On When It Counts

Most Consecutive Post-Season Games With At Least One Time on Base
1. Boog Powell, 25 games (first 25 post-season games of his 33 game career)
2. Lou Gehrig, 23 games (last 23 post-season games, running from 1928 through 1938, of his 34 game career)
T3. Rickey Henderson and Joe Morgan, 22 games
5. Barry Bonds, 21 games (active player, these are his most recent 21 games so this streak is currently alive)
6. Carlos Beltran, 20 games (active player, these are his most recent 21 games so this streak is currently alive)

thanks to baseball-reference.com, whose Play index just added post-season games to its database.

Stalled Mota

Guillermo Mota has appeared in 56 games for the Mets over the past two seasons. He gave up 1 or more ERs in 10 of his first 49 appearances for the Mets (that's 20.4%). Over the last seven appearances, he's given up 1 or more ERs in 6 of them (85.7%). 5 of those recent appearances with at least one ER were consecutive.

Most consecutive appearances during a single season by a Met relief pitcher, 2 IP or less, at least 1 ER given up:
6 straight games: Tug McGraw (April,1974)
5 straight games: Mota (2007), Pat Mahomes (2000), Rich Rodriguez (2000), Mel Rojas (1998), Jesse Orosco (1987), Neil Allen (1979)

streak data produced using the Play Index at http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/

10 Year Plans

After their first 10 seasons in the majors (1962 through 1971), the Mets had accumulated an overall regular season record of 660 wins and 957 losses, for a franchise winning percentage of .408. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are nearing the end of their first ten years of play -- they have completed 131 games so far this season, and their current overall franchise record is 630 wins and 956 losses, for a winning percentage of .397. Theoretically, if the D-Rays were to win their final 31 games of this season (!!!!), they would finish their tenth season in the league one game ahead of the Mets' first ten years in terms of overall record: 661-956 (.409) to the Mets' 660-957 (.408). One more loss though for Tampa this season and they can do no better than tie the Mets in the first-ten-years standings, and two losses would leave them trailing the Mets.

A slightly more plausible (though still extremely unlikely) goal for the D-Rays is to try to top the Padres and avoid the worst first-ten-seasons record of the 14 MLB expansion teams that started up from 1961 through 1998. The Padres' record in their first ten years (1969 through 1978) was 651-959, for a .404 winning percentage, the worst of any of the 12 expansion teams that have previously completed ten full seasons. Taken out to five decimal points, that Padres wining percentage was .40435. If the D-Rays could somehow manage to go 24 wins and 7 losses in their final 31 games, they would end 2007 with a franchise winning percentage, over their first ten full seasons, of .40445, a tiny fraction ahead of the record San Diego accumulated in its first ten seasons. You may be surprised to know that Tampa has gone 24-7 over a 31 game period several times, all of them falling in a 40 game period (30 wins, 10 losses) from May 20, 2004 to July 3, 2004. What has been done before can be done again. But I wouldn't bet on the D-Rays finishing up 2007 24-7.

More realistically within reach for Tampa is avoiding a ten season record below a .400 winning percentage. Finishing 17-14 to complete the 2007 season would give the D-Rays a ten year percentage of .40012, while finishing 16-15 would result in a ten year percentage of .39951 that could be rounded off to a nice even .400. OK you Devil Rays, you have something to play for!

Here's the full list of first-ten-year winning percentages (through Monday August 27, 2007 -- so not yet complete for Arizona and Tampa) for the 14 expansion teams that commenced play from 1961 through 1998 (I used the Situational Records tool at baseball-reference.com to find these totals):
Royals .518
D-Backs .504
Angels .477
Rockies .475
Blue Jays .455
Marlins .455
Colt .45s/Astros .441
Pilots/Brewers .439
Expos .437
Senators .420
Mariners .410
Mets .408
Padres .404
D-Rays .397

If you add up all the wins and losses for all these teams in their first ten years, you get a collective wining percentage for all 14 teams of .446 (again, through the games of August 27).

Win Shares Update

At the Hardball Times website, 2007 Win Shares calculations are now updated through yesterday: THT 2007 Win Shares. Now tied for the most Win Shares in the NL are David Wright, Albert Pujols and Eric Byrnes. The each have 25 Win Shares. You could think of each of them as the MVP of his division. Penny, Webb and Peavy are tied, quite appropriately it would seem, with 19 Win Shares at the top of the NL pitchers. Ichiro, A-Rod and Magglio Ordonez sit atop the AL with 28 Win Shares each (same as in the NL, you could give them each a division MVP award) , with Vlad Guerrero right behind at 27. Dan Haren and Erik Bedard are now one step ahead of the pack among AL pitchers with 18 Win Shares each. The top talent is tightly packed this season, much as the most of the division races are.

Run of Runs (cont., again)

Another night, another 5+ run game, that's 11 straight for the Mets. In the last 50 years the NL has seen only seven longer streaks of a team scoring st least 5 runs. The Rockies in 2000 and the Reds in 1957 are the longest such NL streaks in the last half-century -- 14 games each. In the AL the Yankees of 1985 had the longest such streak since 1957 -- 15 games.

Quick Work

Fewest Batters Faced by a Mets Pitcher Pitching a Complete Game
1. John Maine July 27, 2007 16 Batters Faced (5 IP)
2. Pat Zachry May 30, 1980 17 Batters Faced (5 IP)
3. Frank Lary June 7, 1964 19 Batters Face (5 IP)

Fewest Batters Faced by a Mets Pitcher Pitching a 9-Inning Complete Game
7 tied at 28 Batters Faced:
Shawn Estes, 2002 (1 H, 1 BB, 1 CS)
Terry Leach, 1987 (2 H, 2 BB, 2 CS, 1 GIDP)
Jerry Koosman 1976 (3 H, 1 BB, 2 CS, 1 runner out on the base path)
John Matlack 1973 (1 H, 2 BB, 1 CS, 1 GIDP)
Tom Seaver 1971 (1 H, 1 BB, 1 R, 1 GIDP)
Tom Seaver 1969 (1 H)
Carl Willey 1963 (2 H, 2 GIDP)

That Koosman game was a 1-0 win for the Mets; the Giants ran themselves right out of that one. In the third inning, the Giants' flamboyant young pitcher John (the Count of) Montefusco singled and the leadoff man Larry Herndon followed with another single -- but Dave Kingman in right field gunned down the Count trying to go to third on Herndon's hit, and Herndon was then thrown out trying to steal second, ending the inning. Marty Perez, who'd been left at the plate on Herndon's CS, came up to start the Giants' fourth inning, got the Giants' third consecutive hit and then he was thrown out stealing on a strike him out/throw him out DP with Gary (Sarge) Matthews at the plate. Koosman then mowed down the Giants in order the rest of the game.The Seaver '69 game was the famous Jimmy Qualls game in which the rookie Qualls, playing in his fourteenth career game, broke up Seaver's perfect game with one out in the ninth. Qualls' total career stats: 31 H, 144 PAs, 0 HRs, .238 OBP, .302 SLG.

Caught in the Webbing

Being new to the blogosphere, Metaforian greatly appreciates the acknowledgments of those more experienced and from whom it has learned. Standing on the shoulders of giants, and all that (not the Barry Bonds Giants though). And so, a bow to Metswalkoffs at http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/ who graciously cited the post here about the Mets' on-going 5-run or more per game streak. Also to Matt Cerrone of Metsblog at http://www.metsblog.com/blog/_WebPages/AboutMetsBlogcom.html, surely the best known, most thorough and most cited Mets-specific blog on the Web, who was kind enough to add Metaforian to his blogroll.

Mets Speed King Vs. Others

The Mets' franchise record for stolen bases in season is now 67 and counting. Ten of the current major league franchises have never had a player steal that many in a season, including three franchises that have been around more than 100 years -- the Red Sox, Giants and Orioles/Browns. In addition, two other current franchises have franchise record holders with 67 or more SBs, but since 1962, when the Mets became a franchise, have not had anyone steal more than 67. So of the 29 other franchises besides the Mets, 17 have had at least one player steal more than 67 in a season since 1962, while 12 have not. The teams whose record holders fall short of 67, along with their record holders:
NL:
Giants: George Burns 62 SBs in 1914 (since 1962 the most for the Giants has been Billy North, 58 SBs in 1979)
Astros: Gerald Young 65 SBs in 1988
Rockies: Eric Young 53 SBs in 1996
Marlins: Juan Pierre 65 SBs in 2003
Also: the Cubs record is held by Frank Chance (of Tinkers to Evers to Chance fame), who had 67 steals way back in 1903, but the Cubs SB high since 1962 is only 58 (Juan Pierre last year).

In the AL, the franchises with a record SB total lower than 67 are:
Red Sox: Tommy Harper 54 steals in 1973
Orioles (formerly the Browns): Luis Aparicio 57 steals in 1964
Rangers (formerly the Senators): Bump Wills 52 steals in 1978
Blue Jays: Dave Collins 60 steals in 1984
Mariners: Harold Reynolds 62 SBs in 1987
Devil Rays: Carl Crawford 59 SBs in 2004
Also: the Twins (formerly Senators) franchise record is held by Clyde ("Deerfoot") Milan who had 88 SBs for the old Senators in 1912, but the Twins' SB high since 1962 is only 62 (Chuck Knoblauch in 1997).

Barring injury or other unanticipated development, Jose Reyes will presumably continue to pile up stolen bases the rest of this season, though if the Mets clinch a playoff spot at some point, he may become more cautious. If Reyes does add significantly more SBs the rest of the year, the Mets franchise record may move past the records of a whole bunch of other franchises that are within Jose's reach. Seven franchises have an SB record between 70 and 73 and two more between 75 and 80. When all is said and done this year, the Mets' SB in a season record may well be one of the higher ones among baseball's franchises. And if Reyes ever gets to 88 SBs in a season he can take "Deerfoot" as his nickname.

Thanks as usual, to the database at baseball-reference.com and b-r's Play Index tool: http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/

Late Bloomer

Jeff Conine has played in 2,004 regular season major league games, 206th all-time (tied with Cesar Cedeno) and likely to move up into the top 200 before he retires at the end of this season.

Yet by his 27th birthday he had played only 110 games in the majors. So only about 5.5% of his career games played came before he turned 27. Of guys with at least 2,000 career games played, I believe Edgar Martinez is the only player who played a lower percentage of his career games before his 27th birthday --Edgar played in only 92 (or about 4.6%) of his 2,055 games before age 27.

Run of Runs (continued)

The Mets lost tonight, but did mange to eke out a fifth run, making it their tenth straight game scoring 5 or more -- a new franchise record.

Run Of Runs

The Mets have scored five or more runs in each of their last eight games, and six or more runs in each of their last five games. Both streaks are one game short of tying a franchise record. The longest Met streak of five or more runs in a game is 9 games, a streak the franchise has achieved three separate times -- in June of last season, in September 2002 and in June of 1990. The Mets' current streak of 5 straight games with 6 or more runs is the longest such streak for the franchise in this decade. The longest 6 or more run streak in team history is six games, which the Mets have done twice -- in May of 1992 and May of 1998.

Putting the Mets current streaks in context, the longest streak by a major league club, in the current decade of the 2000s, of games scoring 5 or more runs is Oakland's 14 game streak in the spring of 2000. The longest such NL streaks in the current decade are Houston's 12 game streak in August/September of 2004 (during Carlos Beltran's half-season with the Astros) and Atlanta's 12 game streak over virtually the same time period. The longest streak of games with 6 runs or more this decade is another Oakland streak, in August 2002, that ran 12 games. The longest NL streak, in the 2000s, of games scoring 6 runs or more was part of that same late 2004 Houston stretch with Beltran (11 straight games of 6 or more runs).

The 300 Halo

Tom Glavine has thrown 6 or more innings and given up fewer than 3 ERs in each of his last four starts (2.10 ERA during the 4 starts). In Glavine's five seasons with the Mets, he's had only 2 longer streaks within a season of starts throwing 6 or more innings and surrendering 2 or fewer ERs. From August 11, 2005 to September 7, 2005 Glavine had 6 straight such starts and from June 8, 2004 to June 30, 2004 he had 5 straight such starts. (data search conducted with the Play Index at http://www.baseball-reference.com/)

Running Man

With another stolen base tonight, Jose Reyes is now on a pace for 83 or 84 SBs for the season. No major leaguer has had that many SBs in a season in almost 20 years -- you have to go back to 1988 when the Mets' current first base coach stole 93. Since 1900 only 6 men have stolen more than 83 bases in a National League season: Lou Brock, Vince Coleman, Maury Wills, Ron LeFlore, Omar Moreno and Tim Raines.

A Place in History

Chris Jelic's entire major league career consisted of 4 games in left field for the Mets in 1990, which included 11 plate appearances, just one hit, and one putout in the outfield. Yet he had a number of unusual baseball accomplishments that hint at the elements of a rather poignant athletic biography gathered from various records available on the Web.

Let's start with a couple of odd statistical categories in which Chris falls. As I mentioned, Jelic had only one hit in his MLB career. As it happens however, that one hit was a home run. Only 14 men in MLB history (not including players active in 2007) have had a home run as their only career hit (13 players had only one career hit, a homer, and one player, Keith McDonald, had only three career hits, all home runs).

But not only that, Chris's homer came in his very last plate appearance in the major leagues. After an oh-fer in the first ten ABs of his little cup of coffee at the end of 1990, Chris came up for the Mets in the 8th inning of their last game of the season and slugged a homer. The next season he was back in the minors and never got another shot at the Show. According to Wikipedia, only 41 players in major league history have hit homers in their final at bat, including some well-known players such as Ted Williams, Mickey Cochrane, Albert Belle and Tony Kubek. Four guys were playing for the Mets when they hit a homer in their last career at bat: Mike Cubbage (who also managed the Mets for a few games), Todd Zeile, Chico Walker and Jelic. Joe Frazier, another Mets manager, is also on the list of players who homered in their last major league AB.

What I can gather of Chris Jelic's career from Googling him seems a story of a guy who seemed always on the verge of being a big star but never quite made it. His father was a running back for the University of Pittsburgh football team in the 1950s and subsequently was an assistant coach on the Pitt football staff. Chris himself was a famous high school quarterback at Mt. Lebanon High School in the South Hills suburbs of Pittsburgh in the early 80s -- just a few miles from where I had gone to high school a few year before (high school football is an almost religious pursuit in western Pennsylvania). Chris followed in his Dad's footsteps and went to Pitt to play football, looking to be the successor to Dan Marino, who had just graduated, but the Panthers had two other top QBs on the team, and Jelic never could manage to win the regular starting job, although injuries to his teammates seemed to open the door a couple of times. He might still have had NFL potential, but he was also a catcher on the baseball team and the Kansas City Royals drafted him as a catcher in the second round of the 1985 draft, the 45th overall pick that year (oddly enough, Dan Marino, who Chris had hoped to succeed a star QB at Pitt, had also been drafted by the Royals, in the 4th round of the 1979 draft).

His minor league stats show him as a guy who could get on base particularly well for a catcher, but who had little power -- how ironic given his final MLB stat line! In 1987 he was part of one of the greatest trades in Mets history when the Mets sent catcher Ed Hearn and pitchers Rick Anderson (now the Twins pitching coach) and Mauro (Goose) Gozzo to KC for a pitcher named David Cone and Jelic. Cone had been a Royals 3rd round draft pick, lower than Jelic, but of course Cone turned out to be the prize of the trade. In Jelic's first minor league stop after the trade, he had a .446 OBP at Lynchburg. On July 14 (and into July 15), 1988, Jelic was part of history when he was the catcher for all 25 (scoreless!) innings for the AA Jackson Mets vs. San Antonio Missions in a game that was suspended after 7 hours, and finished up on July 16 when the Missions finally scored a run in the bottom of the 26th -- one of the longest games in the history of organized baseball. In 1990 at AAA Tidewater his OBP was fine .406, but he was already 26 years old, he was playing mostly first and third base, rather than catcher, and his SLG was a meager .032 more than his OBP. Nevertheless on Sept 4, 1990, the Mets released catcher Barry Lyons and brought Chris up to the big club.

And there he had his short, odd, historic stay in the majors. That last game of the 1990 season, when Chris hit his last-shot homer that gave him a few little pieces of baseball history, came in Pittsburgh of all places, his home town, site of high school football heroics and his college football heritage and hopes. Here's an eyewitness account of the home run from the wonderful website Ultimate Mets Database http://www.ultimatemets.com/:

September 13, 2003 "I went to college at the University of Pittsburgh with Chris. Great guy and also excellent QB and Punter for the Pitt football team. Lost touch with Chris over the years, but did get to watch his only hit, a HR, against Pittsburgh. I was so excited for him and watching his smile as he rounded 3rd was awesome!"

His final career MLB stat line is 11 PAs, .091 BA, .091 OBP, .364 SLG. He went on to play three more years in the high minors, at ages 27 to 29, with numbers declining every year, before the Mets released him after the 1990 season. In all he played 739 games in 9 minor leage seasons with 2205 ABs, 44 homers, a fine .381 OBP and a non-stellar .392 SLG (minor league stats from http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/J/Chris-Jelic.shtml). I haven't found anything on the Web referring to Chris's activities after his playing career ended. Here's hoping he's gone on to satisfying work and a successful personal life out of the public eye.

Chris's was hardly a lucrative or spectacular career in pro sports, for a kid who started as a high school football hero and seemed to have promise all along the way. But still it was a career that contributed its small, unique pieces to baseball history -- without careers like this one, there would of course be no major league baseball at all, and Chris's small, unusual and poignant entries in the records of the game deserve to be remembered.

Not-So-Hot Corner

For many years the Mets were famous, or infamous, for being unable to find a regular and reliable third baseman. With David Wright, the Mets have found a player who can, it is hoped be a fixture at third for many years, and the franchise's old reputation for mediocre third basmenwill finally be dead for good. From a statistical point of view, the Mets' unchallenged propensity for using multiple third basemen may also finally be about to succumb to changing times.

In 1962, the Mets used 9 players at third base, more than any other team in the majors that season (the expansion teams in LA and Houston used 8 third basemen). By the end of 1963, the Mets had used 16 different men at third in their two-year-long history, again more than any one else, two more than Houston and eight more than any non-expansion team, over that same two year period.

You can look at the figures after every single year since then and in every case the Mets have always been the baseball franchises that has used the most third basemen used since 1962. Here are the teams who used the most third basemen since 1962 as of the end of each decade:

After 1969, the Mets had used 41 third basemen since 1962; in a second place tie were Houston and the Dodgers, who had each then used 28 third basemen since 1962.

After 1979, the Mets had used 63 third basemen since 1962; in second place were the A's, who had then used 56 third basemen since 1962.

After 1989, the Mets had used 87 third basemen since 1962; in second place were the Angels, who had then used 83 third basemen since 1962.

After 1999, the Mets had used 117 third basemen since 1962; in second place were the Angels, who had then used 115 third basemen since 1962 (now only two behind the Mets).

As of now, the Mets have used 135 third basemen since 1962; in second place are still the Angels, who have used 134 third basemen since 1962 (now only one behind the Mets). With the Mets and Angels now extremely close in this respect, and with David Wright firmly ensconced at third, it seems likely that the Mets may soon, finally, lose the dubious distinction of being the franchise that has used the most third basemen going back to the 1962.

The Mets had five stolen bases and 5 extra base hits in last night's game. That was the second time this season, and the second time in franchise history, that the Mets had at least 5 SBs and 5 XBHs in the same game. The first time in franchise history the Mets achieved this particular combination was May 13 of this season against the Brewers (David Wright alone had a double and 3 SBs). 5 or more SBs and 5 or more XBHs in the same game generally only happens a few times a season in MLB.

Since the Mets started play in 1962, only two teams have had three games in a single season achieving this peculiar combination of speed and slugging: the 1978 Pirates (the motto of the late 70's Pirates was actually "Lumber and Lightning") and the 1983 Oakland A's, with Rickey Henderson.

Strong But Fast

Ten players in the past 50 years have had 2 homers and 2 stolen bases in the same game, 9 of them while playing for NL teams.
Mets: Tommie Agee, Howard Johnson
Braves: Chipper Jones, Rafael Furcal
Rockies: Dante Bichette
Reds: Joe Morgan
Marlins: Gary Sheffield
Astros: Carlos Beltran
Pirates: Chris Duffy (his only 2 homers of the season, in 348 PAs!)
Tigers: Kirk Gibson

thank you, http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/

Oldest Living Former Met

The oldest living former Met is none other than Yogi Berra, who supposedly once said "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." Yogi turned 82 in May -- he played in 4 games (2 hits in 9 ABs) for the Mets in 1965. The other former Mets still living and over 80 years old: Duke Snider (who played more games in the OF for the Mets in 1963 than anyone else that season, and had a pretty good year) and Joe Ginsberg (for the Mets: 5 ABs, no times on base). Former Mets born before Yogi but who have passed away: Warren Spahn (1921-2003), Gene Woodling (1922-2001) and Gil Hodges (1924-1972).

I did this research using the baseball-reference.com PI Batting Season Finder http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/bsl_finder.cgi, setting League to NL, Team to Mets and Sorted By to Year of Birth (ascending order) . Then I clicked on the earliest born players to check specific birth and death dates.

O Happy Days

The Mets have been in first place a total of 984 game days in their history, and Mets fans hope they will shortly reach an even 1,000. "Game days" in first place here refers to days on which the Mets played a game and were in first place, tied or alone, at the end of all that day's games. The Mets have played a total of 7,250 games, but not all were separate game days, because doubleheaders count as only one game day. I don't have a count for how many doubleheaders the Mets have played, but for round number purposes we can estimate the Mets have had about 7,000 game days altogether. The Mets have been in first place for 97 game days so far this season. The only three seasons the Mets have been in first for longer have all been division championship seasons: 1986 (145 days in first), 1988 (138 days) and last season (158 days -- all but the second game day of the season).

Mets managers by game days the Mets were in first place during their tenure:
Davey Johnson 427
Willie Randolph 255
Bobby Valentine 90
Gil Hodges 69
Yogi Berra 63
Bud Harrelson 30
Joe Torre 17
Joe Frazier 15
George Bamberger 7
Dallas Green 5
Art Howe 4
Jeff Torborg 2

source of the raw data here is baseball-reference.com, which has total "game days" in first place for each team in each season.

Young Guns

The Mets have had 45 player-seasons in which a hitter in his age 22 season or younger had at least 100 PAs, including Lastings Milledge this season. Here are the top 10 in OPS+ (age in parentheses), including Lastings through Sunday:

1. Gregg Jefferies 1988 (20), OPS+ 178
2. David Wright 2005 (22), OPS+ 138
3. Darryl Stawberry 1983 (21), OPS+ 134
4. Darryl Stawberry 1984 (22), OPS+ 127
5. John Milner 1972 (22), OPS+ 119
T6. David Wright 2004 (21), OPS+ 118
T6. Wayne Garrett 1970 (22), OPS+ 118
8. Lastings Milledge 2007 (22) OPS+ 117
T9. Wally Backman 1982 (22), OPS+ 115
T9. Wally Backman 1980 (20), OPS+ 115

source: baseball-reference.com's Play Index database: http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/

Rise in the East

Since the current alignment of the NL East was created in 1994, the NL batting average leader at season end has never come from an NL East team (10 times from the West, 3 times from the Central). This season may well be the breakthrough year -- Hanley Ramirez of Florida was leading the NL as of the beginning of today's games, and three of the next 4 hitters on the batting average leader board this morning, are also from NL East teams. One of those is Chase Utley, who is on the DL with a broken hand but needs only 40 more PAs to qualify for the batting title. The current NL East has never won a Slugging Percentage title either, and that might just change as well. Prince Fielder was leading the league at the beginning of today's games, but Miguel Cabrera, Chipper Jones and Ryan Howard are closing in.

At 2d Base for the Mets, Mr. Marlin

Top 5 Win Shares as a Florida Marlin, All-Time
Luis Castillo 134
Mike Lowell 127
Miguel Cabrera 120 (through August 4, 2007)
Jeff Conine 106
Cliff Floyd 95

Castillo also leads, by a wide margin, the Marlin career lists for runs, runs created, hits, BBs, triples, singles, SBs, sac bunts, games and PAs.

Most Games played at 2B by a Marlin:
Luis Castillo 1114
Dan Uggla 266
Bret Barbarie 203

6 Is Not Enough

The Mets lost yesterday despite scoring 6 runs. How often does that happen?

Since 1962, the Mets have a .739 winning percentage (424 wins and 150 losses) in games in which they score exactly 6 runs. That also happens to be exactly the average winning percentage overall for NL teams, since 1962, when they score exactly 6 runs. So the Mets have been exactly average in this regard. As one might expect, the NL team with the lowest winning percentage since 1962 in its 6 run games is Colorado (.664 winning percentage), where over the years scoring large numbers of runs has been less of an assurance of a win than anywhere else. Conversely, Dodger Stadium has historically been a particularly friendly park, and sure enough, the Dodgers have a better record ince 1962 (.785) than any other NL team when scoring 6 runs. The AL's overall winning percentage since 1962 for teams with 6 runs has been bit less than in the NL (.717 instead of .739), again as would be expected given the additional offense (and thus the reduced win value of a six run game) the DH has historically produced in the AL.

I used the Situational Records tool at baseball-reference.com to get this data: http://www.baseball-reference.com/games/situational.shtml

Bookends

Bill James invented something called the "Similarity Score" which compares the stats of players across history. The formula for calculating the similarity score for two players is here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/about/similarity.shtml. Baseball-reference.com calculates the ten most similar players in history for every player with a substantial career -- just go to a player page on b-ref and scroll down to the Similarity Scores.

For example, Mets fans, the most similar player in all baseball history to Moises Alou, according to Similarity Scores, is --- Shawn Green!

Games: Alou 1,881, Green 1,913
Runs: Alou 1,075, Green 1,110
Hits: Alou 2,049, Green 1,970
2Bs:Alou 410, Green 440
3Bs: Alou 38, Green 35
HRs:Alou 324, Green 326
BBs:Alou 725, Green 730

Uncle Bill

We can't know how much influence any particular batting coach has on his team's hitting success or lack thereof. But we can know that the Mets' hitting as a team during Bill Robinson's six seasons as the team's batting coach was far, far beyond anything that the Mets had seen before or have seen since.

OPS+ is baseball-reference.com's stat that shows OPS performance relative to the league and adjusted for home park effects. A team OPS+ of 100 for a season means the team OPS was exactly league average when you adjust for the ease or difficulty of scoring runs in the team's home park.

In the Mets' 45 season history 1962-2006, the highest OPS+ the franchise has ever achieved is a 117 in 1988, during Robinson's term as hitting coach. Two seasons are tied for the second and third highest OPS+ in franchise history, just a tiny fraction below the top year, at 116. Both those 116 OPS+ seasons were also Bill Robinson years: 1986 and 1987. So three of Bill's 6 years were the three best hitting years in Mets franchise history using OPS+. Did Bill just inherit this talent? Well 1983, the year immediately before Robinson arrived the Mets team OPS+ was a horrible 84. In Bill's very first year the Mets immediately zoomed to 101, above average - this was just the 2nd the Mets as a team had ever been above 100 in OPS+ in what was then the 22 history of the franchise. In his next season, 1985, the Mets went to 105, a new franchise record, then in the next three years 116, 116, 117 and finally in Robinson's last season, down to 109. That "disappointing" drop to 109 still remains better than all but one season in Met history (1999: OPS+ 112) in which the Mets' batting coach was someone other than Bill Robinson. In the six years immediately before Bill became the hitting coach, the Mets' average OPS+ was 92, in the 6 seasons after Robinson left it was 97, but in the six seasons he was the hitting coach the Mets average OPS+ was over 110, closer to 111 -- again, that six year average was better than all but one single season in all the other seasons in Mets franchise history.

In short, from a hitting point of view, Mets franchise history can be divided into two periods -- the Golden Age during which Bill Robinson was the hitting coach, and all the other seasons when he wasn't. How much credit he should get for that I don't know, but to whatever extent the facts speak for themselves they certainly speak loudly.

Wagnerian Performance

Billy Wagner's high wire act-style save last night was the 350th of his career.

Most Saves, Career Through Age 35 Season
1. Lee Smith 401
2. Mariano Rivera 379
3. Trevor Hoffman 352
4. Billy Wagner 350
5. Randy Myers 347

note: though Wagner just turned 36, he is still in his "Age 35 season", which is counted as the season in which a player is 35 on July 1 -- so Wagner should, barring injury, move past Hoffman on the above list with additional saves through the rest of 2007.

Most Saves, Career
1. Trevor Hoffman 511
2. Lee Smith 478
3. Mariano Rivera 431
4. John Franco 424
5. Dennis Eckersley 390
6. Jeff Reardon 367
7. Billy Wagner 350
8. Randy Myers 347
9. Rollie Fingers 341
10. John Wetteland 330

Most Saves, Career as a Met
1. John Franco 276
2. Armando Benitez 160
3. Jesse Orosco 107
4. Tug McGraw 86
5. Roger McDowell 84
6. Neil Allen 69
7. Billy Wagner 66
8. Skip Lockwoood 65
9. Braden Looper 57
10. Randy Myers 56

Most Saves, Career, Left-Handed Pitcher
1. John Franco 424
2. Billy Wagner 350
3. Randy Myers 347
4. Dave Righetti 252
5. Sparky Lyle 238

thank you, baseball-reference.com Play Index: http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/

The Hard Way

Billy Wagner came in for the bottom of the ninth tonight to preserve a one-run lead for the Mets, and proceeded to allow the bases to fill with no outs -- and then allowed no runs (a 5-2 ground ball out at home, followed by a 4-6-3 DP), preserving the Mets victory.

The average number of runs that score in an inning of a major league baseball game after bases loaded and none out occurs is about 2.4 runs. (source, Tom Ruane's run expectancy research at retrosheet.org and confirmed here: http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/..._run_frequency/).

Acording to the run expectancy finder at walkoffbalk.com, from 1977 to 2006 there were 68 games in which a home team with a one run lead in the 9th inning faced bases loaded and none out. The home team won 26 of those games, a winning pct. of .382.

Back at "The Book" blog (see link above), we can see that a team is held scoreless in an inning, after it gets the bases loaded and none out, only 12.2% of the time.

Milestones in Perspective

How many wins are 300 Wins? To put that number into perspective, note that since coming into the league in 1962, the Mets have won 3,470 games. So 300 wins is 8.6% of all the wins the Mets have ever won, in the history of the team.

Similarly, consider 756 home runs. The Mets, from 1962 to yesterday (the team's entire 45+ year existence), have as a team hit 5,950 home runs. 756 homers is 12.7 % (just about one-eighth) of all the home runs hit by all members of the Mets ever in the history of the franchise.

Not Just a Slugger

Most Career Stolen Bases by a Player with 300 or more Career Home Runs:
1. Barry Bonds 514 SBs
2. Bobby Bonds 461 SBs (father of #1)
3. Willie Mays 338 SBs (godfather of #1)
4. Steve Finley 320 SBs
5. Andre Dawson 315 SBs

Among the 24 hitters with 20 or more HRs this season, Bonds is tied with Andruw Jones for twelfth in SBs this season, with 5 SBs.

Most Seasons with At Least 20 Homers and At Least 20 SBs in the Same Season
Barry Bonds 10
Bobby Bonds 10
Bobby Abreu 7
Eric Davis 7
Hank Aaron 6
Willie Mays 6
Raul Mondesi 6

source: baseball-reference.com's Play Index (highly recommended if you enjoy this sort of thing!!): http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/

The New Home Run King at Shea

Bonds has hit a homer on average every 12.9 ABs in his career. At Shea Stadium, however, it has taken him on average 32.2 ABs per homer (13 homers in 419 ABs). Among the parks in which throughout his career he's had at least 20 ABs (that's 29 parks), Shea has been by far the toughest for him to hit a homer. At his Shea rate of 32.2 ABs per homer his career total to date would have been 303 homers, not 756!

Toughest parks for Bonds HRs (min. 20 ABs):
Shea Stadium 32.2 ABs per HR
Busch Stadium I 28.2 ABs per HR
Three Rivers Stadium 20.7 ABs per HR

Easiest parks for Bonds HRs (min. 20 ABs):
PNC Park (Pittsburgh) 5.6 ABs per HR
Turner Field 7.7 ABs per HR
Angel Stadium 8.0 ABs per HR

(raw home run by stadium splits are from baseball-reference.com, which is a miraculous source of baseball stats, and a source I will be using often here)

Introduction

Welcome to a blog offering points of information, especially of a statistical sort, and maybe an opinion once in a while, about the New York Mets and baseball generally.