trivial occurrences 2018

I'm still tied for last for Most Home Runs as a 56-year-old (but, like Juan, have till Oct. 25, 2018, to make my move).

catcher sal perez with an unassisted double play today

what -- how?

OK I watched the replay haahahahhahhahha

getting conflicting reports on how rare that is, but it's not *common*

only two catchers have ever done it twice in one season -- jorge posada in 2000 and frank crossin in 1914

alex avila did it in 2013, which may or may not be the previously most recent

Yankees have to hit home runs as they do some dumb, dumb stuff on the base paths.

john gant is currently tied with 3 other players for the most career ABs (26) with an on-base percentage of .000

https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2018/7/30/17628794/john-gants-descent-into-despair

i'm assuming that other players have broken this record before, of course, and then gone on to get on base

Jose Reyes, per @EliasSports, is the first player in Major League history to allow multiple home runs in a game, then hit multiple home runs in his team's next game. #Mets

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) August 1, 2018

the white sox selected 2B nick madrigal with the fourth overall pick in june

it's only low A, but he has not struck out in his first 66 PA as a pro

yoan moncada struck out looking four times today

Most strikeouts looking this season
52 Yoán Moncada (4 today)
43 Aaron Judge
42 Chris Taylor

— Christopher Kamka (@ckamka) August 2, 2018

That Jose Reyes thing--saw something today that said it's the first time since 1884, which may not count as major-league history for some.

if ohtani resumes pitching regularly, i'd expect him to do it again pretty soon.

or maybe bumgarner

when Sam Miller co-hosted the EW podcast, he preferred to mark 1988 as the start of real baseball

Last night Rougned Odor became only the fourth hitter in history to have a five-walk, one-homer game. The others: Henry Aaron in 1972; Mark McGwire in 1997 and Edgar Martinez in 2004.

Odor is, however, the only one whose walks were all unintentional. (He has 27 BB all season.)

Dee Gordon has what would be the lowest walk rate by a qualified hitter since 1922

— Jeff Sullivan (@based_ball) August 2, 2018

Dan Straily has drawn one fewer walks than Dee Gordon this year.

— Kazuto Yamazaki (@Kazuto_Yamazaki) July 12, 2018

Update: walks drawn in 2018:

Dee Gordon 6
Dan Straily 5

— Kazuto Yamazaki (@Kazuto_Yamazaki) August 2, 2018

Oliver Drake is on his 5th team of the season; he's the first person to play for 5+ teams in one year https://t.co/7W7LioDkc6

— Baseball Reference (@baseball_ref) August 6, 2018

for the second time this season -- high-a san jose in april and triple-a indianapolis last night -- two teammates hit for the cycle in the same game

this has never happened in the majors. (there have twice been two cycles on the same day -- two dudes in 1920 and adrian beltre + stephen drew in 2008 -- but not in the same game)

it's probably happened in the minors before, but there seems to be no record of it

The @Mets scored a franchise-record 24 runs. They're the first team to score 24+ runs in a game and allow 24+ runs in a game in the same season since 1894, when 4 teams did it.

They're also the first team to score 40 runs in a 2-game span since the 1953 Red Sox. #LGM

— Stats By STATS (@StatsBySTATS) August 16, 2018

Andrew Benintendi singled the other night by hitting the ball twice with his bat on the same pitch

I would have thought that would be called a foul ball. Same thing happens in badminton and golf (putting) sometimes, and it's a rule infraction that you're supposed to call yourself on even if no one else notices.

i've seen that happen a few times in the last 45+ years

i remember hunter pence (I think? could've been michael morse) hitting a home run and the bat broke and the ball hit the bat twice, once before and once after the bat cracked. or maybe i'm making this up.

i also remember i think it was pence again hitting a home run with the bat in either one or zero of his hands upon impact. and that time michael morse had to pretend to hit a home run before running the bases. those guys have had some incredibly strange at bats

ok it wasn't a home run but the bat hit the ball THREE TIMES (video here)

http://mlb.mlb.com/images/6/9/2/290567692/081518_nyy_ball_double_hit.gif

yeah pence hat a hit like that gif and it spun the opposite way so the short stop was completely stumped
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmXOZtNjOew

That YouTube clip is amazing. I couldn't see it until near the end, when they slowed everything to a near-stop, and yeah, there it is, plain as day--three times. Makes me think it's not that unusual, just nearly undetectable by the human eye.

pirates hit into seven double plays against the cubs last night, tying the record

deGrom ties record of Cubs righty King Cole, who also went 25 straight starts giving up three or fewer runs in 1910, when he went 20-4 with a 1.80 ERA.

The Reds are now 1-19 when Homer Bailey starts after losing 3-2 to the Pirates. Bailey is 1-14 with a 6.09 ERA and his only win came against the Dodgers back in May. Only once before has a team lost 19 of a pitcher's first 20 starts: Frank Bates of the 1899 Cleveland Spiders. Who folded after the season.

i know this is silly and incidental (and trivial) but last time i saw him pitch he just looked sad the entire time, even before he started getting his ass kicked

this doesn't look like a sad face but it'll have to do

https://i.imgur.com/AZ0Z9xd.jpg

I've been wondering about the answer to this: which pitcher has the highest career WAR who never received a single Cy Young vote? Does anyone with better search skills than me know how to find the answer? Obviously we're talking about pitchers in the era of Cy Young awards in both leagues, i.e. 1967 and onward.

I've found a few notable pitchers who earned downballot votes in a single year (e.g. Javier Vazquez, 45.9 career WAR). For all I know the answer might be a middle reliever.

I just plowed through the list of WAR leaders manually, and the answer seems to be a little below Vazquez: Tom Candiotti, career WAR of 42.5 with no Cy Young votes. Mark Buehrle and Chuck Finley were both around 60.0 and only had one mid-ballot finish each.

For closers, I know that Henke never got a Cy vote, and he finished with a career WAR of 23.0; that could be the highest for a closer, I don't know. (Also one of the best final seasons ever: 36 saves, 1.82 ERA, and exactly one 10th-place MVP vote.)

What’s always been funny to me historically is how well closers have done in MVP balloting vs starting pitchers. I’m not saying they always do better but they always nab a decent number of votes and since 1980 in the AL they’ve taken home three trophies (vs SPs who have won a pair.) and I mean I doubt any of them deserved to be in the top 5 or even 10. That goes for the Cy Young as well.

Willie Hernandez have a 4.8 WAR (according to BR) and pitch in 80 games and 149 innings in 1984 as a closer. He was 4th on the Tigers in WAR, but ahead of Jack Morris who was 8th w/ 2.5 WAR.

Chuck Finley, Mark Langston, and John Lackey were three of the names I checked (Angels starters seem to have a talent for this). Candiotti seems like a reasonable answer!

Willie Hernandez likely deserved his award, as would anyone pitching 150 innings in relief with a sub-2.00 ERA (if such a thing still happened in today's game). I don't think that WAR values these types of players correctly.

trivia: first player to hit a HR as a grandfather (that sounds odd, but i mean that they were a grandfather when they hit the HR)

i'm gonna need hints for that

one big one: I'm watching my fav team right now

and it's a player that most people have heard of

http://mlb.mlb.com//assets/images/5/5/2/148734552/MusialRockingChair_vfs05b0p.jpg

oic

I found about 22 instances of a relative pinch hitting for another, s.1908.

We don't have player anniversary dates, so some of the in-laws may not have been related at the time of PHing. Big gap in our dataset.https://t.co/OMMJtamjT3

cc: @Bencjacobs @dougcutchins pic.twitter.com/J5WqL5TBV9

— Sean Forman (@sean_forman) September 12, 2018

the son-in-law PH is vital trivia

That it's only happened once in the last 15 years (and 9 years ago) reflects on how the game is even more competitive now and there will be fewer opportunities for this to occur in the future.

X-post on Musial: his grandson had been born earlier the same day, and it was his first AB as a grandfather.

http://www.mlb.com/cut4/stan-musial-once-hit-a-homer-after-becoming-a-grandfather/c-148537416

Orlando Arcia bunted for a double yesterday. it was the 23rd bunt double on record (since 1988). it was the sixth by a right-handed batter. it was the first with multiple baserunners

— Jeff Sullivan (@based_ball) September 15, 2018

I attended the '85 matchup

When Jacob deGrom (1.71 ERA) faces Chris Sale (1.96) today, it will be MLB's first matchup of starters with sub-2.00 ERAs and at least 100 IP since Dwight Gooden (1.74) faced the Cardinals' John Tudor (1.95) at Shea Stadium in 1985, per Elias.

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) September 16, 2018