricycles in Mets history, three of them in 2008. No other Mets has more than three homerless tricycles in his Mets career. In fact Reyes had three homerless tricycles in 2008 alone. The players with the most homerless tricycles in the major leagues since 1962, when the Mets began play, are Paul Molitor and Wade Boggs with 13 each, followed by George Brett and Willie Davis with 12 each.

David Wright has more triple-less tricycles as a Met than any player, with 13 (Mike Piazza had 12 and Carlos Beltran has 10). A-Rod and Barry Bonds lead the majors in triple-less tricycles since 1962, each has 35 in his career, ahead of Billy Williams and Juan Gonzalez with 32 each.

Double-less tricycles are unusual. Darryl Strawberry has the most in Mets history with 3, while Frank Thomas of the original '62 Mets had two within a week of each other in May of 1962. No other Mets has more than one, and there have only been 28 such games in Mets history. Across the majors since 1962, the most doubleless tricycles by any player has been 6, accomplished by Roberto Clemente, Andy Van Slyke and Ron Gant.

Finally, there have been only 6 single-less tricycles in Mets history. Amazingly enough, Gregg Jefferies has three of the six, two of them within a few weeks of each other in late August/early September 1988. The other three single-less tricycles in Mets history have been by Darryl Strawberry, Ron Swoboda and Joe Christopher. No player in the majors since 1962 has more single-less tricycles than the three by Jefferies -- Manny Trillo and Ellis Burks also had three and Brian Giles, who is still active, also has had three in his career.

Ruthian Age

Billy Werber, who had been the oldest living former major leaguer, recently passed away. Werber, who was 100 years old, had played briefly for Babe Ruth's Yankees before going on to have a substantial career with the Red Sox, Reds, A's and Giants. The new "Oldest Living Former Major Leaguer" is a guy named Tony Malinowski, who was a Brooklyn Dodger but only played 35 games in the majors. Malinowski's MLB career began and ended in 1937, after Babe Ruth had retired. Ruth's last game in the majors was on May 30, 1935. There are two guys still living who were playing in the majors when Ruth was still playing: Lonny Frey, a middle infielder who came up with the Dodgers but whose best years (including 3 All-Star seasons) came with the Reds; and Phil Cavarretta, a Chicago native who played 20 seasons for the Cubs, mostly as a first baseman (four All-Star selections) and two seasons at the end of his career for the White Sox.

Most career regular season games played for the Chicago Cubs:
Ernie Banks 2,528
Cap Anson 2,276
Billy Williams 2,213
Ryne Sandberg 2,151
Ron Santo 2,126
Phil Cavarretta 1,953

Cavarretta did some minor league hitting instruction for the Mets organization in the 1970s.

Run of Runs

Most Consecutive Games by a Met with at least 1 Run Scored

David Wright, 13 games (July 13-July 29, 2008)
Carlos Beltran, 12 games (August 17-August 30, 2006)
Derek Bell, 11 games (June 21-July 1, 2000)
Melvin Mora, 10 games (June 22-July 1, 2000)

(source: baseball-reference.com's Play Index)

Truly odd that Bell's and Mora's streaks were over the same games. In terms of the progression of this record, Frank Thomas had a six game streak in May of 1962, which was tied but not suprassed until Tommie Davis had a seven game streak in 1967, which was tied but not surpassed until Tommie Agee's 8 game streak in May of 1969, which in turn was quickly broken by Art Shamsky's 9 game streak in June/July, 1969, which was tied over the years by Mackey Sasser, Bernard Gilkey and John Olerud but not surpassed until Mora and Bell reached 10 and 11 respectively over that one sequence of games in 2000. Wright's record streak in 2008, by the way, started with the last game before the All-Star break and then proceeded with 12 straight games after the break.

Minor Adjustments

The Mets have signed Freddy Garcia and Rob Mackowiak to minor league deals, each with a chance to make more money if he makes the major league team.

Most Wins in the American League over the past 10 seasons:
1. Mike Mussina 152
2. Roy Halladay 130
3/4. Mark Buehrle/Bartolo Colon 122
5. Freddy Garcia 117

_____________________________

MLB players in the Expansion Era (1961-current) who have at least 150 career games played in LF, and at least 150 career games played in CF, and at least 150 career games played in RF, and at least 150 career games played at 3B (in order of career OPS+):

Tommy Harper 101 OPS+
Cesar Tovar 100 OPS+
Rob Mackowiak 91 OPS+

That's the whole list.

If you drop down to 100 career games at each of LF, CF, RF and third base you add three more guys:

Pedro Guerrero 137 OPS+
Bill Robinson 104 OPS+
Joel Youngblood 103 OPS+

Dropping down again to a 75 game mimimum at each postion you add six more guys: Tony Phillips, Jim Hickman, Woody Held, Elliot Maddox, Mickey Hatcher and Bob Bailor. Of the 12 guys we now have in total, 5 played for the Mets during their careers -- Mackowiak if he makes the team will make it six, an even 50% of the group.

Hard Hitting Coverage

The Mets' offense is now second in the NL in run scoring in 2008. The last time the Mets finished a full season that high in the league in run scoring was 1990, when they led the NL in runs. The Mets also led the NL in runs for three years in a row, 1986 through 1988. Those were the only other times in franchise history that the team fininshed higher than third in the league in run scoring.

Part of the reason for the Mets' limited number of times near the top of the NL in runs is the constraining effect Shea has long had on run scoring. By way of example, the Mets are way behind the Cubs this season in overall run scoring. The Cubs as the top run scoring team in the NL are averaging 5.34 runs per game to the Mets second place number of 4.99 runs per game. But the Mets are actually outscoring the Cubs in road games, 5.08 runs per game to 5.00 runs per game. At Wrigley, the Cubs have scored an average of 5.65 runs per game, compared to the Mets' average of 4.90 runs per game at Shea.

Looking For Mo

How much is "momentum" worth after a ten-game winning streak? I looked at the seven winning streaks (before the most recent one) in Mets history that lasted 10 or more games -- four eleven-game win streaks (May/June 1969, May 1972, April 1986 and June 1990) and three ten-game win streaks (September 1969, June/July 1976 and July 1991). Obviously the game immediately after a win streak is always a loss, by defintion. But then I looked at what happened in the 10 games after that streak-breaking loss. In the 10 games immediately after the loss that ended the Mets' four 11-game win streaks, the Mets went 6-4, 6-4, 8-2 and 7-3, for a very impressive 27-13 record. In the ten games following the the loss tthat ended the Mets three streaks of exactly 10 wins, the Mets went 7-3, 4-6 and 4-6, for an exactly .500 record of 15-15. Adding those two groups together you get a 42-28 record in the applicable 70 games immediately following the seven double digit streak-enders.

Home Improvement

There's been a lot of discussion the last few days on the net and in the mainstream press about the unusually large home field advantage that has shown up this season across the majors. The Mets have been no exception. Going into tonight's game, the Mets have a .607 winning percentage at home and .382 away, which sounds more like a football or basketball differential than a baseball one. The Mets current 2008 differential comes out to a difference of .225 home over away. If extended over a full season, that would be the largest home/away differential in Mets history, topping the previous high of .210 in 1963 (.420 home, .210 away).

Last year the Mets had a home park disadvantage, .580 on the road and only .506 at home.Overall since 1962 the Mets have had an .069 home/road differential. Since 1962, the largest home/road differentials by a single team over one full season have been by the 1996 Rockies and 1987 Twins, who each had win percentages a full .333 greater at home than on the road. This season so far, two teams, Atlanta and Boston, have larger differentials than that. The biggest road advantage by any team since 1962 has been the 1994 Cubs, who were .339 at home and .537 on the road.

Since 1962, on average 15% of teams end up the season with a higher road percentage than home percentage and about 2 to 3% complete a season with identical home and road percentages, while the other 82% or so win more at home than on the road. This season so far (going into tonight's games), only the Giants and Angels among the 30 MLB clubs have a road over home advantage. The Mets, despite having a home over road differential that would be the highest in team history over a full season, have only the seventh highest home/road differential in the majors so far in 2008.

NL East Hall of Fame

The National League East division began in its current form with the 1994 season, so the current season is the division's 15th season. The most Win Shares accumulated, 1994-current, by players playing for teams in the NL East (Mets in bold; players active in the NL East in 2008 in italics):

1. Chipper Jones 342
2. Andruw Jones 256
3. Bobby Abreu 241
4. Tom Glavine 229
5. Greg Maddux 221
6. John Smoltz 211
7. Cliff Floyd 174
8. Edgardo Alfonzo 169
9. Vlad Guerrero 166
10. Jimmy Rollins 165
11. Javy Lopez 157
12/13. Gary Sheffield/Pat Burrell 153
14. Mike Piazza 149
15. Luis Castillo 146
16. Jose Vidro 141
17. Scott Rolen 139
18/19. Miguel Cabrera/Mike Lowell 127
20/21. Al Leiter/Mike Lieberthal 121

David Wright, at 113, and Chase Utley, at 111, should break onto this list this summer.

Happier Days

Over the 3+ seasons that Willie Randolph has been manager of the Mets, the team has the best win/loss record in the National League. Top NL regular season records, 2005-current:
Mets 295 -245 (.546)
Cards 294-248 (.542)
Phils 294-249 (.541)
Braves 282-260 (.520)

Over the 3 seasons immediately preceding Randolph becoming manager, the Mets were 15th of the 16 NL teams in winning percentage. Worst NL regular season records, 2002-2004:
Brewers 191-294 (.394)
Mets 212-272 (.438)
Rockies 215-271 (.442)
Padres 217--269 (.447)

From The Top

With an on-base streak of thirty-one games as a leadoff man throgh yesterday's game, Jose Reyes has broken Benny Agbayani's team record in that (highly specialized!) category. Over the 2000 and 2001 seasons, Bobby Valentine used Benny as his leadoff man intermittently, but if you count only those games in which Agbayani was the leadoff batter, you find he was on base the last three games in which he batted leadoff in 2000 and the first 27 times he batted leadoff in 2001.

The longest streak of this type anywhere in the majors since 1962 has been by Alfonso Soriano, who was on base at least once in 58 consecutive games in which he was the leadoff hitter, spanning his last leadoff appearances for the Nationals in 2006 and his first for the Cubs in 2007. The longest such streak for one team in one season since 1962 is Craig Biggio's 51 game streak in 1998. Biggio's 51-game streak stretched across 52 games played -- 51 games in the leadoff spot in each of which he got on base, plus one game in the middle of that leadoff spot streak in which he pinch hit in the ninth spot and failed to get on.

Pitch and Win

The Mets have lost only 4 games this season in which they have held the opposition to fewer than 5 runs. They are now 25-4 in such games, an .862 winning percentage. The average winning percentage in the majors this season in games a team holds its oppostion under 5 runs is .729 -- on average, teams in the majors have lost 8 or 9 games when holding the opposition below 5 runs. Only the two Florida clubs, the Rays and Marlins, have a better record in such games than the Mets.

The Mets were also third best in the majors in this category last season, with an .828 winning percentage for the full 2007 season, behind only the Brewers (.848) and Mariners (.859). The overall average for all teams last season in games in which they held the opposition below 5 runs was .749. Last year over the full season, teams averaged about 21 to 22 losses per team in such games (the Mets lost only 16).

Tea for Two

In their win over the Yankees in the Bronx yesterday, the Mets won while using only two pitchers in the game. That has become an unusual event.

In 1984, the Mets had 44 wins in which they used exactly two pitchers. In 2006 the Mets had only 3 such wins and last year it was 7. The Cubs led the NL in two-pitcher wins last season with 16, while the Cardinals trailed the league in this category with just 2 two-pitcher games all season in 2007.

In 1974, the Dodgers had 52 two-pitcher wins -- that season Mike Marshall, their "closer", pitched in 106 games, all in relief, with an astounding 208 IP.

Bronx Cheers

With the Mets playing at Yankee Stadium this weekend, a few Yankee-related facts:

In 32 regular season and post-season games at the current Yankee Stadium, the Mets are an unhappy 10 wins and 22 losses, a .313 winning percentage, with (barring a Subway Series in October) three games left to play. The Mets have averaged 4.5 runs a game and the Yankees 5.5 (the Mets' pythagorean expectation based on their runs scored and surrendered in these games is a bit better than their actual performance: 13-19 instead of 10-22).

Al Leiter has 4 wins for the Mets in the Bronx, no one else has more than one. Leiter, Trachsel and El Duque have each lost 2 games pitching for the Mets at Yankee Stadium -- they are the only multiple losers. Mike Piazza has 13 runs scored for the Mets in the Yankees home park, Reyes has 10 and is thus within reach of getting by Piazza in the remaining three scheduled games at the current Yankee Stadium . Piazza has 14 RBIs as a Met at Yankee Stadium, Reyes is right behind with 13 RBIs.

Over the last three years, 2005 to 2007, the Mets have been more competitive at Yankee Stadium: 4 wins, 5 losses (.444), compared to 6-17 (.261) in the early years of interleague play (1997-2004). Compare the Mets .444 percentage in the Bronx over the past three seasons to the .363 percentage for all other teams playing in Yankee Stadium over that same period, 2005-2007.

Most Win Shares as A Yankee Since 1962 (the "Mets Era"):
1. Bernie Williams 311 (7th all-time in Yankees history)
2. Derek Jeter 307 (8th all-time in Yankees history)
3/4. Don Mattingly and Roy White 263 (tied for 10th all-time in Yankees history)
5. Willie Randolph 251 (13th all-time in Yankees history)
6. Jorge Posada 225 (17th all-time in Yankees history)
7. Thurman Munson 206 (20th all-time in Yankees history)
8. Graig Nettles 204 (21st all-time in Yankees history)
9. Bobby Murcer 191 (25th all-time in Yankees history)
10. Mariano Rivera 188 (27th all-time in Yankees history)

Everyday Outfield

The Mets have now played their first 13 games of the 2008 season with the same three starting outfielders: Pagan, Beltran and Church have started every game. The Mets have never before gone so long into a season without varying their starting outfield. Most seasons, the Mets vary their starting outfield before the 5th game of the year: in only 13 of the seasons 46 seasons in Mets history have the Mets gone past the fourth game of the year before making a change in the starting outfield. The Mets' average for the first game a change is made to the starting outfield is 3.7 and the median is 3. Before the current season, the only times the Mets have gone past their ninth game of the year without a variation in their starting outfield have been 1970, when they changed for the first time in the 10th game of the year (Jones, Agee and Swoboda finally give way when Shamsky starts instead of Swoboda in right) and last season, 2007, when Alou, Beltran and Green started the first 10 games but Endy Chavez started for Alou in left in game 11.

This Bud's For You

There have been 80 full seasons since Babe Ruth hit 60 homers in 1927. Here are the hitters with the most plate appearances over those 80 seasons among those players who never reached double digits in home runs:

Top 5 Most Career PAs, 1928-2007, Among Players With Fewer Than 10 Career Homers
1. Bud Harrelson 5,516 PAs (7 HRs)
2. Jerry Remy 4,916 PAs (7 HRs)
3. Roger Metzger 4,676 PAs (5 HRs)
4. Frank Taveras 4,399 PAs (2 HRs)
5. Greg Gross 4,355 PAs (7 HRs)

Only 27 players have had even half as many PAs as Harrelson after 1927 without hitting double figures in career homers.

Harrelson might have reached double figures in homers if he had played the bulk of his career with a home park other than Shea. Shea has been a tough park for homers throughout its existence and was no less tough on Bud Harrelson. In over 2,400 PAs at Shea (only one man, Ed Kranepool, came to the plate at Shea more times than Harrelson), Buddy hit only one homer. So at some point in this final Shea season, which begins with the home opener today, hoist a beer for Bud.

Down Side

The last time (before yesterday) the Mets finished a day's play under .500 for the season was September 23, 2005, when they were one game under. They won 7 of 9 after that day and ended up finishing up 2005 with an 83-79 record. In 2006 they started the season 1-0 and 8-1 and never fell below .500, and in 2007 they started 4-0 and 10-4 and never fell below .500.

The last time (before yesterday) a Mets starter went at least seven innings and surrendered no more than one run, yet was credited with a loss anyway, was in a 1-0 Mets defeat at the hands of St. Louis on May 17, 2006, with Mark Mulder going most of the way for the Cardinals and Steve Trachsel taking the loss for the Mets despite surrendering just one run in seven full innnings (an Albert Pujols walk and Scott Rolen double in the sixth inning led to the lone run of the game). The Mets had the bases loaded with one out in the ninth in that game, but Jason Isringhausen came in replacing Mulder and got David Wright to strike out out and Cliff Floyd to ground out to end it.

Bing-O

Most Homers in a Season by a Binghamton Met (the Mets have been playing in Binghamton since 1992):

1. Matt Raleigh (1997) 37

2/3. Robert Stratton (2001)/Tate Seefried (1997) 29

4/5/6. Bryon Gainey (1999)/Mike Jacobs (2005)/Butch Huskey (1993) 25

Matt Raleigh is currently the manager of the Carolina Mudcats, the Marlins' AA affiliate.

Him Again?!

Smoltz's first out today will make him the eighth pitcher in history to log a full 300 IP's against the Mets in his career.
Top 10 pitchers in innings pitched against the Mets (W-L record vs. Mets, and Saves vs. the Mets, in parens):
1. Steve Carlton 550.67 IP (30-36)
2. Greg Maddux 428.33 IP (35-19)
3. Phil Niekro 393 IP (25-14, 5 saves)
4. Bob Gibson 385 IP (28-14, 2 saves)
5. Juan Marichal 342.33 IP (26-8, 1 save)
6. Rick Reuschel 314.33 IP (14-25)
7. Jerry Reuss 309 IP (15-21)
8. John Smoltz 299.67 IP (17-14, 24 saves)
9. Steve Rogers 283 IP (15-13)
10. Don Sutton 278.67 IP (18-12, 1 save)

source database for this one was: baseballmusings.com's Day-by-Day Database

Mercy Rule Games

I count 5 games in Mets history, before last night's, in which the Mets gave up zero runs and scored at least 13:
July 29, 1965, a 14-0 demolition of the Cubs (Galen Cisco complete game, Johnny Lewis two homers)
July 1, 1976, a 13-0 destruction of the Cardinals (Jon Matlack complete game, Milner grand slam, Mets had only five singles and four extra-base hits, but walked 10 times)
April 19, 1998, a 14-0 massacre of the Reds (Al Leiter starting, no homers for the Mets)
September 30, 2006, a 13-0 dismantling of the Nationals (Tom Glavine starting, homers by Franco, Castro, Chavez, Green and Wright)
September 29, 2007, John Maine's near no-hitter, a 13-0 pulverizing of the Marlins (two homers by Milledge and one by Castro)

So in the first 36 years of the Mets franchise the team only had two of these games, while the Mets have now had two of these in their last five regular season games, both against the Marlins.

Another Opening, Another Show

A few Mets Opening Day facts in honor of tomorrow's season opener (thank you Cole Porter for the entry title and baseball-reference.com's Play Index for the data that produces the stats):

--The Mets have been playing for nealy half a century now, but only once have they had the same three starting outfielders on opening day as they had the previous season's opening day. In their opening game of the 1985 season, the Mets had George Foster, Mookie Wilson and Darryl Strawberry as their starters in the outfield, the same three guys who started in the outfield on opening day 1984. (Note that it's been even longer than that since the Yankees had the same three starting outfielders in two straight opening day games. The last time the Yankees managed that was in 1968, when Tom Tresh, Joe Pepitone and Bill Robinson were the opening day starters in the outfield, just as they were in 1967.)

--Most opening day starts for the Mets at third base, through 2007:
Howard Johnson 7
Hubie Brooks 4
David Wright 3
Robin Ventura 3
David should match Hubie's total tomorrow.

--Most Career Opening Day Homers For the Mets:
Todd Hundley 4
Darryl Strawberry 4
Mike Piazza 3
Cleon Jones 3
Bobby Bonilla 3

--Most Career Opening Day Homers For the Mets -- Active Mets:
David Wright 1
Carlos Beltran 1

-- Most Career Homer Runs, in Opening Day Games, Against the Mets:
Karl (Tuffy) Rhodes 3
Adam Dunn 2
Corey Patterson 2
Andy Van Slyke 2

Very Catchy

Most Games Played As Catcher for the Mets in One Season:
1. Todd Hundley (1996) 150
2. Gary Carter (1985) 143
3. John Stearns (1978) 141
4/5. Mike Piazza (1999)/ Gary Carter (1987) 137

The capacity to play many games behind the plate in a single season must be genetic -- compare the top of the preceding list with the top of the next list:
Most Games in One Season At Catcher for Any MLB Team, All-Time:
1. Randy Hundley (1968) 159
2/3/4. Frankie Hayes (1944)/Ray Mueller (1944)/Jim Sundberg (1975) 155
5/6/7. Ted Simmons (1975)/ Carlton Fisk (1978)/ Johnny Bench (1968) 154

Ex-Met Makes History

Former Met Victor Diaz, playing for Texas in 2007 (his first season not in a Mets uniform), had an on-base percentage of .259 and a slugging percentage of .538 in 108 plate appearances. It is almost impossible to combine that low an OBP with that high an SLG. To have a high slugging percentage you generally need some significant number of hits, and it's awfully difficult to have a significant number of hits yet end up with an OBP as low as .259. To put what Victor did in perspective note that he is the first batter in the history of the major leagues to combine an SLG over .530 with an OBP of under .260 in a season while coming to the plate more than 40 times. How did he manage this unprecedentedly odd feat? Well, he had 9 homers, 12 singles and 4 doubles in his 108 PAs, and one single solitary walk. So he had as many extra base hits as singles and walks combined. What a goofy season.

Thank you to Bill James, who pointed out Victor's odd season, in an article about odd seasons Bill posted yesterday on his new online site, creatively titled Bill James Online: http://www.billjamesonline.net/Home.aspx

Ten-Fold Stars

30 Win Shares in a season is a level achieved only by the top stars of the year -- at 30 Win Shares a player is often getting into MVP territory (in the NL last seaosn only David Wright, Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera and Matt Holliday had 30 or more Win Shares). To total 300 or more Win Shares in a decade means essentially a player has averaged MVP-type level play year after year over the entire decade. As you might expect, then, this feat has been rarely accomplished. Over the past five complete decades (1950s through 1990s), only six players have topped 300 Win Shares over a full decade:

1950s: Mantle, 317 Win Shares
1960s: Aaron 340, Mays 337, Frank Robinson 307
1970s: Joe Morgan 315
1980s: none
1990s: Bonds 351

In the current decade that will run from 2000 to 2009, with two seasons remaining three players have enough Win Shares accumulated to make 300 plausible:
--Barry Bonds has 277 over the period 2000-2007, and if he does latch on with a team he could still make it to 300 over 2000-2009.
--Alex Rodriguez has 271 over 2000-2007, and based on recent performance will likely make it easily to 300 over 2000-2009.
--Albert Pujols has 251 Win Shares, and again based on recent performance he should make it to 300 by 2009, though any substantial dropoff in performance, as unlikely as that is, or significant injury would leave him short. Albert is a bit behind Bonds and A-Rod in this decade only because Albert only first broke into the majors in 2001, so he has one year, 2000, with zero Win Shares.

For those interested in earlier history, the 300+ Win Shares decades for the first half of the 20th century were:
1900s: Honus Wagner 421 Win Shares
1910s: Cobb 386, Walter Johnson 378, Tris Speaker 361, Eddie Collins 338
1920s: Ruth 413, Hornsby 362
1930s Ott 323, Gehrig 323,Foxx 314
1940s: none

Big Mistakes

Since the first official World Series in 1903, there have been about 1,200 major league post-season games, split virtually evenly between about 600 World Series games and 600 league playoff (league championship series or division series) games.

Of those 1,200 games, only 4 have ended on an error. The New York Mets were the winners in two of those four games -- in both cases giving the Mets their third win of a World Series. These were the only two World Series championships in Mets history. These two walk-off errors are, naturally, two of the most famous plays in Mets history, and among the most famous in all World Series history: the Buckner error on Mookie Wilson's grounder to first in 1986, of course, and J.C. Martin's sacrifice bunt attempt (with men on first and second, nobody out) in the 10th inning of the 4th game of the 1969 World Series -- the throw to first by Orioles pitcher Pete Richert hit Martin in the elbow and caromed away, allowing pinch runner Rod Gaspar (Jerry Grote had doubled to lead off the inning, and Al Weis was on first after an intentional walk) to score from second base for the winning run.

The other two walk-off errors in post-season history were:

--The third game of the 1914 World Series. Connie Mack's perennially powerful (three World Series championships in the previous four years) Philadelphia A's already trailed the underdog Boston Braves 2 games to none. The A's thought for sure they had their first win of the Series notched when they scored two runs in the top of the 10th, but the Braves came back and scored two of their own in the bottom of the tenth. And in the bottom of the twelfth, a sequence unfolded similar to the Mets' last inning in the J.C. Martin game. Hank Gowdy doubled for the Braves, just as Jerry Grote doubled for the Mets in that fateful 1969 game. And just like Grote, Gowdy was replaced by a pinch-runner. And just as Al Weis was then intentionally walked in 1969, so in 1914 was the Braves' Larry Gilbert. And just like J.C. Martin in '69, Herbie Moran in 1914 laid down a bunt that was fielded by the pitcher, in this case the A's Joe Bush. But unlike Pete Richert in 1969, Bush opted to try to get the lead runner at third -- and threw the ball away, allowing the runner to score from second to end the game. The Braves went on to sweep the Series, and Connie Mack promptly dismantled his great team -- the A's dropped into last place for years thereafter.

-- After many years without a first place finish, the Yankees finally won the AL East in Joe Torre's first season as manager of the Yanks in 1996. The Yanks lost the first game of the best-of-five league division series to Texas at Yankee Stadium, and fell behind 4-1 in game 2 (the big blow a three run homer by Juan Gonzalez, who homered off of Johan Santana yesterday in Santana's spring training debut with the Mets). But the Yankees crept back with single runs in the 4th, 7th and 8th innings, while Mariano Rivera pitched two and two thirds perfect innings in relief of Andy Pettite and then John Wettlend pitched two more run-free innings -- the game was tied into the bottom of the 12th inning. Just as in the 1914 and 1969 World Series games, a first and second, no-out situation (Derek Jeter single, Tim Raines walk) led to an obvious sac bunt opportunity. Chunky Yankee third baseman Charlie Hayes, who had entered the game earlier as a pinch hitter for Wade Boggs (!) laid a bunt down toward third base where Dean Palmer (according to Win Shares, the worst fielder in major league history to play a significant number of innings at third base) picked it up but bounced his throw two feet in front of first and past second baseman Mark McLemore who was covering first on the bunt. Jeter came in to score and the Yankees won the rest of the games against Texas, the ALCS against Baltimore and the World Series against Atlanta, the first of four Yankee championships in a five year period. That 1996 Yankee team included not just Raines (36 years old) and Boggs (38 years old) in the stars-in-their-twilight category, but Darryl Strawberry (34 years old) as well. Charlie Hayes, who laid down the bunt that won this game for the Yanks, was the fielder at fault in the case of another historic error -- on August, 15 1990 Terry Mulholland pitched a game that would have consitituted a perfect game if not for an error by Hayes in the 7th inning (Wikipedia points out that more men have orbited the moon than pitched a perfect game).

Santana Tidbits

The Mets completed a deal tonight for perhaps the reigning best pitcher in baseball, Johan Santana. With baseball-reference-com, plus a little bit of Excel apreadsheet fun, we can learn
agglio Ordonez, 5
--Homers given up to the Yankees: 1, in 40 2/3 total innings pitched.
--OPS by lefty hitters against him: .654
--OPS by righty hitters against him: .641 (so he's been even better with the platoon advantage against him)
--Of the 16 teams against which he has at least three decisions, he is undefeated against only two: the Mets and Yankees (3-0 against both)
--Homers given up to the Yankees: 1, in 40 2/3 total innings pitched.
--Overall his career record against NL teams is 16-4 in 182 2/3 IP, with a 2.27 ERA and a .554 OPS against (.187 BA against)
--At Shea he is 2-0 in 2 starts, 15 IP, 1 ER, 7H, 1BB, zero extra base hits, a 0.60 ERA and a .303 OPS against
--As a hitter, Santana has a lifetime batting average of .258 and a .636 OPS (compare that to Joe McEwing's career numbers for the Mets: .244 BA, .644 OPS).
--Almost nobody steals bases off Johan Santana. Johan has allowed 28 SBs in his 1,308.7 IP career. That's a stolen base allowed about every 47 innings. I looked at the 194 pitchers who pitched 1,000 innings or more since 1990. Johan's allowed SB rate is the sixth best of those 194 pitchers. Terry Mulholland was the best (one SB allowed every 102.5 IP!). The worst of these was Dwight Gooden, allowing an SB every 6.3 IP, but this is only counting his days from 1990 on, after his (very early) peak.
--Johan Santana has thrown, in his entire career, only 2 (!!) intentional walks. That's an IBB every 655 innings pitched. Since 1973 when the DH was first introduced, 163 pitchers have accumulated at least 1,000 IP pitching for American League teams. Of those 163 guys, Santana's 655 IPs per IBB is not only the the highest rate of IPs per IBB, it is ridiculously far beyond anybody else. Number 2 on the list is none other than current Met Pedro Martinez, who in his AL career surrendered IBBs at a rate of one every 277 IP. The average IP per IBB for guys on this list is about 58 IP per IBB, less than 10% of Johan's rate. #163 on this list -- the guy who gave up IBBs most frequently -- is Greg A. Harris, who started his major league career with the Mets. During his days as an AL pitcher, Greg gave up 58 IBBs in 1,021 IPs, a rate of an IBB every 18 IPs or so.

Latin Empire

Over at baseball-reference.com's Stat of the Day, a new study shows that 53% of of the Mets' 2007 plate apearances were from players born in Latin American countries, compared to 24% in the majors generally, and that 30% of the Mets' innnings pitched were thrown by pitchers born in Latin American countries, compared to 18% in the majors.

I think that, consciously or not, Omar is taking the same approach to Hispanic-heritage players that Oakland's general manager Billy Beane took during the "Moneyball" years to types of players the market seemed to undervalue a bit. In Beane's case he loooked for players who walked a lot, for college prospects instead of high school prospects, for sidearm pitchers, and players in other categories that the market seemd to undervalue at the time. For Minaya, I think he believes, and he may well be quite right, that in many cases between an American born player and an Hispanic player of equal talent, the market will undervalue the Hispanic player a bit and there is thus sometimes a market opportunity there.

Nolan and Paquin

Mets fans with a taste for trivia may remember the name Frank Estrada, who was part of one of the most infamous trades in Mets or baseball history. On December 10, 1971, Estrada, Don Rose and the young, flame-throwing pitcher Nolan Ryan were traded for the perennial All-Star shortstop Jim Fregosi. Fregosi failed to play for the Mets at his prior level of performance, while Ryan went on to pitch for more seasons than anyone in baseball history, obliterating records for most career no-hiters and total strikeouts and establishing standards for these categories that seem unchallengable.

The career of Frank Estrada (or rather Francisco Estrada, or Paquin, his Mexican League nickname) might seem, if you just checked his major league stats, the exact opposite of Ryan's unprecedentedly prolific career. Estrada, brought up to the Mets from the minors late in the 1971 season entered the first game of a double header at Shea against the Expos, on September 14, 1971. He replaced Jerry Grote behind the plate with the Mets trailing 12 to 0 in the top of the sixth. When the Expos' fifth batter of the inning came up, he allowed his first and last major league passed ball. Estrada, who was 23 years old, came up for his first major league at bat in the seventh with two outs and nobody on -- he knocked a single to left. In the botom of the 9th he came up again with two outs, the Mets still trailing 12-0, and grounded out to end the game (everybody in the park but Frank was probably rooting for an out). He never played in the majors again -- finishing his MLB career with a .500 batting average and 1 passed ball in four innings caught.

Estrada's sounds like an obscure career but his life in baseball has actually turned out much more like that of Nolan Ryan's than most fans are likely aware. Indeed, Paquin Estrada has had one of the most illustrious careers in the long history of the Mexican proessional baseball, catching more games than anyone in the history of the Meican leagues, or indeed more games than anyone in the minor leagues, in the US or Mexico. Nolan Ryan pitched in an astounding 27 seasons in the US major leagues, from 1966 to 1993, missing only 1967 during that span. Yet the man he was traded with, Franscisco Estrada, was playing professionally in the top Mexican leagues in 1966 and he actually went Ryan one year better -- Estrada's final season as a player was 1994! And Estrada has continued to play a huge role in Mexican baseball, as a top manager for many, many years, winning numerous titles. The Mexican national team that knocked the US team out of the 2006 World Baseball Classic was managed by none other than Paquin Estrada. He's a distinguished member of the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame, and the current manager of the Chihuahua Dorados. I wonder if Nolan Ryan, who was born in southern Texas about a three hour drive from the Mexican border, has met Estrada since they were ever so briefly on the Mets together more than 36 years ago.

Ricardo Rincon was recently signed by the Mets to a minor league contract, with a chance to compete this spring for a chance at making the big club. Rincon would be the fifth Mets pitcher in history born in Mexico. Ollie Perez was the fourth, after Armando Reynoso, Juan Acevedo and Rigo Beltran. (The 1997 and 1998 Pirates, by the way, each had five pitchers from Mexico in a single season, including Rincon in his first two seasons in the majors). The Mets have had only three position players born in Mexico: Alex Trevino, Karim Garcia and, the Mexican-born player to play for the Mets, the catcher by the name of Francisco Estrada who went on to the Ryanesque career in his native country.

Just A Bit of Home

Since 1964, when Shea Stadium opened, the Mets have had an overall winning percentage at home of .519, 24th among the 30 franchises during that period (for franchises younger than the Mets, I just use their entire franchise history to rank them), and way below the total .538 percentage in home games that all major league teams combined have averaged since 1964.

But over the same period the Mets, since 1964 have been just slightly below average when they play as the visiting team. In away games since 1964 the Mets have had a winning percentage of .456, 18th among the 30 teams in the majors but in a virtual tie for 16th (the Mets, Phils and Tigers all have exactly 1,594 road wins since 1964, the Tigers have one fewer road loss than the Mets in that period and the Phillies three fewer road losses).

What these numbers add up to is that the Mets since 1964 have had one of the very weakest home field advantages in the majors. With a .063 difference between home winning percentage and road winning percentage, the Mets find themselves ahead of only three of the 30 franchises in strength of home field since 1964. Only the Braves, Reds and Orioles have had less of a gap between their home and road records since 1964. The average gap for all teams is .076, so the Mets' gap of .063 is quite low. The Rockies have the largest home vs road gap by far, at .155. Baltimore has the lowest gap at .041.

The Orioles are, along with the Yankees, one of only two franchises to have a road record over .500 since 1964 . But unlike the Yankees, who also have the best home record since 1964, the O's have had a home record that is only a bit above average.

Puffed Rice

Jim Rice came extremely close to being elected to the Hall of Fame this past week. With 72.2% of voters including him in their selections, he fell just short of the 75% needed. Historically, coming that close has almost always meant a player is eventually elected.

An item of interest to Mets fans is that modern sabermetric statistics show Moises Alou (through 2007) and Jim Rice to have had careers of almost identical value.

Career Win Shares (Bill James stat that tries to reflect a player's total contribution to team wins on both offense and defense)
Jim Rice: 282
Moises Alou: 282

Career WARP1 (Baseball Prospectus' "Wins Over Replacement Player", it also includes both offense and defensive contributions)
Jim Rice: 72.1
Moises Alou: 72.6

Career OPS+ (Baseball-reference.com's stat adjusting OPS for home park effects and for different historical eras, with average=100)
Jim Rice: 128
Moises Alou: 128

Primary Education

OK, today everyone is watching New Hampshire, birthplace of only one New York Met ever, Don Florence, whose entire major league career consisted of pitching 14 games for the Mets in 1995. Florence has another claim to fame as a Met -- you can make the case he has the best winning percentage of any Mets pitcher in history, if you don't require any minimum number of decisions:

Most Career Wins as a Mets Pitcher, among pitchers with zero losses as a Met
Don Florence: 3 Wins, 0 Losses
Bartolome Fortunato, Barry Jones, John Candelaria and Jim Bethke: 2 Wins, 0 Losses

No major leaguer born in New Hampshire has ever been inducted in the Hall of Fame. Best major leaguers born in New Hampshire:
--Arlie Latham, 221 Win Shares. Latham was one of the more popular players of the 19th century among fans. He was a prolific base stealer who hit for a good average and played third base for many years when that was a very tough position to play (lots of bunting, plus inferior gloves for fielding those wicked line drives). He was very famous as an entertainer, eccentric and overall kook on the field and off (he is credited for, among other innovations, starting the tradition of chattering encouragement to the pitcher from the infield).
--Red Rolfe, 162 Win Shares. Rolfe was the All-Star third basemen for the great, great Yankee teams of the late 1930s, late in Gehrig's career and early in DiMaggio's (Rolfe was 6 years younger than Gehrig and six years older than DiMaggio).
--Mike Flanagan, 158 Win Shares -- the popular Orioles pitcher and more recently an executive in the O's front office.

Among active MLB players born in New Hampshire the leading light is Chris Carpenter with 91 career Win Shares. Chad Paronto has 10 career Win Shares and Brian Wilson (not the Beach Boy) has 5 career Win Shares. Other New Hampshire natives who have played major league ball since 1945 and that current fans might remember are Bob Tewksbury (101 Win Shares), Phil Plantier (46 Win Shares) and Joe Lefebvre (35 Win Shares).

With Intent

Designating a walk as an "intentional walk" is a somewhat odd aspect of baseball statistics. Most baseball statistics (setting aside fielding errors) are simply statements of facts. A single is an occurrence when the batter hits safely and makes it to first base; a walk is when the batter is awarded first base on four balls, etc. The intentional walk, however, requires a subjective determination by the official scorer of what was in the pitcher's mind -- whether or not he "intentionally" walked the better. There can certainly be gradations of "intentionality" that are not reflected in the simple statistical assignment of a walk as either "intentional" or not. A pitcher will sometimes pitch around a batter, intentionally avoiding giving the batter any pitch close to the strike zone or remotely hittable, without going through the traditional rigmarole of a standard "intentional" walk (catcher stands up, signals for a pitch way outside the strike zone, etc.). Intentional walk stats thus have to be taken with some grain of salt.

Nevertheless, the major leagues do record a sub-category of walks known as intentional walks, and there are some interesting patterns to be found there. Jose Reyes had 13 intentional walks (IBBs) in 2007 -- that's a very high number for a leadoff batter, and led the majors this past season for IBBs by a leadoff batter. By my calculations, Reyes is only the ninth NL player in the past 50 years to manage 13 or more IBBs in a season from the leadoff position in the batting order (note however that some of the other eight players -- such as Pete Rose and Lou Brock --did it multiple times in their careers). The frequency of Jose's IBBs in 2007 resulted in the Mets receiving more IBBs at the leadoff spot in the batting order than at any other spot in the order, an odd result indeed.

Generally speaking, in the NL, the 8th batter in the order gets the most IBBs, with the 5th place and cleanup hitters close behind. Over the past ten seasons, 8th spot batters have received about 24% of all IBBs in the National League, cleanup hitters about 21% of the IBBs and 5th place hitters about 18%. Leadoff hitters in the NL over the past ten seasons have only about 4% of the all the IBBs in the NL, ahead only of ninth place hitters at about 3% (these are all essentially all pinch hitters of course) and 1% for second spot hitters. Clearly a second spot hitter is rarely walked intentionally, given that the heart of the order is generally coming up immediately thereafter.

Although overall during the past ten seasons, the 8th spot has gotten the highest proportion of IBBs in the National League, in 2007 NL cleanup batters outdid 8th spot hitters in IBBs, with the cleanup guys taking about 26% of the IBBs and the 8th spot guys taking about 21.5%.

IBBs for pitchers are about as rare as ivory-billed woodpeckers. Brooks Kieschnick was pitching in a game in 2004 and received an IBB while at bat in that game -- but Kieschnick played more games in his career as a major league outfielder than as a pitcher. The last man before that to receive an intentional walk while in the game as a pitcher was Jim Kaat, all the way back in 1970, pitching for the Twins against the Brewers. Kaat was walked intentionally with one out and men on second and third, with the score tied in the top of the 11th inning. The Brewers were obviously trying to set up the possibilities of a double play or a force at home. It didn't work: Cesar Tovar singled and then Harmon Killebrew homered Kaat and Tovar in, and the Twins scored six runs in the inning.

Field of Dreams State

The nation is focused on Iowa today. Not because it has been the birthplace of six Mets:
Jim McAndrew 38 Win Shares as a Met
Jack Hamilton 8 Win Shares as a Met
Lute Barnes 2 Win Shares as a Met
Ken Henderson 1 Win Share as a Met
Rich Folkers 0 Win Shares as a Met (29.3 IP in 1970, 6.44 ERA, for the Mets)
Kevin Tapani 0 Win Shares as a Met (only 7 IP for the Mets, but went on to a long career as a solidly average pitcher, mostly for the Twins and Cubs; 124 career Win Shares)

Hall of Famers born in Iowa:
Fred Clarke 400 Win Shares
Cap Anson 381 Win Shares
Bob Feller 292 Win Shares
Red Faber 292 Win Shares
Dave Bancroft 269 Win Shares
Dazzy Vance 241 Win Shares

The only active major leaguers who have had at least one career Win Share and are native Iowans:
Jon Lieber 109 Win Shares
Casey Blake 62 Win Shares
Jerry Hairston 57 Win Shares
Wes Obermueller 6 Win Shares
Jeff Clement 2 Win Shares
Joel Hanrahan 1 Win Share

Different Scales, Same Results

Slugging percentages and on base percentages are the two key figures to measuring a player's contribution at bat. They are however, measured on somewhat different scales -- for example in 2007, the NL's overall league slugging percentage was .423, while the overall league on base percentage was .334. That's one reason why adding them together in the statistic known as OPS (on base plus slugging) probably slightly overvalues hitters with high slugging percentages and slightly undervalues hitters with high on-base percentages (nevertheless, I still find OPS enormously useful, as it is really only slightly off as an estimate of a player's hitting value in most cases and it is really easy and convenient to use). In any event, the result of the two different scales is that it is relatively unusual for one player to have OBP and SLG figures that are very close to one another. Such a confluence only happens with players with a unusual combination of skills -- a relatively high capacity for getting on base given the player's power production.

The Mets' Luis Castillo is such a player of unusually close OBP and SLG figures; he is quite good at getting on base but not good at all on the power side. In 2007, Castillo had 199 at-bats for the Mets after joining the team from Minnesota at the end of July. His OBP in his time with the Mets was .371 and his SLG .372, a difference of only .001. Only four other players have had Mets seasons with at least 100 ABs in which their SLG and OPS were separated by no more than .001:
1974 Wayne Garrett, 522 ABs, .337 OBP and .337 SLG
1977 Doug Flynn, 282 ABs, .220 OBP and .220 SLG
1997 Rey Ordonez, 356 ABs, .255 OBP and .256 SLG
1999 Luis Lopez, 104 ABs. .308 OBP and .308 SLG

Flynn and Ordonez were so horrible on offense generally that the sort of hit rock bottom on both elements. Flynn's 1977 season for the Mets, after coming over in June from the Reds as part of the Tome Seaver trade, may have been the worst batting season in the history of the team, considering how many ABs he was given despite his futility. Ordonez' 1997 wasn't much better. In contrast, Wayne Garrett's 1974, like Castillo's 2007 with the Mets, wasn't bad from an offensive point of view, especially as we are talking about middle infielders here. Though Garrett's '74 OPS was much lower than Castillo's NL '07, Garrett was hitting in a much lower run scoring environment.

A Life On The Field

Former Met Jim Beauchamp passed away the other day, felled by leukemia. Beauchamp's career in pro ball spanned 50 years -- including 10 seasons as a major league ball player and 16 seasons as a minor league manager, twice managing International League champions. He was also Bobby Cox' bench coach with Atlanta for years, including for the 1995 World Series Champions.

Beauchamp spent the last two seasons of his playing career with the Mets, coming over after the 1971 season in a multi-player trade with the Cardinals that, among other things, sent Art Shamsky to St. Louis (though Shamsky never played for the Cardinals). Beauchamp's very first plate appearance for the Mets, on April 23, 1972, was a walk-off pinch-hit single in the bottom of the 12th inning. Beauchamp was pinch-hitting for Ed Kranepool with one out and bases loaded in the bottom of the twelfth, and his single allowed the Mets to complete a double-header sweep of the Cubs at Shea. Thereafter, his best day as a Met, and indeed the best day of his major league playing career, came on his 33rd birthday when, starting at first base and batting seventh, Beauchamp hit two homers at Shea, batting in 3 runs in a 4-2 victory over the Astros -- his only major league game with more than one extra base hit.

A classic journeyman as a player, Beauchamp averaged only 73 plate appearances a season, and was never a regular for any team, but he was still an important part of the Mets 1973 NL champions. For example, he had 4 RBIs for the Mets on May 13, 1973, in a 6-4 victory over the Pirates. The Mets only won the NL East that season by a mere game and half over the Cardinals and only two and a half games over the Pirates. So without Jim's performance on May 13, the Mets may never have gotten to the post-season in 1973, and Mets history might look a lot different.

Beauchamp's only appearances in the post-season as a player came in the 1973 World Series, when he pinch-hit for the Mets in four of the seven games -- his last appearances as a major league player. The Mets released him during spring training before the 1974 season but thought enough of him to offer him a coaching job, and though Jim still hoped to catch on with another team, he didn't find a taker, and by 1975 was managing in the minors.

Jim Beauchamp started in pro ball as an 18-year-old in the Cardinals' minor league system, and was still a coordinator in the Braves system this past season at age 68. Jim seems to have raised his son, Kash, to be a baseball lifer as well. Kash himself played 12 seasons, a thousand games, in the minors and has been working since his own retirement as a player as a coach and executive in both organized baseball and the independent leagues.

"Beauchamp" is French for "beautiful field", and sure enough Jim Beauchamp managed to spend his life on the "beautiful fields" of professional baseball, and pass on the life along with his name to the next generation.

Value Judgments

No Met has ever won the Most Valuable Player award, a fact made more painful to Met fans by the result of this year's NL MVP voting, in which David Wright of the Mets deserved the award as much as or more than any player in the league, and would likely have received it if the Mets as a team had won a couple of more games during the season.

Let's put the Mets' failure to win any MVP awards in perspective. Since 1962, when the Mets joined the National League, there have been 47 MVP awards handed out: one a year over 45 seasons, and two in 1979, when Willie Stargell of the Pirates and Keith Hernandez of the Cardinals shared the award. Of those 47 MVPs since 1962, 44 (or 94%) have been won by players with one of the eight NL franchises that date back to the 19th century. Since 1962, the NL MVPs won by these 8 longest-standing franchises break down as follows:
Giants 9
Cardinals and Reds 7 each
Phillies and Pirates 5 each
Dodgers and Braves 4 each
Cubs 3

The Giants top this list thanks to Barry Bonds, who has won 5 MVPs while playing for the Giants. The Cardinals, in contrast, have won their seven expansion-era MVPs with seven different players, the most different winners for any NL franchise (the A's in the AL also have had seven different MVP winners since 1962).

The only three NL MVPs representing teams other than the old original 8 franchises have been the Astros' Jeff Bagwell, the Padres' Ken Caminiti, and the Rockies' Larry Walker. Oddly these three expansion team MVPs were all awarded over a four season period, 1994 to 1997. The other expansion franchises in the NL, the Mets, Expos, Marlins, Diamondbacks and Brewers, have never had a player win an NL MVP award (Robin Yount, twice, and Rollie Fingers won AL MVP awards as Brewers when Milwaukee was in the American League).

The dearth of expansion-franchise MVP winners in the National league is not replicated in the American League. In the AL, expansion teams have won 14 of the 46 MVP awards (over 30%) given out since 1962. The Rangers alone have won 5 AL MVP awards (despite having never even made it to the World Series), the Brewers won 3 during their years in the AL, the Mariners and Angels have each won 2, and the Royals and Blue Jays have won one MVP award each.

A large part of the reason that the Mets and other NL expansion teams have done relatively poorly in the distribution of MVP awards over the years, compared to AL expansion teams, may lie in the fact that NL expansion teams have played a preponderance of their seasons in pitcher-friendly parks, parks that dampen the big homer and RBI numbers that MVP voters respond to most enthusiastically. AL expansion teams have generally played in less pitcher-friendly settings than NL teams, producing more big homer and RBI seasons and more MVP winners.

Rounding Home

As 2007 draws to a close:
Most homers hit in his career by a player who turned 50 in 2007
Tim Wallach 260
Kirk Gibson 255
Lou Whitaker 244
Bob Horner 218
Steve Balboni 181

By a player who turned 60 in 2007
Darrell Evans 414
Johnny Bench 389
Carlton Fisk 376
Ken Singleton 246
Richie Hebner 203

By a player who turned 70 in 2007
Orlando Cepeda 379
Brooks Robinson 268
Clete Boyer 162
Tom Tresh 153

And happy 70th birthday to Bobby Klaus, born December 27th, 1937. He only hit 6 homers in his short, two-season career, and was a lesser player than his brother Billy (who had some solid seasons in an 11-year career, including a rookie year in 1955 when he was second in the AL Rookie-of-the-Year voting to Herb Score), but who did start in the lead-off spot more than any other Met in 1964. Surprisingly, neither Bobby nor Billy seems to have garnered the nickname "Santa".

Savings Acounts

The longest save in Mets history (in terms of both innings pitched and batters faced) was a five inning outing by Doug Sisk on June 23, 1983. The game came in the midst of an unusual, double-header-filled, six-game series against the Cardinals, who were the reigning World Series champs. This long series was especially poignant because the champion Cards had just traded, only days before, one of their stars, Keith Hernandez, to the Mets for the Mets' promising young pitcher Neil Allen. Sisk was a rookie and was pitching really well -- he was one reason the Mets could afford to part with Allen. In this June 23 game, Ed Lynch gave up 4 early runs and was lifted for Carlos Diaz in just the third inning. But the Mets took the lead with a four run bottom of the fourth, highlighted by a Hubie Brooks three-run homer. Sisk entered in the fifth and faced 21 batters, scattering 5 hits over five innings, surrendered only one run, which was unearned. In 332 major league games, this was one only three outings of five innings in Sisk's career, and he never pitched longer than that. The new Mets' manager, Frank Howard, (George Bamberger had recently resigned) explained that he had allowed Sisk to remain in the game because the recent spate of double-headers had left his bullpen pretty much empty.

The shortest save in Mets history, in terms of batters faced, was achieved by Cal Koonce on May 30, 1968 at Forbes Field, Pittsburgh. The Pirates had 4 future Hall-of-Famers in their starting lineup: Clemente, Stargell, Mazeroski, and the starting pitcher, Jim Bunning. Nevertheless the Mets, with Jerry Koosman pitching, dominated most of the game, led by three hits each from Agee and Kranepool, and held a 6-0 lead going into the bottom of the eighth inning. The Bucs finally got to Koosman in the eighth, and after Roberto Clemente knocked in the second Pirate run, Ron Taylor came in and wrapped up the inning. In the bottom of the ninth, though, Taylor gave up two singles wrapped around a strikeout. In came journeyman reliever Bill Short, who proceeded to hit Manny Jimenez, loading the bases, bringing the potential tying run to the plate, and followed that up by surrendering a sac fly, which made the game 6-3, and left men on first and, at third base, Matty Alou. Koonce came in and threw a pitch that catcher J. C. Martin couldn't handle cleanly -- but Alou was thrown out on the play, ending the game and giving Koonce the save without ever having pitched a full at-bat.

Top Catch

The ideal lead-off man gets on base frequently and has the capability to move around the bases quickly. Catchers, on the other hand, need to squat. Managers thus generally don't think of their catchers as lead-off guys. Indeed, in all of the Mets 46-season history only once has a Mets catcher played a full game batting in the lead-off position. That was May 2, 1963, when Casey Stengel's lineup put Choo Choo Coleman behind the plate in the fielding and also in the first spot in the Mets batting order. On the one hand the experiment was not particular successful, as Coleman was on base (with a single) only once in five plate appearances, and Choo Choo neither scored nor batted in a run. On the other hand, by batting first Choo Choo somehow managed to stay out of the way of the rest of the lineup, as the Mets scored 10 runs on 13 hits and demolished Houston by a score of 10-3. Leonard Koppett's beat story summarizing the game for The New York Times the next day is quite amusing -- riffing on the odd spectacle of the early Mets trouncing the opposition -- but does not mention Coleman's unusual place in the lead-off spot. On the other hand, how was Koppett to know that a catcher leading off for the Mets was not to happen again over the next 45 years?

The unquestioned king of lead-off catchers in contemporary baseball is Jason Kendall. Here are the catchers with the most major league games, since 1962, in which they batted in the lead-off spot and had at least 3 plate appearances in the game (the 3 PA minimum is there to try to make sure we are only including true lead-off games, and not merely pinch-hitting, double-switch or defensive replacement games):
Jason Kendall, 446 games
Butch Wynegar, 48 games
Craig Biggio, 35 games
Paul Lo Duca, 33 games
Charlie Moore, 21 games
Johnny Oates, 17 games
Brad Ausmus, 15 games
Ivan Rodriguez 14 games
Ron Brand 12 games
Tim McCarver 10 games

Since 2000, the only catchers to start a game as the lead-off hitter have been Kendall (over 400 games), Lo Duca (who in his spectacular 2001 season was the Dodgers' second most-frequently used lead-off man), I-Rod (the Tigers used him 12 times in the lead-off spot this past April and May), Brad Ausmus (a few times for the Tigers in 2000 and a couple of times for Houston in 2002), and Marty Barrett once for the Cubs in 2004.

America's School

Oberlin College, located in Ohio, about 35 miles from Cleveland, was founded in 1833:
--Oberlin was the first college in the United States to regularly admit African-American students, beginning with four such students in 1835.
--Oberlin is the oldest continuously operating coeducational college in the United States, having first admitted women in 1837. Three women graduated from Oberlin in 1841, becoming the first women in America to receive bachelor of arts degrees.
--Oberlin was the first college degree to grant a degree to an African-American woman, in 1862. -- Oberlin was a key stop along the Underground Railroad that helped escaped slaves flee to freedom from the pre-Civil War South.
-Oberlin's college football team, was coached by John Heisman in 1892, that's the Heisman after whom the Heisman Trophy is named.
--Oberlin is the only leading liberal arts college in the U.S. that also includes a leading music conservatory.
--Oberlin also has one of the leading college libraries in the U.S. as well as one of the leading college art museums in the country.
--Oberlin pioneered the concept of coeducational dormitories, with Life Magazine putting Oberlin students on the cover of its November 20, 1970 issue first identifying the new co-ed dorm phenomenon.
--In the 1970s, Oberlin was a national center for radical approaches to sports and athletics, with Jack Scott and Tommie Smith (who famously protested American policies from the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics) leading the way.

Oberlin has produced four major league baseball players:
--Cy Voorhees, who pitched 61 innings for the Phillies and Senators in 1902, 3 wins, 4 losses in his career, with one shutout and an overall ERA of 3.94.
--Bill Garfield, who pitched in the NL in 1889 (for the Pittsburgh Alleghenys) and 1890 (for the Cleveland Spiders). He pitched 99 innings altogether but his win-loss record was only 1-9 and his ERA was 5.73.
--Clay Fauver, who pitched in one single game in the majors, but made it a complete game victory, giving up 4 runs but none of them earned. He pitched his one game for the Louisville Colonels in 1899.
--Moses Fleetwood "Fleet" Walker, who was a catcher and played in 42 games in 1884 for Toledo in the American Association (which at the time was a major league). Walker is the best-remembered of a handful of African-American players who found jobs in the majors before the color line hardened.

Divided Loyalties

Almost every player with a substantial career in major league baseball plays for more than one major league team over his career. The only Mets to accumulate at least 500 plate appearances over his career as a Met, and then going on to retire without also at some point playing for another major leage team, have been Ed Kranepool, Ron Hodges, Bruce Boisclair, Rod Kanehl and the Twins' current manager, Ron Gardenhire. The only pitchers to pitch at least 162 innings for the Mets and retire having played only for the Mets are Bob Apodaca, Jeff Innis, Eric Hillman and Rick Baldwin.

Far more frequent are the players who play for mutiple teams over a career. For example, 120 Mets also played, at some point in their careers, for the Dodgers. That's the highest number of players the Mets have shared in common with any single franchise. The top 5 franchises, in terms of the number of players who played for the franchise and also the Mets at some point, are:
Dodgers, 120 players
Cardinals 114 players
Cubs 106 players
Padres and Yankees: 101 players

The franchise with the fewest players who also played for the Mets at some point in their careers is the Diamondbacks, with only 25 players who were future or past Mets. of course, that's not quite a fair comparison because the D-backs have only been around for 10 seasons, compared to the 46 seasons teams the Mets and Dodgers (and other teams dating back to 1962 and before) have had in common. In fact Arizona is quite close to the Dodgers if you look at average players in common with the Mets on a per common season basis. With 120 players, over the 46 years the Mets franchise has been playing, who have also played for the Dodgers, that averages out to 2.6 players per season of the two teams' common existence. With 25 common players over ten years, the Mets and D-Backs have averaged 2.5 common players per season. Using this method, the Rockies, with 54 players who have also been Mets, over just 15 years of the Colorado franchise's existence, have the highest per season average of any franchise -- 3.6 players per season who have also been Mets. The franchise with the lowest percentage is the Twins, with only 58 players who also played for the Mets at some point.

I offer the neologisms "multijugular", for players who play for multiple teams over their careers, and "unijugular" for the opposite. Jugular comes from the Latin word for yoke, especially in the context of yoking oxen together in a team, and is the basis for English words related to bringing things together, such as join, joint, conjugal, and subjugate.

Switch In Time Part 2

The rest of the Mets Switch-Hitters All-Time Team:

SS Bud Harrelson
The choice between Harrelson and Jose Reyes is simply a choice between quantity and quality. Harrelson played in 1322 games for the Mets and accumulated 130 Win Shares for them (Win Shares being the Bill James-developed summary stat that tries to reflect all aspect of a player's contribution to team wins). Reyes, still a mere youth in normal baseball career terms, has played in less than half as many Mets games (596) and accumulated 87 Win Shares. But notice how many more Win Shares per game Reyes is piling up. Harrelson's contribution was almost all in his defense, Reyes makes an enormously greater contribution than Buddy did on offense and his defense has become top-drawer recently as well. Jose's Win Shares totals the last three seasons have been 17, 29 and 24. Harrelson's best three Win Shares seasons of his whole career were 19, 17 and a couple of 14's. And Reyes is still only 24 years old. I picked Harrelson here in deference to his very long and graceful service to the Mets (Harrelson is second only to Ed Kranepool in most games played in the history of the franchise). But assuming no precipitous drop in performance or an unexpected trade, Jose will have to replace Buddy on this All-Switch-Hitter team in just another season or two.

OF: Mookie Wilson, Lee Mazzilli, Carlos Beltran
I'm kind of cheating here, by picking three center fielders instead of a left fielder and a right fielder. But Mookie and Mazzilli played enough corner outfield to allow them to fit in here. And if I forced myself to choose left field and right field specialists here, I'd have to choose from among a group of least favorite Mets in history: Vince Coleman, Roger Cedeno, Carl Everett. Thank you, but with that choice I'll Mookie and Maz.

Beltran has 958 Runs Created through 2007, his age 30 season (I'm using baseball-reference's Runs Created, which is basically Total Bases multiplied by On-Base Percentage, with a bunch of additional tweaks to reflect other aspects of run creation). That is third highest Runs Created number ever for a switch hitting outfielder through his age 30 season:

1. Mickey Mantle 1,577
2. Tim Raines 1,031
3. Carlos Beltran 958
4. Pete Rose 915
5. Lance Berkman 906

(Lee Mazzilli appears at 20th on this list, Mookie Wilson at 40th)

BTW, Rose counts as an outfielder on this list because through his age 30 season he'd played in the outfield in more games (746 games) than the infield (644 games)

P: Mickey Lolich
Not many pitchers switch-hit. Lolich was not a good hitter, even for a pitcher, but he was better than the only other two Mets pitchers, Pete Harnisch and Victor Zambrano, who switch hit and played with the team for any significant amount of time.

The best switch-hitting pitchers in modern baseball (since 1900)were probably Early Wynn and Ted Lyons. In the era since 1962, when the Mets became a franchise, Jim Perry (Gaylord's brother) was a good pitcher who switch-hit and Carlos Zambrano today is a switch-hitter who is both a fine pitcher and a pretty darn good hitter.

Switch In Time, Part 1

Here are the first four places in a proposed Mets Switch-Hitter All-Time Lineup, the rest to come in my next entry:

C Todd Hundley
In NL history, only Ted Simmons had a clearly stronger career than Hundley among switch-hitting catchers. Old-timer Duke Farrell, who played well for several NL teams in the 1890s might have have had a comparable career value to Hundley. The Mets just picked up Johnny Estrada in a trade, and if he does play for the team this year, he will become the only other switch hitting catcher in team history.

1B Eddie Murray
David Segui and Tony Clark also switch-hit and played first the Mets. Murray is far and away the best switch-hitting first basemen in major league history.

The group after Murray consists of old-timers Lu Blue, Tommy Tucker, and Dan McGann, three guys who together represent a euphonious trio of baseball names and three really fine players, too. Lu Blue was a Dave Magadan-type first baseman (high on-base percentage, low slugging percentage). Over the period 1921 through 1931 only Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby and Joe Sewell were on base more times than Blue. Back in the 19th century, Tucker was the first real good switch hitter in baseball history. He was also a renowned heckler of opposing teams, and was designated with nicknames such as "Foghorn" and Noisy Tom". McGann was a tough guy long associated with the rambunctious player and manager John McGraw; McGann also died violently, apparently a suicide, not long after his major league career ended.

Mark Teixeira has a serious shot at moving past all three of these guys and becoming the #2 all-time switch-hitting first baseman before he's done. Teixeira already has 104 Win Shares and won't turn 28 until April. Blue, Tucker and McGann all had between 175 and 200 Win Shares for their careers.

2B Gregg Jefferies
Wally Backman was technically a switch-hitter but he was just awful as a righty hitter. As a second baseman for the Mets he had 353 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers; in those PAs he had .140 BA, .232 OBP, .166 SLG and .398 OPS. No wonder the Mets needed Tim Teufel for a platoon.

Indeed, the Mets have had a whole bunch of fine ball players play second baseman for them and also switch-hit: Roberto Alomar, Carlos Baerga, Lenny Randle, Tommie Herr, Jose Reyes, Jose Valentin and the current incumbent, Luis Castillo. But none of these guys has played long enough for the Mets at second base, with as much ability to hit from both sides of the plate, to put them ahead of Jefferies on this particular list. Of course Jefferies couldn't really play second base despite the many games he did so for the Mets, so picking the right player for the second base spot here is a tough call. Mets fans hope that Castillo's new contract means he will make himself the obvious choice for this list over the next few years.

3B Howard Johnson
Hojo was certainly one of the best switch-hitting third basemen ever. Chipper Jones has moved past him decisively, and you can make an argument for Ken Caminiti and Terry Pendelton ranking ahead of Hojo, but that's about it. The only other significant switch-hitter to play mostly third base for the Mets was Lenny Randle, who played well but was only with the Mets for two seasons.

More to come....

Exclusive Club

Most home runs by a Met player who retired without playing for any other major league team:
Ed Kranepool 118
Ron Hodges 19
Bruce Boisclair 10
Dave Schneck 8
Rod Kanehl 6
Ron Gardenhire 4
Kelvin Chapman/Billy Murphy 3

I was going to put Danny Garcia on this list with 5 career homers for the Mets, but it was pointed out that Garcia, although he did not appear anywhere in "organized baseball" in 2007, was still playing professionally. Garcia, whose claim to fame, thus far, is as the first Brooklyn Cyclone to make it to the majors, played in the independent Atlantic League in 2000, playing in 70 games with the Somerset Patriots based in Bridgewater, New Jersey (Bridgewater is in New Jersey's Somerset County -- just as England's Bridgwater is in England's Somerset County).

Garcia was a Somerset teammate of the indefatigable Alan Zinter, who will turn 40 in May. Alan Zinter was the Mets first pick in the 1989 draft and has plugged away in pro ball year after year ever since, with only brief stops in the majors at age 34 and age 36 (84 major league plate appearances altogether). In any event, it appears that Danny Garcia is still trying to get back to the majors, so I din't include him on the list above.

Most wins by a Met pitcher who retired without pitching for any other major league team:
Bob Apodaca 16
Jeff Innis 10
Randy Tate 5

They Try Harder

With Luis Castillo re-signed, it looks as if the Mets may have the same primary number 2 spot hitter for two years in a row. In each of the last five seasons, the hitter who started in the #2 spot in the Mets' lineup more than anybody else has been:
2003 Timo Perez
2004 Kaz Matsui
2005 Miguel Cairo
2006 Paul Lo Duca
2007 Luis Castillo

In team history, the 5 guys who batted in the second spot in the lineup in the most games for the Mets:
1. Felix Millan 628 games
2. Edgardo Alfonzo 542 games
3. Wally Backman 396 games
4. Bud Harrelson 262 games
5. Dave Magadan 236 games

Since 1962, the year the Mets entered the majors, the major league players who have batted in the second spot in the lineup in the most games overall:
1. Ozzie Smith 1,533 games
2. Omar Vizquel 1,473 games
3. Jay Bell 1,335 games
4. Ryne Sandberg 1,223 games
5. Rod Carew 1,149
If Derek Jeter bats second in 2008 as often as he did in 2007, he will move past Carew and Sandberg on this list. Omar Vizquel has signed a one-year deal to be back with the Giants in 2008 and could conceivably pass Ozzie on this listm, though by the end of last season he was batting second for San Francisco only ocassionally, having mostly moved down toward the bottom of the order.

Center Points

All the current talk in Metsland is of the trade of prospect Lastings Milledge for two veterans. Milledge will presumably play center field for the Nats. The last two seasons, the Nats' primary starters in center have been Nook Logan in 2007 (2007 OPS .649) and Marlon Byrd in 2006 (2006 OPS .667) -- you can't get much worse than that.

Of the 5 guys who have played the most games in center field in Nats/Expos franchise history, two have also played for the Mets:
1. Andre Dawson 1,027
2.Marquis Grissom 610
3. Rondell White 513
4. Herm Winningham 331
5. Endy Chavez 303

The players who have played the most career games in center field against the Mets:
1. Willie Davis 200
2. Andruw Jones 173
3. Garry Maddox 160
4. Willie Mays 149
5. Curt Flood 136

Though Willie Davis played most of his career for the D0dgers, his prime fell during the period (1962-1968) when the Mets played every team in the NL 18 times, including the West Coast teams, and Davis played in center for years after that as well, including two seasons (1974 and most of 1975) in the NL East.

Base Pincher

A player whose only role in a game is as a pinch runner can only do so much. When such a player manages to steal two bases, that's pretty much as close to a perfect game for a pinch runner as he is likely to get. The game being played is probably an exciting one -- when a team sends a player in to pinch run, and he's stealing two bases, it's likely that there is much at stake. No Met pinch runner has ever stolen two bases as pinch runner (Bob Bailor and Pepe Mangual each stole 2 bases for the Mets after entering a game as a pinch runner, but in both cases stole one of those bases after staying in the game and taking a position in the field). But there have been four cases where a pinch runner coming in against the Mets stole two bases in his pinch running role (Davey Lopes actually once stole 3 bases against the Mets after entering the game as a pinch runner, but again only one of those was as a pinch runner):

On June 28, 1979, Matt Alexander, who was essentially a professional pinch runner by trade (168 career major league ABs, 103 career major league stolen bases, 42 career times caught stealing), pinch ran for Phil Garner after Garner singled in the bottom of the 9th inning with the Pirates trailing the Mets 3-2 and the Met's Ed Glynn pitching for the save. With one out and Rennie Stennett at the plate, Alexander stole second and then third (John Stearns was behind the plate for the Mets) but then got thrown out at the plate trying to score on Stennett's grounder to Frank Taveras at short.

On July 22, 1986, in a famous thriller against the Reds, the Mets watched Eric Davis pinch run for Pete Rose (who himself had pinch hit for John Franco) in the top of the 10th inning of a 3-3 tie. With Eddie Milner at the plate Davis stole second, and then third as Milner struck out. On arriving at third base, Davis got into a shoving match with Ray Knight, who threw a punch and a brawl broke out. Davis and Knight were thrown out of the game, along with Kevin Mitchell, who himself had come in after Darryl Strawberrry was tossed earlier after arguing with an ump (oh, those '86 Mets!). Running out of players, Davey Johnson pulled one of the most famous managerial moves in Mets history, bringing Roger McDowell in to pitch, and moving Orosco from the mound to right field, allowing Orosco and McDowell to "platoon pitch". McDowell got the third out, and McDowell and Orosco switched off the rest of the game between pitching and playing the outfield. The Mets finally won after Orosco walked in the top of the 14th, Howard Johnson homered to put the Mets up by two, and McDowell got the Reds three up, three down (with sinkerballer McDowell pitching, three ground balls of course) in the bottom of the 14th. The Mets bullpen pitched 9 innings of shutout ball in this wacky game.

On May 6, 1988, Eric Davis did it again, coming in as a pinch runner for the Reds in the top of the 9th inning of a 2-2 game, Doc Gooden having gone the whole way for the Mets. Davis replaced Jeff Treadway after Treadway's two out single, then stole second with Lloyd McClendon at the plate. After McLendon walked, bringing up Barry Larkin, Davis stole third as well. But Larkin grounded out to end the inning, and the Mets eventually won in the bottom of the tenth on a walkoff homer hit by Darryl Strawberry, John Franco on the mound for the Reds. This was one of only 11 homers Franco gave up to left-handed hitters in his twenty-one season career, two of them to Strawberry and two to Bobby Abreu. The winner for the Mets in this game was Randy Myers, who the Mets traded to the Reds for Franco the following year.

The fourth and most recent two-SB pinch runner game against the Mets occurred on May 11, 2003. Jake Peavy for the Padres and Pedro Astacio for the Mets had pitched well at Shea but the Mets had 3-2 lead in the bottom of the 9th, and brought Armando Benitez in to try to preserve the lead. Xavier Nady flied out to start the inning fo San Diego, but Dave Hansen walked and young Shane Victorino came in to run for him. With Lou Merloni up, Victorino stole second and Merloni walked. With Ramon Vazquez now at the plate, Victorino stole third. Vazquez popped out to short. With Mark Loretta at the plate, Merloni stole the Padres third base of the inning, and put the lead run in scoring position. But Loretta popped out to the catcher, and Benitez had his save -- no runs, no hits, no errors in the nonetheless adventurous inning.

All told, the four multi-stolen base pinch hitting appearances against the Mets (two of them by Darryl Strawberry's buddy Eric Davis) resulted in no runs for the pinch runner's team, and the Mets won all four games.

Out on Top

Five pitchers since 1900 have had at least 10 wins and an ERA+ of at least 150 in their final season in the major leagues. In order of highest ERA+, these five final seasons were:

1. Sandy Koufax 1966 (190 ERA+, 27 wins)
2. Larry French 1942 (178 ERA+, 15 wins)
3. J.R. Richard 1980 (173 ERA+, 10 wins)
4. John Tudor 1990 (158 ERA+, 12 wins)
5. Phil Douglas 1922 (153 ERA+, 11 wins)

Larry French isn't much remembered now, but had a very nice career, mostly with the Pirates and Cubs, though his excellent final year, having perfected a knuckleball, was with the Dodgers . He had the second-most wins in the NL in the 1930s, with only Hall of Famer Carl Hubbell ahead of him. Among left-handed pitchers, French is eighth in NL wins since 1900. Really old-time Cub fans can remember him as a rarity, a World Series pitcher for the Cubs. With 5 mound appearances for the Cubbies in the Series (1935 and 1938), it is correct to say that in the last 100 years only one pitcher, Charlie Root, has pitched in more World Series games for the Cubs than Larry French.

In his very last start in the major leagues, September 23, 1942, French pitched a complete game shutout for Brooklyn, facing the minimum 27 batters and coming inches from a perfect game. The only batter to reach base against French that day for the opposing Phillies was Nick Etten, who in the second inning lined a single just out of the reach of shortstop Pee Wee Reese. Etten was then erased on a double play. French won again in relief for the Dodgers a few days later, with Brooklyn trying to hang on in the pennant race with only one more day left in the season. According to the New York Times, French had a bonus provision in his contract for 1942 that paid him an extra $2,500 if he pitched 150 innings -- he only made it to 147 and two-thirds, but apparently the Dodgers paid him anyway.

In January, 1943 he joined the Navy and was stationed just a short distance from Ebbets Field, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He apparently worked out a deal with the Dodgers in which he would pitch part time for them in 1943, at least until he got his 200th career win (indeed he even showed up for a Dodgers pre-season workout at West Point but practice was over for the day by the time he arrived). However, Navy headquarters in Washington refused to grant French's request for permission, for fear of a "flood of such requests" (NY Times, April 19, 1943). After that he stuck with the military, serving in both World War II and Korea, only finally leaving the Navy in 1969, having reached the rank of captain. Though he didn't manage to win those last three games and get to 200 career wins as he wanted, he did end up with one of the greatest final seasons in major league history.

A useful comparison for modern Mets fans to get a sense of French's career accomplishments might be this one:
Larry French career: 197 Wins, 14 seasons, 3.44 career ERA, 114 career ERA+
Dwight Gooden career: 194 Wins, 16 seasons, 3.51 ERA, 111 career ERA+

Rollins and Runs

The selection of Jimmy Rollins as NL MVP for 2007 is a clear mistake based on the best statistical models available. According to both Win Shares and in WARP, Rollins was not in the top 5 most valuable players in the league, though he was in the second 5.

I suspect a lot of writers were wowed by Rollins' enormous runs scored total, the most in the NL in six seasons and the third highest run scoring total by a major league shortstop since 1900. Nor did the writers ignore homers -- Rollins hit a lot for a shortstop. Rollins is only the second NL shortstop to top 25 homers in a season more than once. Ernie Banks did it 7 times.

The writers are clearly failing to adjust for the favorable runs scoring and home run hitting environment in the Phillies' home park (an environment which gave us Ryan Howard's mistaken 2006 MVP as well) and for Rollins' huge number of outs.

Most runs scored in a season, NL, 2002-2007:
1. Jimmy Rollins (2007) 139
2. Albert Pujols (2003) 137
3. Todd Helton (2003) 135
4. Albert Pujols (2004) 133
5. Chase Utley (2006) 131

Most runs scored in a season by an MLB player playing most of his games at shortstop, 1900-2007:
1. Woody English (1930) 152
2. Alex Rodriguez (1996) 141
3. Jimmy Rollins (2007) 139
4. Frank Crosetti (1936) 137
5/6. Alex Rodriguez (2000) and Derek Jeter (1999) 134

Woody English was a fine player for the Cubs who had his only two great years in 1930-31, two of the biggest hitting years in history league-wide. English's historic 1930 run scoring took place in the same 1930 Cubs lineup as Hack Wilson's all-time record number of runs batted in.

Card Carriers

In honor of Metaforian's houseguests from St. Louis this Thanksgiving, let's look at the Cardinals with the most career home runs (regular season) at Shea Stadium (courtesy of the Day-By-Day Database at Baseball Musings):

George Hendrick 10
Keith Hernandez 8
Mark McGwire, Albert Pujols and Ray Lankford 7
Lou Brock, Darrell Porter, Ted Simmons and Ken Reitz 6
Willie McGee, Mike Shannon and Brian Jordan 5

George Hendrick is only seventh in total Cardinals homers since 1964 (when Shea opened), but he did seem to enjoy hitting against the Mets: of his 122 Cardinals homers, 17 came against the Mets, the most against any single opponent during his career with St. Louis.

Hendrick's career offers a lesson in keeping an open mind about people. He had a distinct reputation during his playing days, in the 1970s and 1980s, for not hustling, for not playing hard. He absolutely refused to talk to reporters for most of his playing career and was famous for his sullenness (apparently at one point as teammates Gaylord Perry and George Hendrick refused to play when the other was in the lineup) . Yet the guy was a very fine player for many years, was in the majors for 18 seasons and, perhaps most amazing of all, has served for a decade and a half now as a major league coach and minor league instructor and manager -- he's been continuously employed on the management/coaching side of baseball since 1993. Probably not what the guys who managed him when he played would have expected.

American Beauties

The American League has played 107 seasons as a major league. In just over half those seasons, the Win Shares MVP has been one of the 11 guys who each led the league in Win Shares three or more times. Just about a third of the Win Shares MVPs have been earned by just the top five guys, here:
Mickey Mantle, 9 times AL Win Shares MVP
Babe Ruth, 9 times
Ted Williams, 7 times
Alex Rodriguez, 5 times
Ty Cobb, 5 times

Also with more than two times as AL Win Shares MVP:
Jimmy Foxx, 4 times
Carl Yastrzemski, 3 times
Frank Thomas, 3 times
Tris Speaker, 3 times
Rickey Henderson, 3 times
Lou Gehrig, 3 times

When you read personal criticism of A-Rod, consider how complicated and controversial the the biographies of the other four top guys were as well: Ruth and Mantle famously hedonistic, Cobb famously misanthropic, Williams famously abrasive. Of the five greats, A-Rod might be the one you would most want to marry your sister (or marry yourself, depending on your gender and preference).