not-at-all-trivial trivia 2013

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.

yup I looked it up, would've never come up w him

btw, Joe Nathan

@Buccigross
Cleveland is the first team in MLB history to have a game-tying HR and a walkoff inside the park HR in the same inning. #elias

three franchises' all-time home run leaders are active and still with the team. who are the hitters?

Papi, Stanton, Encarnacion?

maybe beltre instead of edwing

Don't think Edwin--gotta be Delgado...I doubt Ortiz, too; I'd say Williams. Which leaves...Stanton, probably; Longoria, surely; Votto or Braun?

I'll be happy if I even got one of them right. I'm terrible at sports trivia.

I checked--be happy.

clem pretty much otm: giancarlo, longoria and braun

who is the youngest active hitter with more career WAR than mike trout

Cabrera?

Just checked--tough question, easy guy to overlook.

my guess would be longoria

ah! longoria would have been right a couple of months ago

actually if you go by fan graphs i was right!

I automatically checked Baseball Reference--different answer.

My no-cheating guess was Tulo, but he's 4 WAR behind Trout. After that I looked it up -- it's a great question, and definitely not obvious.