TRIVIA 2020

22/30, made some dumb choices

https://www.mlb.com/news/active-home-run-leaders-quiz

27/30

a couple of blind guesses that got lucky w/some of those rebuilding teams

24

lol marlins

24/30. Got the Jays one right, although I had to think about it a bit!

25/30, a few lucky guesses--missed the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Mets, Rays, and Rangers. Yeah, the Jays was hard.

22/30

i got the cardinals question wrong

;(

26... perfect until the marlins and then STL NYM and TEX fucked me up

25/30. I mostly just went with whoever’s been on the team longest.

things i didn't know about macho man randy savage:

Baseball career
Savage was signed by the St. Louis Cardinals organization as a catcher out of high school.[15] He was placed in the minor leagues to develop, where he mostly played as an outfielder[16] in the St. Louis Cardinals, and Cincinnati Reds farm systems.[5] Savage was 18 when he began playing minor league baseball; one of his teammates on the 1971 Gulf Coast League Cardinals was Larry Herndon who was also his roommate.[15] Savage would swing a bat into a hanging car tire as a regular training exercise in order to strengthen his hands and make sure he utilized his legs during swings. The technique was so effective that Herndon adopted it and used it during his own career as a baseball coach.[15] Savage injured his natural (right) throwing shoulder after a collision at home plate, and he learned to throw with his left arm instead. Savage's last season was 1974, when he played for the Tampa Tarpons.[16] He played 289 games in four minor league seasons, batting .254 with 16 home runs and 66 RBIs.[15]

Oooooooooh yeeeeeeeaaahh

Got this from a FB baseball group--I didn't know the answer, but I have a feeling it's a well-known question.

Who played for both the Pilots and the Mariners in their first games?

hint: His son played ~1.5 seasons for the Mariners as well.

You've got it. Also won an ERA title with a not-Seattle team.

I'm trying to remember him in Ball Four, and I think I can just vaguely recall one or two mentions.

The RadioShack (!!!) Trivia Question of the 2001 All-Star Game was: "Who are the 3 players still active from Cal Ripken's first All-Star Game in 1983?"

Can you get it?

— Joe Trezza (@JoeTrezz) April 1, 2020

I guessed 2... but full disclosure I had to check that one of them ever made an all-star game and sure enough that was his only appearance.

No idea on the 3rd, even after scanning the rosters!

rickey, rickey and rickey

Yeah, the other one was my guess as he had a juggernaut career spanning 4 decades.

there have been 4 teams which had 3 different position players put up 7+ fWAR in a single season. what are they?
(hint: obviously one of these teams is the cardinals. sorry. i can also give you the decades for each of these 4 seasons, if wanted)

One of them must be a Gehrig-Ruth team, since there were so many seasons where those two did it.

For the Cardinals, I'll guess it's a Pujols-Rolen-Edmonds team, although I'm not sure if there was a season where they were together.

Man, I'm good.

I don't think the Big Red Machine ever extended beyond Morgan/Bench, although Rose may have edged over 7.0 somewhere in there, so that's my third guess. Fourth would be the 2001 Mariners.

was thinking one would be griffey/a-rod/edgar but gar only put up 7 once, before a-rod debuted

before his first full season, rather

those three did combine for 24.8!!!!!!!!!!!!! in 96 though

didn't happen with the killer b's or bash bros, though biggio and bagwell both had 8+ in 97

Not any of those Reds teams either...I don't think the '98 Yankees; they were deep, but I don't think they had huge star seasons in their everyday lineup. Maybe one of the A's teams from around 1930?

the 27 yankees are incredible for this - ruth/gehrig/combs combined for 32.3........ and combs was still under 7

Oh--then I was wrong about the '27 Yankees. Combs is at 7.0 on Baseball Reference...and I see now the question has to do with Fangraphs.

spoiler alert

it did happen 2 years later - ruth/gehrig/lazzeri did it with exactly 10 fewer WAR than the 27 trio (7.8/7.3/7.2)

what bums

Hey, trivia guy, we need two more answers.

This gave me much to ponder on my morning walk. Possibility, which I will check after posting--wondering if Bonds/Kent/fluke-season Rich Aurilia were in alignment?

Online version is Thursday night. Register here: https://t.co/HOspy6gXGu pic.twitter.com/lPy66C1Pnp

— Ted Berg (@OGTedBerg) April 19, 2020

see thread for example questions

(xpost) No on Bonds/Kent/Aurilia, at least on Baseball Reference. '29 Yankees, '04 Cardinals...

The St. Louis hint makes me think it's a red-herring, like the Blues or something.

errr Browns

Hey, trivia guy, we need two more answers.

shit, sorry! i thought i had this thread bookmarked, so when it didn't come up i assumed no one cared about the trivia question. OOPS!

you've got 2 of the 4:

1929 Yankees (Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri)
2004 Cardinals (Rolen, Edmonds, Pujols)

the other two are much more difficult. i'll give you two clues, once for each:

1) post-war 1940s league champion featuring a top 10 joe posnanski player
2) while mantle and maris were hogging the attention, this team with a pair of slugging outfielders was...also playing (alex trebek i am not)

1) post-war 1940s league champion featuring a top 10 joe posnanski player

evil hint, had to figure this one out through blunt force

and i got the last one, mostly through cheating, but i've never really been good with the early 60s.

None of the Williams-Red Sox, Musial-Cardinals, or Mantle/Maris-Yankees teams check out on Baseball Reference.

those were my first two thoughts

the second one is 1961 but not expressly mantle/maris, as hinted

and only one of the 2 teams passes the threshold in rWAR

Okay, now I get it--'61 Tigers.

Going through Fangraphs is too much work; is the other one a Williams or Musial team?

nope!

it's really hard. it would be astounding if you got this (or anyone else).

all three of the players' first names are three letters long.

and the legendary top 10 player was a 42-year old at the beginning of his MLB career

Ah

Joe/Ken/Lou...?

i'd never even heard of ken keltner

Me neither

1) post-war 1940s league champion featuring a top 10 joe posnanski player

That's what threw me: you don't say so, but I mistakenly assumed the Posnanski guy was one of the three players.

answer to the triples > HR question:

1979 astros

I was sure it was the '85 or '87 Cards, and if not them, one of those late 70's or early 80's Royals teams? I wasn't close to thinking of the right answer, but having seen it then of course it makes perfect sense.

shows how much has changed, i guess. 85/87 cards were too early for me to have but the fuzziest memories of, but i remember the (also extremely weak) '91 cardinals so well, watching every single game i could. now, it's kind of unfathomable for a team to have more triples than HRs.

just checking for 2021, the highest ratio of triples to homeruns was...

overall for baseball (2021), there were 671 triples and 5,944 HRs, for a 0.113 ratio.

the pirates came in highest (or worse), with 35 triples vs 124 HRs (.282). ARI was next highest, with 31/144/.215.
on the other side, the blue jays had only 13 triples vs 262 HRs, putting them at 0.050.

Checked a few early HOF'ers (Cobb, Speaker, Sam Crawford) and, as expected, they all had more career triples than HR--many more. I suppose that, on a timeline of when they played, Ruth was the first HOF'er with the reverse.

i know it's impossible, but i wish there was crystal clear, HD footage of one game of 1890s-era baseball. the spitball, drinking and smoking, the murder of the home plate umpire, everything

Rod Carew has to be the last HOF'er with more triples than HR (119-92). Gwynn, Boggs, and even Ichiro all had more HR.

Gwynn and Boggs weren't know for speed tho. Thinking to the "hall of very good", no one comes to mind for me. i checked Lofton and he was also HR>3b

tim raines
113 triples, 170 HRs

oh wait, I KNOW

THE WIZARD

69 triples, 28 HRs (and every single one of those the best moment of the day)

Great! Should have thought of him. He'll surely be the last, unless there's some sea-change. My first guest, by the way, was only half-a-century off: Paul Waner, who retired in '45. Then I found Nellie Fox, then Carew.

"He'll surely be the last"

see, i doubt that! i think of billy hamilton, especially - someone who would be so valuable, considering his speed and defense, that he could be HOF worthy - if ONLY HE COULD HIT AT ALL! but i can easily imagine someone like him coming along that is an above-average contact hitter with zero power and just flies around the bases

however, it should be noted that i'm always rooting for this kind of player to exist, even among minor league prospects i follow. i think it's the most identifiable kind of player to me

or relatable, i meant

juan pierre: 94 triples, 18 homers

Brett Butler 131:54

Willie Wilson: 147:41

but hall of famers, no

though i guess butler and wilson came a lot closer than i thought!

I don’t think either got many votes.

That's it--there'll be lots of players who do it, but I just don't see anyone who'll be HOF-bound. If you don't hit at least a few homers today--10+ a season, say--you have to do a whole bunch else well to keep a job: hit for a high average, get on base a lot, not strike out, steal bases, play a key defensive position well. To end up in the Hall, you'd have to do them exceptionally well.

Having said that, Ichiro came very close: 96 triples, 117 HR. If his career hadn't partly been spent in the PED era, maybe those numbers would be reversed.

with ichiro, there's also the 1992 (?! - amazing to imagine him playing pro in 1992, at 18) to 2000 stats, where he was hitting 15-25 HRs a year while usually putting up around 5 triples or so per year.

also one sort of gets the sense that ichiro *could* have hit more homers if he'd wanted to -- he just didn't bother

i mean, not really, but still

They always said the same thing about Carew and Boggs, too (don't remember specifically hearing it about Gwynn). Carew had a couple of years where he hit 14, Boggs had his big year with 24 (a huge HR year across both leagues, it should be pointed out), and Gwynn got up to 16 and 17 late in his career (same caveat: outset of the PED era). Who knows?

I’m trying to think of what active players have succeeded the best with a 3b>hr ratio. Jarred Dyson is the only guy that comes to mind, but I’m sure there’s a better example.

Posted those two questions in a FB group, and someone responded with this piece:

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/29222915/tim-kurkjian-baseball-fix-hard-believe-history-triple

In 1943, Stan Musial had 20 triples and 18 strikeouts.

By the way: I was looking at the '79 Astros, and they didn't have a single player hit 10 or more HR. Has that been done since? They had a winning record, too. And two players who were at the opposite ends of player evaluation in the earliest Abstracts: Jose Cruz (sabermetric hero) and Enos Cabell (sabermetric villain). And, except for walks--a big "except," I know--their '79 batting lines were virtually the same.

Jayson Nix was a blue jay?!

Most times retired by each given fielder, MLB history:

𝙱. 𝚁𝚘𝚋𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚘𝚗
𝙱𝚘𝚐𝚐𝚜 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝

𝙰𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚘 𝚁𝚘𝚜𝚎
𝙿𝚞𝚓𝚘𝚕𝚜 𝚁𝚘𝚜𝚎 𝚈𝚊𝚣
𝙰𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚗

— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) March 10, 2022

the wording of this is a little unclear, but for example, this means that albert pujols has hit into more outs to 3B than any other player. interesting that hank aaron popped out to catcher so much! (also, of course, he had a hell of a lot of PAs, as did rose...all these guys did, obv)

you know it had to happen.... interestingly doesn't include WAR as a category

WARdle #3 - 4/8

⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

https://wardle.app

lol of course. (got it on my 8th try)

NL starting lineup, 1969 All-Star game (with manager, no pitcher):

https://phildellio.tripod.com/lineup.jpg

I got the three obvious ones plus one more, then accidentally looked at the list of names before trying any more. I think I would have got 7 or 8 out of the 9.

Here are the answers, you can check them yourself: Red Schoendienst, Matty Alou, Don Kessinger, Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey, Ron Santo, Cleon Jones, Johnny Bench, and Felix Millan.

i don't know the answer to this, but what is the team (which team, which year) that had the most hall of famers on the roster at the same time? I'm assuming the 1927 yankees are way up there. But what about the modern era? is it some 90s or early 2000s yankees team?

current cardinals team has about 3. pujols (100% hof), yadier molina (98%, i am not saying he deserves it, please don't throw things at me), arenado and goldschmidt (i can imagine both making it, i can imagine neither one making it. let's say one of them makes it), and wainwright (i think he still has very little chance, but if he did manage to put in a couple more strong years before retiring, he might have a veteran's committee chance in like 40 years)

These are the some of the teams I'd check:

'27 Yankees
'30 A's
'41 or '47 Yankees
'55 Dodgers
'67 Cardinals
'70 Orioles
'75 Reds
'98 Yankees

'98 yankees are surprisingly light! jeter and a late-career tim raines on the batting side, only rivera on the pitching side, i think? in addition to those three, they had kind of astounding number of hall of the very good kinds of players - david cone, david wells, paul o'neill, bernie williams, knoblauch, strawberry

'55 dodgers seem to have 6:

jackie robinson, duke snider, campanella, pee wee reese, and now gil hodges. only one pitcher (a young koufax) unless you also count nutrition shake expert tommy lasorda

The most I found was the '55 Dodgers with seven: Robinson, Campanella, Snider, Reese, Hodges, Koufax, and, with 4 GP and zero PA, Tommy Lasorda (Walt Alston would make eight, plus one or two in the front office, probably). But the real answer, according to a Reddit thread, is nine:

1) "The Yankees from 1928 had 9 HoFer's: Earle Combs, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, Babe Ruth, Bill Dickey, Leo Durocher, Waite Hoyt, Herb Pennock, and Stan Coveleski. Their manager Miller Huggins and President Ed Barrow are also inductees."

2) "It's the 1931-33 Yankees with nine: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Red Ruffing, Bill Dickey, Joe Sewell, Tony Lazzeri, Herb Pennock, Lefty Gomez and Earle Combs."

Yeah, even the best modern teams seem to max out at three or four, with lots of borderline guys who missed.

'75 reds (3) joe morgan, johnny bench, tony perez. no pete rose, because betting on baseball is not allowed in stadiums that do not have official partnerships with daily fantasy baseball betting

'70 orioles (3) frank robinson, brooks robinson, jim palmer

'67 cards (4) orlando cepeda, lou brock, steve carlton, bob gibson (cepeda and brock probably should not be in the HoF. tim mccarver and curt flood probably both should be, for non-playing reasons. I feel like mccarver had a 50% hall of fame playing career and a 75% broadcasting career, and his longevity and counting stats put him over the bump)

(it's very possible i'm miscounting on some of those - just scanning the rosters and going off of memory)

Same numbers I had, I think. The Orioles really surprised me--they only won one WS, but from '69 to '71, they were as good as it gets.

The mid-'90s Braves have four (the big three starters plus Chipper), and could easily end up with six (McGriff and Andruw Jones).

I’m not sure how easy McGriff and Jones will be.

Jones, maybe, but I agree with Posnanski that Baines' induction makes McGriff's a certainty next time he's eligible.

"McGriff will surely be elected by a veterans committee the very first year he is eligible.

He has to be elected by the veterans committee. I mean, you simply cannot vote for Baines and not vote for McGriff. It would be like voting for a Jack in a game of poker but not voting for a King. Baines and McGriff were both left-handed power hitters who played for a very long time and posted wonderful career numbers...it’s just that McGriff was better than Baines in just about every way."

https://theathletic.com/2276390/2020/12/22/the-outsiders-no-23-fred-mcgriff/

Letting baines in opens the door for literally hundreds of players. I can’t make much sense of a lot of the things they do, so I don’t feel like any player is a lock with these guys. For sure McGriff is better, but does it matter tho them?!

Yeah, electing baines was like eliminating the filibuster

You could project a bit (a lot) with the 2019 Astros: Altuve, Correa, Verlander, Cole, and Greinke.

I'm not totally sure why he zeroed in on McGriff--their careers weren't aligned on a timeline, and McGriff only DH'ed ~200 games--but maybe their reputations figured in: good guys who weren't PED users.

I think the Astros would have produced a few for sure, it'll just be a matter of how the scandal is viewed down the road for the hitters.

Pujols' 3000th game had me looking at the career-leaders list...If you assume that Players A, B, and C would be in the HOF if not for PEDs; that Player D would be in if not for his fondness for playing the lottery, and that Players E and F will sail in, there are only two guys in the Top 30 who aren't in the HOF and aren't going in, either. Both are post-WWII.