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).

All-Americans

Babe Ruth's last game as an American Leaguer was September 30, 1935, a bit over 73 years ago. Here are the players with the most American League homers since that date:

1. Harmon Killebrew 573
2. Reggie Jackson 563
3. Rafael Palmeiro 544
4. Mickey Mantle 536
5. Ted Williams 521
6. Alex Rodriguez 518
7. Frank Thomas 513
8. Manny Ramirez 490
9. Jose Canseco 462
10. Carl Yastrzemski 452

#s 6, 7 and 8 on the list above were active American Leaguers as of the 2007 season. The highest career AL homer totals by players active in the AL in 2007 after that are:

Jim Thome 411
Jason Giambi 364
Ivan Rodriguez 272
Paul Konerko 269
David Ortiz 266

We all think of David Ortiz as a significant power hitter of the current generation, including 54 dingers in 2006. A-Rod is about 4 months older than David Ortiz, and has hit almost twice as many career homers as Ortiz.

Walking Tour

Since the Mets franchise began play in 1962, batters have walked at least 100 times in a season 278 times, just about 6 times a year on average. In 2007, 11 guys walked at least 100 times. But the Mets have had only one 100 or more walk season in their history.

Most Walks in a Season by a New York Met Batter:
1 John Olerud (1999) 125
2/3 D. Strawberry (1987) 97
2/3 K. Hernandez (1984) 97
4 John Olerud (1998) 96
5/6/7 Carlos Beltran (2006) 95
5/6/7 Edgardo Alfonzo (2000) 95
5/6/7 Bud Harrelson (1970) 95
8/9 David Wright (2007) 94
8/9 Keith Hernandez (1986) 94
10 Lee Mazzilli (1979) 93

Note the huge gap between first and second on this list: In 1999 Olerud walked about 29% more than the second highest walk total in Mets history.

Franchise record holders for BBs in a season:
Astros: Jeff Bagwell (1999) 149
Braves: Bob Elliot (1948) 131
Brewers: Jeromy Burnitz (2000) 99
Cardinals: Mark McGwire (1998) 162
Cubs: Jimmy Sheckard (1911) 147
D-Backs: Luis Gonzalez (2001) 100
Dodgers: Eddie Stanky (1945) 148
Giants: Barry Bonds (2004) 232
Marlins: Gary Sheffield (1996) 142
Mets: John Olerud (1999) 125
Nats/Expos: Ken Singleton (1973) 123
Padres: Jack Clark (1989) 132
Pirates: Ralph Kiner (1951) 137
Phillies: Len Dykstra (1993) 129
Reds: Joe Morgan (1975) 132
Rockies: Todd Helton (2004) 127

Angels: Tony Phillips (1995) 115
Athletics: Eddie Joost 149 (1949)
Blue Jays: Carlos Delgado (2000) 123
Indians: Jim Thome (1999) 127
Mariners: Edgar Martinez (1996) 123
Orioles/Browns: Lu Blue (1929) 126
Rangers/Senators: Frank Howard (1970) 132
Rays: Carlos Pena (2007) 103
Red Sox: Ted Williams (1949) 162
Royals: John Mayberry (1973) 122
Tigers: Roy Cullenbine (1947) 137
Twins/Senators: Eddie Yost (1956) 151
White Sox: Frank Thomas (1991) 138
Yankees: Babe Ruth (1923) 170

Ted Williams has the seven highest walk seasons in Red Sox history, and eight of the top nine.

Nuxhall of Fame

Joe Nuxhall passed away Thursday. He was most famous to baseball fans for his first appearance in a major league game: he was in ninth grade and 15 years old in 1944 when he came in to pitch for the Reds in the ninth inning of a game Cincinnati was already losing to the Cardinals 13-0. He got two outs but walked five and gave up five runs on two hits, including one to Stan Musial. He made it it back to the majors 8 seasons later.

After the pitched-at-15-years-old thing, Nuxhall is probably next most famous as a long, long-time Reds announcer, from the mid-60s until just recently. But sometimes forgotten is that he was a fine pitcher who had a long and productive major league career. His 135 -117 career won-loss record with a 101 career ERA+ gives him some very comparable numbers to, for example, Ron Darling's 136W-116L, 95 ERA+ career. Like Nuxhall, Darling also became famous when he was still in school (in a College World Series game in 1981 Darling pitching 11 innings of no-hit ball against Frank Viola, before losing on a bloop single, an error and a steal of home in the twelfth) and Ron has himself become a very well-respected announcer.

Most Wins By a Reds Pitcher Since World War II:
1. Jim Maloney 134
2. Joe Nuxhall 130
3. Tom Browning 123
4. Gary Nolan 110
5. Bob Purkey 103
6. Mario Soto 100
7. Jose Rijo 97
8. Jim O'Toole 94
9. Don Gullett 91
10. Ken Raffensberger 89

Brains and Braun

Baseball-reference.com calculates Ryan Braun's OPS+ (that's OPS measured against an average of 100 and adjusted to reflect the effects of home park and the year's league average htting level) at 153. Among hitters playing in their age 23 year, that is tied for the 34th best OPS+ season ever (min. 490 PAs). Braun's 2007 is tied for 34th with Rusty Staub's 1967 season, exactly 40 seasons before.

To give you a sense of how much different historical eras and different home park effects can influence hitting stats, Braun's 153 OPS+ is based on his raw 1.004 OPS, while Staub's 1967 season included a raw .871 OPS. Comparing just raw slugging percentages, Braun's 2007 SLG was .634 and Staub's 1967 SLG was .473. Rusty played in 1967 in a very tough home park for hitters (the Astrodome, where just about 10% fewer runs were scored than in Astros road games in 1967) and in a very tough year for hitters. In 2007, the NL's overall OPS was .757. Compare that to .673 forty seasons earlier. So Staub's much lower raw hitting percentages in 1967 were comparable, in real value to his team, to Braun's gaudy 2007 percentages.

Tenace, Anyone

Bill Madden of The New York Daily News points out today that Jorge Posada is fourth all-time among catchers in career OPS. Big cheer to Madden and the News for using OPS, though the citation was prefaced with the the slightly snarky "for what it's worth" (hey, traditional media, you don't need to be embarrassed about using stats that are more accurate than batting average). Plus, it would have been helpful and more accurate to have the minimum number of games, seasons or PAs that Madden used to get his top four. And finally, Posada gets a big lift in Madden's list by playing in the current lively ball era. It's probably better when doing cross-era comparisons use a stat that reflects adjustment for different historical run environments, such as baseball-reference's OPS+. Posada is tied for 10th in OPS+ among hitters (min. 4000 PAs) who played a majority of their games at catcher:

Piazza 142
Tenace 136
Cochrane 128
Dickey 127
Bench/Hartnett/Bresnahan 126
Berra/Lombardi 125
Posada/Campanella 124

Gene Tenace is surely one of the most underrated players in baseball history, aside from one spectacular World Series in 1972. He played in a relatively low scoring era, in low scoring home parks, with a very unusual portion of his value in his ability to get walks, a talent that was even more undervalued at the time he played than it is now and an ability that is probably even more overlooked in a catcher/first baseman because it is an unexpected ability (his batting eye probably would have been better understood by fans as a valuble ability if he's been a shortstop or center fielder). He had almost every attribute that leads a batter to be underrated: his batting average and home run numbers look low but his real offensive contribution to his team's record was quite impressive.

Rookie Bats and Gloves

ROY awards coming this afternoon. I have no idea who will win in the NL, but who most deserves it?

Win Shares:
Tulowitzki 25
Braun 22
Pence 20

WARP3 (Baseball-Prospectus's overall value stat):
Tulowitzki 10.8
Pence 7.5
Braun 4.8

WARP is much tougher on pure-offense guys than Win Shares -- like Braun, Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder also come in much lower ranked in WARP than in Win Shares.

Stealing Home

Only one season to go for Shea Stadium.
25 or More Career Stolen Bases at Shea Stadium, by a Visting Team Player:
1. Lou Brock 48
2. Tim Raines 33
3. Jimmy Rollins 28
4/5/6. Omar Moreno/Vince Coleman/Barry Bonds 26
7. Willie Davis 25

Right Off The Bat

Mets Home Runs As A Met, Leading Off the Game
Mookie Wilson/Jose Reyes 5
Lenny Dykstra/Kaz Matsui/Wayne Garrett 3


Over Mets history, 49 times a Mets batter has hit a home run leading off a (regular season) game, that is, in the first plate appearance in the top of the first inning. That’s 49 leadoff homers in 3,659 regular season away games the Mets have played (of course, a batter can only hit a homer leading off a game if he is the leadoff batter for the visiting team). So overall, Mets leadoff hitters have started a game with a homer about once in every 75 opportunities (3659/49=74.67).

How does that compare to the Mets’ overall home run percentage? Across all their regular season plate appearances, in all their games from 1962 though 2007 (that’s 278,183 PAs in total), the Mets have hit home runs on average about once every 48 PAs. So a Mets hitter leading off a game has been significantly less likely to hit a homer than the average Met hitter. that's perhaps what one would expect, give that leadoff hitters are not usually chosen for ther home run hitting prowess, although one would expect that leadoff hitters will be more capable of hitting homers than most eighth place hitters and almost every ninth place hitter. That would perhaps limit the degree to which leadoff hitters fall below team average in home run frequency.

Indeed, across the majors as a whole in 2007, the frequency of home runs in the first plate appearance of games was ver close to the frequency of homers in the average plate appearance overall. Of the 4,957 regular season games played in the majors in 2007, 59 began with a homer in the first plate appearnace -- that's once every 41.2 games. Overall, the 2007 regular season saw homers hit about once every 38.1 plate apearances. But because homers to lead off games can only be hit by the visting club, we shoul compare leadoff homer frequency to overall average homer frequency by visiting teams, which was once every 39.6 plate appearances. The difference in 2007 between the overall frequency of homers by visiting team players, one per 39.6 PAs, and the game-leadoff frequency, one per 41.2 leadoff PAs, was very small. Essentially, if major league batters leading off games had hit homers in 2007 with thes same frequency as players hit homers overall, it would only have increased game leadoff homers from 59 to 61.

More Mets game-leadoff home run facts:
-No Met had a game leadoff homer in 2007, this coming after Jose Reyes set a new team record in 2006 for game leadoff homers by hitting 4 of them. Reyes broke a record that had been held by Kaz Matsui (3 game leadoff homers in 2004) and Lenny Dykstra (3 game leadoff homers in 1986).
-The first game leadoff homer by a Met was Jim Hickman's blast on August 24, 1963 against Cubs pitcher and future Met Cal Koonce. Hickman's homer to start the game was all the Mets needed that day, as they won 5-0 on a complete game shutout by Carl Willey (whose 3.10 ERA that season was the lowest for a Met pitcher with enough innings to qualify for the ERA title until Tom Seaver came along).

Face Time

Most Batters Faced by A Major League Pitcher, 2000-2007:
1. Livan Hernandez 7,916
2. Tim Hudson 7,271
3. Javier Vasquez 7,259
4. Greg Maddux 7,160
5. Tom Glavine 7,150

These are, of course, multi-season numbers acumulated across all 8 seasons, not single season numbers.
Note the large gap between Livan and second place, a nearly 10% difference.

Most PAs by a Major League Batter 2000-2007
1. Alex Rodriguez 5,639
2. Bobby Abreu 5,581
3. Derek Jeter 5,539
4. Johnny Damon 5,518
5. Miguel Tejada 5,488

Note that the top starting pitchers participate in many more PAs (in the form of Batters Faced) than do the top hitters.

Also, it's amusing to see that the top 4 PA guys in the majors this decade all played for the Yankees in 2007. And if today's newspaper is to be believed, the Yanks may be looking to add Tejada now too, as an A-Rod replacement.

Teeny Boppers

Most Career Major League Homers, Prior to 20th Birthday:

1. Tony Conigliaro 24
2. Mel Ott 19
3. Ken Griffey Jr. 16
4. Phil Cavaretta 14
5. Mickey Mantle 13
6. Ed Kranepool 12
7. Robin Yount 11

Eastern Heroes

Bill James' Win Shares estimates how many wins a player contributed to his team from all apsects of his performance, and thus can be a useful metric for picking the real most valuable player during a season. Here are the Win Shares MVPs in the National Leage East each season since the NL East took on its current alignment in 1994:
2007 David Wright, NY
2006 Carlos Beltran, NY
2005 Carlos Delgado, FLA
2004 Bobby Abreu, PHI
2003 Gary Sheffield, ATL
2002 Chipper Jones, ATL
2001 Scott Rolen, PHI
2000 Edgardo Alfonzo NY
1999 Chipper Jones, ATL
1998 John Olerud, NY
1997 Scott Rolen, PHI
1996 Gary Sheffield, FLA
1995 Greg Maddux, ATL
1994 Greg Maddux, ATL

In 14 seasons, that's 2 for Chipper, 2 for Maddux, 2 for Sheffield (two different teams), 2 for Rolen, plus 4 for the Mets and one each for Abreu and the pre-Mets Delgado.

David Wright this season is the first NL East player since the 1994 divisional re-alignment to lead the entire NL in Win Shares. On those on the above list, only Chipper Jones in 1999 actually won the real-life MVP. Perhaps David will win it this year.

Bonds, Bagwell and Pujols won 10 of the last 14 NL Win Shares MVPs. Besides Wright this year, the other winners since 1994 have been Jeff Kent and Mark McGwire plus pre-Mets Mike Piazza and Tony Gwynn, who tied for NL Win Shares MVP in 1997.

Met/Yankee Power Number

Bill James used the mathematical concept of the "harmonic mean" to create what he called the "power-speed" number, identifying the players with the most substantial combination of home runs and stolen bases. You get the harmonic mean of two numbers by dividing double the product of the two numbers by the sum of the two numbers. A 30-30 homer-SB season produces a harmonic mean "power-speed number" of 30, while a season with 60 homers but only 1 stolen base, or a season of 60 SBs but only 1 HR, produces the much lower power-speed number of about 2. The point of using the harmonic mean formula is that you need high numbers in both categories to get a high combined number.

We can use the same harmonic mean formula to see which players have hit a bunch of homers for both the Mets and the Yankees. Using HRs for the Mets and HRs for the Yankees as the two data points to get a harmonic mean "Met-Yankee power number" for hitters, here are the top 10 guys in "Met-Yankee power number"

1. Darryl Strawberry 70.5
2. Robin Ventura 49.1
3. Rickey Henderson 20.8
4. Tony Clark 16.0
5. Charley Smith 15.7
6. Marv Throneberry 15.5
7. Claudell Washington 14.4
8. Lee Mazzilli 11.0
9. Todd Zeile 10.5
10. Gene Woodling 9.1

Altogether, 34 guys have hit at least one homer for each of the Mets and the Yankees. The full list of players who have played for both the Mets and Yanks is here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/multifranchise.cgi?level=franch&t1=NYM&t2=NYY&t3=&t4=&submit=Find+Players

Marv Throneberry, whose name has become a kind of synecdoche (look it up!) for the hapless early Mets, is in 6th place on the Met-Yankee power number list. It is not often mentioned that Marvellous Marv spent his first three major league seasons with the Yankees: he played in 141 games as a Yankee but only 130 for the Mets, had almost as many ABs for the Yankees (344) as for the Mets (371), and had very similar homer and BA totals for the two teams (16 HRs and .240 BA for the Mets, 15 HR and .238 BA for the Yankees).

Moving Over

There's been some discussion lately among Mets fans about the possibility of the Mets signing Alex Rodriguez and trying David Wright at second base, a postion that may otherwise be a hole for the team going into 2008. Wright already has over 500 career games played at third so far in his career; it is quite unusual for a player with 500 games at third to also have long-term regular experience at second base. Indeed, only 8 players in all of major league history have had 500 career games played at both second base and third base. In order of most total career games played at the two positions, here are those 8 guys:

Jimmy Dykes: 1257 G at third, 722G at second
Phil Garner: 839 G at third, 975 G at second
Jim Gilliam: 761 G at third, 1046 G at second
Marty McManus: 725 G at third, 927 G at second
Edgardo Alfonzo 889 G at third, 549 G at second
Pete Rose: 634 G at third, 628 G at second
Gil McDougald 508 G at third, 599 G at second
Sparky Adams 532 G at third, 551 G at second

Notes on this list:
-- Alfonzo will certainly be familiar to Mets fans.
-- Despite appearing on this list, Pete Rose played more games in the outfield and more games at first base than he played at second or at third.
-- The oddest thing to me about this list is that the top guy on this list, Jimmy Dykes, is also the top guy on the list I posted here yesterday, which has absolutely nothing to do with today’s list (yesterday’s list was of the 10 longest-term managers who never finished in first place). And not only that, but the Number 2 guy on today’s list, Phil Garner, was number 4 on yesterday’s list. It appears that if the Mets want to win division titles, they should never hire Edgardo Alfonzo as their manager.
--as usual, the source for today's list is the play Index database at baseball-reference.com

Always the Bridesmaid

Most Games Managed in MLB by A Manager With No First Place Finishes in His Managerial Career:
1. Jimmy Dykes 2,962 games (.477 winning percentage)
2. Frank Robinson 2,242 games (.475 winning percentage)
3. Bobby Valentine 2,189 games (.510 winning percentage)
4. Phil Garner 2,041 games (.483 winning percentage)
5. Jack McKeon 1,952 games (.518 winning percentage)
6. Paul Richards 1,837 games (.506 winning percentage)
7. Jimmy McAleer 1,658 games (.453 winning percentage)
8. Patsy Donovan 1,597 games (.438 winning percentage)
9. Lee Fohl 1,521 games (.474 winning percentage)
10. Billy Barnie 1,480 games (.438 winning percentage)

Those looking for Gene Mauch on this list are reminded that although in his long managerial career he never got a team to the World Series, Mauch did manage two Angels teams to first place finishes. In 1982 his Angels led the best-of-five LCS two games to none, but the Brewers came back to win three straight to take the AL pennant. In Game 5, the Angels led 3-2 late but Cecil Cooper knocked in two runs in the bottom of the 7th, and Milwaukee's Bob McClure got six closing outs to send the Angels home for the year. And in the 1986 ALCS , the Angels took a 3 games to 1 lead into game 5 and a 5-2 lead into the 9th inning of that 5th game, only to have Don Baylor and Dave Henderson both hit ninth inning two-run homers to keep the Red Sox going, and Boston won games 6 and 7 handily. Mauch was perhaps snakebitten to the nth degree, but he did manage two first place teams.

No Swat

Pedro Martinez started five games for the Mets in 2007, accumulated a total of 28 IP for the year, and didn't surrender a single home run all season.

Most Starts by a Met Pitcher in a Season in Which He Gave up 0 HRs:
Pedro Martinez 2007, 5 starts
Ron Darling 1983, 5 starts
Ed Lynch 1980, 4 starts

Pedro's 5 starts in a homer-free season is the most such starts in the majors since 1998, when John Halama of Seattle had 6 starts in a homer-free season. Going all the way back to 1900, the pitcher who had the most starts in a single season in which he gave up zero home runs was ... Babe Ruth! In 1916, the 21-year-old Babe had 41 starts, including 23 complete games, plus three relief appearances, for a total of 323 and two-thirds innings pitched, and surrendered not one home run all season. As a hitter he had 3 homers in 136 ABs that season. 1916 was certainly not a big year for home runs. That same season, Walter Johnson pitched even more innings than Ruth (38 starts, 36 complete games, 10 relief appearances and 369 and two-thirds innings altogether) and also allowed zero homers. All together there were 144 homers hit in the American League that season, a number topped by 10 of the 14 AL teams in 2007.

Since 1945, the most starts in a season by a pitcher who gave up no homers all season is 10 starts, by Vern Ruhle, former Mets pitching coach and recently deceased, who did it for the Astros in 1978 while throwing 68 innings, including the 10 starts plus three relief appearances. I would have thought that Ruhle was helped by pitching in the Astrodome, always a very tough place to hit homers, but in fact 8 of his 10 starts and 47 of his 68 total IPs that season were on the road.

Little Credit

Terry Francona's regular season winning percentage as manager of the Red Sox (the last four seasons) has been .579.
Grady Little's regular season winning percentage as manager of the Red Sox (the two seasons immediately before Francona) was .580.

Grady Little's regular season winning percentage as manager of the Dodgers was .525. Tommy Lasorda's was .526.

Among the 225 managers all-time who have managed at least 500 regular season MLB games, Grady Little is 30th in lifetime winning percentage with a .552 percentage. He is immediately behind Billy Martin at .553, and ahead of luminaries such as Sparky Anderson (.545), Mike Scioscia (.542), Tony LaRussa (.534), Whitey Herzog (.532), Tommy Lasorda (.526) and Joe Torre (.539).

Some Guys Named Joe

Most MLB Games Played At Catcher, Guys named Joe:
Joe Girardi 1247
Joe Oliver 1033
Joe Torre 903
Joe Azcue 868
Joe Ferguson 766
Joe Sugden 708
Joe Garagiola 614
Joe Ginsburg 574

The Best Team Won

The Red Sox, in addition to winning the World Series, had the best regular season winning percentage in the majors (tied with Cleveland) and the most net runs (runs scored over runs allowed, or to put it another way, the most "expected" wins) in the majors.

This triple crown -- World Series champion, most actual wins, most expected win -- isn't achieved very often, at least not anymore. From 1990 to 2007 (17 seasons, nt including 1994 when the WS was cancelled) only two teams won the World Series and also led the majors in both wins and expected wins: this year's Red Sox and the 1998 Yankees. Three teams from the 1980s earned this triple crown: the 1989 (earthquake Series) A's, the Mets in 1986 and the Tigers in 1984.

The Shorter the Better?

The 2007 World Series was the fourth World Series in a row that took fewer than 6 games. The previous time, and the only other time, that there were 4 straight World Series completed in fewer than six games was in the years 1913, 1914, 1915 and 1916. Oddly, the Red Sox won two of those World Series as well (1915 and 1916). And the Boston Braves won the only World Series they would ever win as a Boston team in that same sequence (1914). Between 1918 and 2004, the Red Sox played in four World Series, all of them nice long seven-game thrillers and they lost every one. The Red Sox should never sponsor the Boston Marathon.

Unexpected Sources

2 or more RBIs in the World Series by an AL pitcher since the inception of the DH:

Daisuke Matsuzaka, Boston, 2007 Game 3
Chad Ogea, Cleveland 1997 Game 6
Mike Moore, Oakland, 1989 Game 4

World Series RBIs by Mets Pitchers:

Jesse Orosco, 1986 Game 7, bottom of the 8th. After pitching a scoreless 7th in the final game of the '86 Series, Roger McDowell could get nobody out in the top of the 8th, surrendering three straight hits and two runs, as the Red Sox moved from down 6-3 to down 6-5. Orosco came in and got three straight outs, allowing no more runs to score. Then in the bottom of the 8th, Darryl Strawberry led off with a homer and after Ray Knight singled and moved to second on a Dykstra groundout, Jesse singled to center to bring in an additional insurance run before pitching a flawless three up, three down 9th inning. That was the 11th and final hit of Orosco's career, although he was a major leaguer for another 17 seasons thereafter.

Gary Gentry, 1969, Game 3, bottom of the second. Tommie Agee put the Mets up 1-0 with a leadoff homer, off future Hall-of-Famer Jim Palmer, to start the bottom of the first inning. In the second Gentry came up with two outs and Jerry Grote and Bud Harrelson on base. Gentry doubled off Palmer deep into the gap in right center to drive in two runs. The Mets never looked back and won the game 5-0 on 6 and two thirds innings of three-hit ball from Gentry and two and a third innings of one-hit ball from Nolan Ryan. Gentry's double was one of only five extra base hits of his MLB career. His career regular season batting average was .095 and his career regular season slugging percentage was .109. The only other 2-RBI game of Gentry's career came against another future Hall-of-Famer, when he doubled to drive in two off Phil Niekro in a regular season game in 1972.

Great Expectations, And Others

A baseball team's won-loss record over a full season usually has a close relationship to the difference between runs scored over runs allowed ("net runs"). This seems like a pretty common-sensical observation, since the way a team wins a game is by scoring more runs than its opponent. When Bill James almost 30 years ago nicknamed the general arithmetical relationship over a season between won-loss record and net runs as the "Pythagorean" win expectation formula, he made it sound more evocative of high school geometry class than it really is. Unlike in that geometry class, there are no elaborate logical proofs behind baseball's "Pythagorean" formula. Baseball's Pythagorean formula is just plain old arithmetic -- if you look at all the seasons by all the teams in baseball history, it just so happens that they tend to end up a season with a winning percentage about equal to the square of the team's runs scored divided by the sum of the square of the team's runs scored plus the square of the team's runs allowed.

Bill James recently posted a spreadsheet that includes, among other things, every major league team's winning percentage for every season since 1876, along with its Pythagorean win expectation (Bill now uses a slight variation on the formula, with a slightly different exponent replacing the simple "2" designated by the "squared" part of the formula, but that is a very minor technicality). Of 2,516 team-seasons since 1876, only 242 resulted in more than 5 wins above the Pythagorean expectation. So less than 10% of all teams exceed their Pythagorean win expectation by more than 5 wins.

Of those 242 teams, 236 had a "next season" (2007 teams obviously have no "next season" yet, and 19th century teams sometimes went out of business before they could have a "next season") but only 26 of them could repeat the feat of winning more than 5 games above expectation, again less than 10% of the teams. That suggests that winning more games than Pythagorean-expectation is not really a repeatable skill, and is largely just luck (Bill James has found, however, that the most extreme overperforming teams, such as the D-Backs this season, may have some amount of a repeatable skill). By the way, winning itself is a repeatable skill: of the 316 teams in history that have had a greater than .600 winning percentage and who had a "next season", 134 repeated the feat in that next season, and those 316 teams that finished over .600 averaged a .582 winning percentage in their next season.

All this being an elaborate introduction to pointing out the oddity that although Mets seasons represent only 46 of the 2,516 team seasons that have been played in history (about 1 Mets season for every 55 team-seasons in history), the Mets have had two of the ten most Pythagorean-overperforming teams of all time, as well as the single most underperforming team of all time:

-- The 1984 Mets, Davey Johnson's first Mets team, gave up 676 runs while scoring only 652, yet somehow managed to finish with 90 wins and 72 losses. That's the fourth biggest Pythagorean overperformance of all time. The 2007 D-Backs, by the way, were the ninth biggest Pythagorean overperformers of all time.

-- The 1972 Mets, the first Mets team with Yogi Berra as manager, gave up 50 more runs than they scored in a slightly strike-shortened season, but still managed to finish 10 games over .500 anyway, the ninth biggest Pythagorean overperformance ever.

-- And then there is the astounding 1993 Mets team, managed first by Jeff Torborg and then Dallas Green. This club was not good, but was actually competitive. Their runs scored and runs given up predict a 73 or 74 win season, not good, but that should not have produced anything grotesquely bad. By hook or by crook, however, this team finished a horrible 59-103, the fourth worst record in the majors in the 1990s and the largest single Pythagorean underperformance, and the largest variation from the Pythagorean expectation of any kind, up or down, in baseball history.

Beltran Through 30

Carlos Beltran has 250 career stolen bases through his age 30 season, which he just completed. That is the 69th all-time highest number for a player through his age 30 season. He also has 236 career homers, which is the 62nd all-time highest number for a player through his age 30 season. Beltran and Barry Bonds are the only two players in history in the top 70 on both those through-age-30 lists.

Barry Bonds had 292 homers through the 1995 season (his "age 30 season", as he was 30 years old on July 1 that year). 292 homers puts him 24th all-time in most career homers through an age 30 season. A-Rod is #1 all-time, with 464 homers through the 2006 season, which was his age 30 season.

Top 5 career homers through their age 30 season:
1. A-Rod 464
2. Griffey, Jr. 438
3. Foxx 429
4. Mantle 404
5. Eddie Mathews 399

Other active players with high numbers:
Andruw Jones 368 (he just completed his age 30 season)
Vlad Guerrero 338 (2006 was his age 30 season)
Sammy Sosa 336
Manny Ramirez 310

Hank Aaron had 366 homers through his age 30 season and Babe Ruth had 309.

When Tough Parks Happen to Good Pitchers

Fenway was just as much a hitter's park this season as Coors Field.

There were an average of 10.18 combined runs per game scored in Red Sox games at Fenway, compared to 8.65 in Red Sox away games, a difference of 1.53 runs a game.

There were an average of 10.66 combined runs per game scored in Rockies games at Coors, compared to 9.19 in Rockies away games, a difference of 1.47 runs a game.

The large Fenway advantage for hitters leads us to underestimate Bosox pitchers.

Fewest runs per road game given up by an AL team in the last 15 regular seasons:
White Sox 2005, 3.73 runs per game given up
Red Sox 2007, 3.75 runs per game given up
Red Sox 2002, 3.85 runs per game given up
Orioles 1994, 3.95 runs per game given up
A's 2002, 3.99 runs per game given up

Torre Class Reunion

Most Career Homers by a Player Born in 1940:
1. Willie Stargell 475
2. Ron Santo 342
3. Joe Torre 252
4. Joe Pepitone 219
5. Willie Davis 182

Decisive

Tonight is the 52nd Game 7 in post-season history. There have been 51 previous leadoff Plate Appearances in Game Sevens, but only 50 game-ending Plate Appearances in Game Sevens. The missing game-ending PA is from the infamous 1926 Game 7 when Babe Ruth was caught stealing to end the season for the Yankees and give the Series to the Cardinals. Bob Meusel, at the plate at the time, is not credited with a PA.

Torre of the Mets

Most home runs as a Met by a player who also went on to manage the Mets:
Joe Torre 12
Gil Hodges 9
Bud Harrelson 6
Roy McMillan 3
Willie Randolph 2
Bobby Valentine 2
Mike Cubbage 1

Of the 18 men who have served as manager of the Mets (either permanent or interim), nine also played for the Mets and nine did not. In addition to the seven above, Yogi Berra and Dallas Green also played for the Mets, but in each case only played in four games as a Met. Green and George Bamberger were the only major league pitchers to go on to manage the Mets. Every Mets manager thus far has played at least a little bit of major league baseball. Torre's first season as Mets manager was one of the few stints by anyone over the last 50 years as a player-manager (Pete Rose 1984-86, Don Kessinger 1979, Torre 1977, Frank Robinson 1975-76, El Tappe 1962, Hank Bauer 1961, Solly Hemus 1959).

Long Waits and Short

The last time each of the 16 "original" franchises (the ones that date back to at least 1901) won a World Series:
AL
Indians 1948
Orioles 1983
Tigers 1984
A's 1989
Twins 1991
Yankees 2000
Red Sox 2004
White Sox 2005

NL
Cubs 1908
Giants 1954
Pirates 1979
Phillies 1980
Dodgers 1988
Reds 1990
Braves 1995
Cardinals 2006

Dude, Where's My Home Run

A nice entry over at the Stat-of-the-Day blog, on come-from-behind walkoff hits in the post season, is here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/sotd/archives/366 . The most interesting realization I took from this entry was that there have been three, and only three, walkoff home runs in post-season history that took the hitter's team from trailing in the game to sudden victory. The three saving dingers include two of the most famous home runs in all baseball history and one that (besides being the first come-from-behind walkoff homer ever in a post-season game) should be even more famous among Met fans than it is already. Going backwards in time, the three big homers are:
--Joe Carter, Blue Jays, ending not just Game 6 but the 1993 World Series against the Phillies.
--Kirk Gibson, Dodgers, doing his Willis Reed thing in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series against the A's.
--Leonard K. Dykstra (never did seem like a "Leonard" did he?) for the Mets in Game 3 of the 1986 NLCS, homering off Houston's Dave Smith, with Wally Backman on second base, one out in the bottom of the 9th, transforming a game the Mets were trailing 5-4 into a 6-5 win.

Most Post-Season Home Runs by a Met:
5, Mike Piazza
4, Dykstra, Strawberry, Staub, Alfonzo, Delgado

Dykstra had only 30 career regular season homers for the Mets, in 1,908 PAs (one every 63.6 PAs). His 4 post-season homers as a Met came in 76 PAs (one every 19 PAs). Then he went to the Phillies and had 6 post-season homers (he's the all-time Phillies career leader in post-season homers) in only 60 PAs That was one HR for every 10 post season PAs, while in the regular season for the Phils he hit homers no more frequently than he had for the Mets, one homer every 66.2 regular season PAs for Philadelphia.

Dykstra's overall post-season HR rate of one homer per 13.6 post-season PAs is Mark McGwire/Babe Ruth territory -- McGwire and Ruth together averaged about one homer per 14 PAs in their regular season careers.

Walk, Run

In the first two games of the Boston-Cleveland series, Manny Ramirez walked three times with the bases loaded. That is more bases loaded walks than any player has ever had in the post-season in a career. Only six men had previously had more than one career post-season walk with the bases loaded. These last three for Manny were his second, third and fourth (Bartolo Colon walked him with the bases full while pitching for the Angels in a 2004 ALDS).

The only other man with 2 RBI walks in a single post-season game was, of all people, Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer. In Game Two of the 1971 World Series, the Pirates brought Bruce Kison in to pitch in the bottom of the fourth inning, with men already on first and second for the Orioles. Kison proceeded to walk Mark Belanger, the fine fielding shortstop who didn't hit much better than a pitcher, to load the bases, and then walked Palmer to force in a run.

The very next inning, the Pirates again found themselves with men on first and second, again with Belanger in the 8th spot in the order coming up, and again the Bucs brought in a new pitcher, this time veteran Bob Veale. Veale followed completed the instant deja vu by walking Belanger to load the bases and Palmer to force in a run, just as Kison had done a few minutes before. The Pirates lost that game (no surprise!) to fall behind in the Series 2 games to none, but came back to win the next three games and then the Series in 7 (I was a Mets fan living in Pittsburgh at the time, and being surrounded by triumphant Pirate fans that year was not fun). Cleveland seems to be overcoming the string of RBI walks to Manny Ramirez, as well as the Pirates overcame the walks to Palmer.

I was a Mets fan living in Pittsburgh at the time, and being surrounded by triumphant Pirate fans that year was not fun.

Stranger Ranger Idea?

The new rumor is that the Mets are considering Rudy Jaramillo, the Texas Rangers' long-time hitting coach, to replace Howard Johnson as the Mets hitting coach.

After adjusting for the fact that Texas plays in a very hitting-friendly home park, the Rangers as a team have hit below league average in four of the last five years; and in the eight seasons of the 00s (20000 through 2007) the Rangers hitting as a team has been below average 5 times, average once and above average twice. Jaramillo's reputation is seriously inflated by the Texas ballpark.
Team OPS+ for Texas (100 is league average, adjusted for home park):
2000: 97
2001: 113
2002: 100
2003: 97
2004: 94
2005: 106
2006: 99
2007: 95
2000s overall average: 100


Now let's compare the Mets' OPS in 2007 before HoJo was named as hitting coach (July 13) to the period after he took over:

Mets OPS before Hojo: .753
Mets OPS after Hojo: .800
(NL average for the season was .757)

Of course, that's a very small sample, and may have absolutely nothing to do with HoJo, but with that result, why would you want to replace him with Jaramillo, whose numbers in recent years have been underwhelming?
(source for OPS and OPS+ numbers: baseball-reference.com)

Shea Hey Kids

The average number of runs scored in a game at Shea Stadium during the 2006 season (both teams combined) was 9.16.
The average number of runs scored in a game at Shea Stadium during the 2007 season (both teams combined) was 9.17.

The average number of runs scored in Mets road games during the 2006 season (both teams combined) was 10.16, exactly 1.00 run more than the 9.16 runs scored in Mets home games in 2006.
The average number of runs scored in Mets road games during the 2007 season (both teams combined) was 10.02, 0.85 more runs than the 9.17 runs scored in Mets home games in 2007.

In 2006, that exactly 1.00 run more scored on average in Met road games than in Met home games was divided almost evenly between higher scoring by the Mets and higher scoring by their opponents. The Mets scored 0.54 more runs in their road games than in their home games, and Mets opponents scored 0.46 more runs per game when playing the Mets away from Shea than in games at Shea. In short, in 2006, Shea was consistently and reliably tougher to hit in than most parks, with scoring by each team lower by about half a run per game on average at shea than in an average park.

In 2007, the 0.85 more runs scored on average in Met road games than in Met home games consisted entirely of higher scoring on the road by the Mets themselves. Mets batters in 2007 averaged 0.87 more runs per game on the road than Shea. But Mets pitchers actually allowed a tiny number of runs fewer on the road than at Shea -- Mets opponents averaged 0.02 fewer runs per game in games against the Mets away from Shea as compared to games at Shea.

So to summarize, in 2006 Shea was consistently a tough park to hit in, basically equally so for the Mets and their oponents. In 2007, Shea was still a tough park to hit in -- but only for the Mets (for whom it was even tougher than in 2006). For Mets opponents, Shea was a neutral park for hitting in 2007.