not-at-all-trivial trivia 2013

your first four are correct

hint: two of the remaining are active

biggio and henderson were both very close but no cigar

Abreu was really close: 288/400.

Mike Trout? (That's a joke, I think.)

Yeah, Biggio and Henderson were even inside of Abreu.

the two active players are . . . on the same team

Looked them up. Of the two active players, should have gotten one for sure (the less celebrated player, actually--the more celebrated was a bit of a surprise). I could have guessed forever and a day on the other two and wouldn't have gotten them.

After these twos, I wonder how long will it take to have a new member. David Wright is at 293/195, Hanley at 210/267, Andrew McAwesome at 151/154 actually.

pretty sure david wright ain't stealing 100 more bases

Wright has 235 hr btw

i def remember it being noted when R Sanders and Finley accomplished this arbitrary round-number-obsessives' feat

mccutchen isn't going to get the steals (might not get the homers, either). trout has time to, but just isn't running much anymore

This was a lot tougher than I thought it would be.

I thought Hank Aaron was one of them, but he had only 240 SB.

Five questions from Posnanski. (He sticks the answers right below the questions on his page, so I'll cut-and-paste them here and add a link for the answers.)

1. Only four players have hit 50-plus home runs for teams that won the World Series. Can you name the four?
2. Only one pitcher has hit more than five home runs in a season when he also won the Cy Young Award. Name that pitcher!
3. Two pitchers in baseball history had more 20 wins and 10 balks in the same season. Can you name them? (Hint, they are are both fairly prominent in the game today, one as an announcer and the other as a front office man).
4. Over the last 50 years, only one non-pitcher has won an MVP award with five or fewer home runs. Who was it?
5. In the last 50 years, which player had the most errors in a season? Hint: He’s in the Hall of Fame.

http://joeposnanski.com/trivia-questions-1/

The first one's my favourite kind of question: you'll get three right away, struggle with the fourth, probably give up, then think "Damn, should have had that" when you check the answer.

The second is my least favourite kind: the answer seems almost random to me, with no special significance.

I was blanking out on the most obvious guy in the answer to the first question (i.e. the one who did it first). It eventually came to me, but not before trying to remember whether Mays hit 50+ HR in 1954.

Kudos if you got the last one. I noticed the answer before I had a chance to think about it, but I probably would have been at for a while. The other question I really like is #4. Same thing: would have taken me a while if I hadn't seen the answer.

who is the only player to have started at least 100 games in each spot in the batting order

Someone who played for Jim Leyland.

Curtis Granderson? No real idea.

Not right, but not a bad guess:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=grandcu01&year=Career&t=b#lineu

hints:

- obviously an american league player of the last 40 years or so
- three-time all-star, four times in the top 10 for mvp, would be a charter member of the Hall of the Very Good
- played 20 seasons, none of which were below replacement level

(answer is here, about 40% of the way down)

and granderson is a seriously good guess

my first thought just now was Tony Phillips

Never would have guessed the answer.

he should be in the HOF i think

nice contrast with his longtime teammate among its weakest members

Pretty interesting, I'd imagine quite a few of the batting 8th and 9th was when he came up as that club had a big hitting lineup. His peak as a hitter was later than many.

Never would have guessed either--and when you think about the unusual shape of his career vs. the sometimes inverse fortunes of his team (especially in the early '80s), it does make sense.

My first thought after reading the hints was Omar Vizquel ... not close, really. Great question!

Robin Yount came close. Ben Zobrist may get there in time.

Six players in MLB history have appeared in games for all five teams in a current division. Who are they?

(answer)

'Rickey Henderson started 2,890 games in his Hall of Fame career, and not surprisingly 99.5% of those games saw him batting leadoff. His next highest count? He batted third eight times.'

Also Starling Castro just need around 250 games spread in the last 4 spots to join the club. Even closer than Zobrist.

Amazingly, while there have now been only 73 nine-inning games with game scores of 97 or higher in all Major League play since 1913 — less than one per season — this is actually the third time two such performances have come on the same day. Kerry Wood and Hideo Nomo both did in on May 25, 2001, and Randy Johnson and Jason Schmidt both did it on May 18, 2004.

btw only the 2nd time since 1900 that there are two 0-9 teams.

just saw that Harper is the 8th youngest to 100 HR. I can think of two of the younger 7, Mel Ott and Tony Conigliaro. OK, i guess Jr Griffey might be another.

i saw that list flashed on sportcenter, don't recall griff

arod was there, andruw jones, also johnny bench; pujols was right behind harper iirc

duh of course A-Rod and AJ

@based_ball
most strikes in a game with exactly 119 pitches

1. Max Scherzer, 96 (5/11/16)
2. Roy Halladay, 89 (6/30/10)
3(t). 88, five times

zone pounded

anyone thrown 100 strikes in 9 innings? w/ the old workloads i think they musta.

@AdamRubinESPN
Elias: Mets are the first team since the 1963 Washington Senators to have pitchers produce five extra-base hits in a five-day span.

@JamesSmyth621
Unique Box Score Line Alert
CC Sabathia 7 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7 K
A first out of 975,000+ lines since 1913 in @baseball_ref Play Index

I wasn't aware that people tracked such things.

huh that doesn't seem like a very unusual line

By beating the Mets, Stephen Strasburg became the first National League pitcher to start a season 12-0 since Rube Marquard did it back in 1912, aka the year the Titanic sank.

The White Sox have become the first team since 1979 to turn three triple plays in a season.

Name the two remaining active players who appeared at Candlestick Park. (If you heard it on a broad/podcast this week, ineligible!)

expect beltre is one, dunno the other

dickey? prob not

Beltre correct!

The other was a Giant.

He's also a bit of a cheat, as he was in MLB this year but is presently only in a team's farm.