not-at-all-trivial trivia 2013

Early Wynn

Speaking of whom, some awesome home movie footage of him warming up in his last year (starts at 1:17):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FHafsz-p-k

Yes--Early, part of the original Jays' broadcast crew. (He probably would have received Cy Young votes in '52 and '54 if the award had been around...Hard to say; there was only one award for both leagues, and he didn't receive any votes in '56 for a season that was better than either of those.)

i have a bit of baseball trivia in my own neighborhood, maybe mentioned here before: the owner of a pizza joint we sometimes grabs a couple pies from (and who's usually still behind the counter most nights) is one of a dozen or so people in MLB history whose sole career hit was a home run. I believe he went 1-4 total across a few games during his cup of coffee.

https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/st-louis-cardinals-san-francisco-giants-doug-clarey-one-done-092215

Keith McDonald had 3 hits, all homers, in his 8 game career: http://www.baseballroundtable.com/keith-mcdonald-2018-paciorek-award-winner-made-a-career-out-of-going-yard/

yeah but how is his pizza

six players in (known) history have played with more than 700 different teammates. edwin jackson is now second, with 763. name any of the other five and guess the leader:

A few guesses: Bartolo, Julio Franco, Ted Lyons, Phil Neikro.

for longevity and multiple teams, Rickey Henderson comes to mind

rickey is indeed one of them. (and also one of edwin jackson's teammates). none of clemenza's are.

i would never have gotten the number one guy, but the others are known guys who played fairly recently. one of them is canadian

is octavio dotel one of them?

Orosco?

steve pearce maybe as of today?

i rmeember thinking "i hope pearce plays for the red sox one day so he can be a trivia question about players who have played for the entire AL east" and sure enough! dunno how to look it up but i wonder if any other players have played for every team in a division...

steve pearce *is* about to complete his AL East collection in just six years, which is sort of impressive

eric hinske was close, but never got to baltimore

not orosco either, although two of them (besides rickey) did play for the mets

was dotel one of them tho? i feel REAL good abt that one

(also i have no other guesses if colon isn't in there)

dotel is a good try; he's in the high 600s

As far as I can tell, new Boston 1B/OF Steve Pearce will be just the 5th player to play for every team in a division, with Kelly Johnson (AL East), C. Izturis (NL Central), Mark McLemore (AL West), Steve Finley (NL West).

— Tyler Kepner (@TylerKepner) June 29, 2018

Also Matt Herges in the NL West. (Thanks to Rob Morse of the Yankees' PR dept. for the correction.) https://t.co/KYOKvl5qnm

— Tyler Kepner (@TylerKepner) June 29, 2018

1. Terry Mulholland 791 (11 teams)
2. Edwin Jackson 763 (13 teams)
3. Matt Stairs 725 (12 teams)
4. Rickey Henderson 725 (9 teams, not counting the A’s four times)
5. Carlos Beltrán 719 (7 teams)
6. LaTroy Hawkins 703 (11 teams)

(Octavio Dotel 654 (13 teams))

whoa, weird to see Beltran in there

My guesses weren't very good--all I thought about was longevity, overlooked the multiple-teams factor. Ted Lyons spend hit entire career (21 seasons) with the White Sox. I think I may have actually been thinking of multiple-teams with him but got him confused with Bobo Newsom.

spend hit = spent his...

Weird question, in that technically there's not a correct answer. But there's a link on Baseball Reference for "Historical Deadline Deals" where you can look at all the transactions on July 31 year-by-year. There's one year where I think there's an unmistakable spike in the number of transactions, and from that point forward it's never not an exceptionally busy day again.

What year? (Recent enough that you might have been aware of the spike at the time.)

I remember Randy Johnson getting traded literally minutes before the deadline in 1998, for whatever reason that year really stands out for me.

It was '95. Till '86, there are annually one or two transactions on July 31. There are four in '87, and it stays in that range for the next few years. In '95, there are suddenly 10 deadline transactions, and it's stayed that way ever since (with a high of 20 in 2015).

http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/transactions.cgi?month=7&day=31

I don't know what brought on the change. You had a couple of expansion teams added in 1993--that was probably a factor. (I'd discount 1994 because of the impending mid-August strike.) Past that, I don't know, but something changed.

It must have been the wild card -- more playoff spots, more teams looking for help at the deadline, more deals.

more delusions, more trades

Wild card, of course. Duh...(Assume the spike would have happened a year earlier if the strike hadn't been looming.)

juan soto can become the fourth *national league* rookie to hit .300/.400/.500 (minimum 250 PA) since 1945

name the other three

First two guesses: Pujols and F. Robinson.

pujols is correct!

the other two are harder -- one was in the 70s, one was earlier this century

Yeah, just looked up Robinson--monster year, but short on the slash stats.

.290/.379/.558, 38 HR, 143 OPS+ (lower than Soto right now...).

Scott Rolen? Bellinger?

i guessed buster posey, but he came up a little short in OBP. i cheated and looked up the 2000s answer and never would have guessed it, ever

...or the other one, from the 70s.

yeah, the other two are pretty obscure -- and neither won rookie of the year!

bernie carbo, 1970
austin kearns, 2002

austin kearns, 2002: .315/.407/.500, monster defense in the OF

2002 NL rookie of the year Jason Jennings: 16 wins

bernie carbo, 1970: .310/.454/.551 in f'in 1970 hitting environment

1970 NL rookie of the year Carl Morton: 18 wins

wins: forming the primary element of terrible arguments since before john smoltz was even born

morton was at least fairly close in WAR; jennings was not

today's trivia, part 2

name the one player in baseball history has won AL LCS MVP, NL LCS MVP and World Series MVP

note: LCS MVPs have only been named since 1977 (NL) and 1980 (AL)

Cu*t Sch*ll*ng?

solid guess, but n0

Never would have guessed Bernie Carbo in a million years. Not sure I even knew who Austin Kearns was.

I don't think the voters were wrong in 1970. Carbo had 365 AB; Morton threw 284 innings, and in a huge hitter's year and pitching for a 73-win, second-year expansion team, was under a hit per inning--barely, albeit--and had an ERA of 3.60.

yeah, i guess. he also led the league in walks, but that's a *lot* of solid innings

in f'in 1970 hitting environment

You would think so, but while surrounded by big pitchers' years (including '68), 1970 was some kind of bizarre blip--probably the biggest hitters' year of my lifetime until either 1987 or the PED-era.

Average runs scored per team in the NL:

1968 - 558
1969 - 658
1970 - 731
1971 - 633
1972 - 605

No idea why--it was '69 when they lowered the mound, and I don't think there were any changes along those lines in '71 or '72--but '70 has always fascinated me.