trivial occurrences 2018

Congrats on your first @MLB win, Elvis Luciano!

His milestones:
- FIRST player born in the 2000s to get a win
- Youngest pitcher in #BlueJays HISTORY to get a win pic.twitter.com/i9vukirSGg

— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) April 28, 2019

alex bregman has drawn a walk in 10 straight games; the last astro to do that was noted moneyball-hater joe morgan in 1970

Cloggin' up the basepaths!

Noah Syndergaard is the 1st pitcher to throw a shutout and win 1-0 on his own solo HR since Bob Welch for the Dodgers on June 17, 1983...also vs the Reds.

— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) May 2, 2019

would never have thought it's been that long

p sure Seaver did it at least once, maybe Koosman too

Noah Syndergaard is the eighth pitcher since 1908 to throw a shutout and hit a HR in a 1-0 win (seventh, if you don't include that 1915 Federal League game) pic.twitter.com/N1HudLpPrN

— Baseball Reference (@baseball_ref) May 2, 2019

i was wrong obv

bet i listened to or watched that Pizarro game

not a bad list of pitchers

though Juan Pizarro having thrown 17 career shutouts is another eye-opener on how how baseball has changed over the past several decades. Pizarro World.

getting *more* trivial: thor, wynn and ruffing were the only ones with 10+ K

tbf syndergaard got some help on the last couple

is throwing a shutout and hitting the only run for your team literally worth one (1.0) WAR or is the whole system dumb and bad

not unless thor played all of the defensive positions too!

even then, i don't think it would add up to 1.0 WAR. WAR doesn't know that the solo HR ended up being the difference in the game. it would just know how much a HR, on average, contributes to a win (i think)

the stat you might be looking for here is WPA (win probability added): https://www.fangraphs.com/wins.aspx?date=2019-05-02&team=Mets&dh=0&season=2019

by that measure, syndergaard had .686 WPA through his pitching, and added another .062 through his solo HR, for a total of .748 WPA. not too shabby

Yeah WAR just measures performance against a league average player, you're probably thinking more along the lines of Win Shares (a James-ian concept that has fallen out of vogue).

or WPA I guess (I'm less familiar with that).

haha yeah i am just being a goof over here :) pretty damn cool tho winning on yr own (w/ defense's help ofc)

Would be interesting to see a list of pitchers with a combination of the most strikeouts complete games AND offensive production (esp. HRs) if it were easy to filter...

i decided to take the plunge and pay $2 to use the baseball-reference Play Index for 24 hours.

i desperately needed to know if there were any pitchers with shutouts and 2 or more home runs. turns out there were four!

https://i.imgur.com/UhZz1BL.png

of those, sonny siebert's game in sept. '71 was the only one where he plated all of the runs, with all 3 RBIs via his 2 HRs

I didn't quite do that right (some of the pitchers on that list didn't get a complete game because other pitchers were used). but the four on top all threw a CG

i have much to learn during my remaining 23 hours

Jesse Winker has 23 career home runs. He has at least one in all nine spots of the batting order.

— David Laurila (@DavidLaurilaQA) May 6, 2019

Pablo Sandoval on Monday became the first major league player since 1905 to hit a home run, steal a base and post a scoreless outing in the same game.

Sandoval achieved the feat in the San Francisco Giants' 12-4 loss to the Cincinnati Reds on Monday.

The only other time the feat was achieved, it was also accomplished by a Giants player in a game against the Reds. Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson threw nine shutout innings, hit a homer and stole a base in a victory on May 23, 1905, according to the Elias Sports Bureau's data.

I'm not sure which is more mind-blowing: Sandoval somehow pulling this off, or the fact that the same teams were involved the only other time it happened.

it's the stealing a base i'm finding hard to believe

The first five guys in the Rays batting order today have four-letter last names.

Whit and Mondesi are both on pace for 20 homers, 20 doubles, 20 triples and 20 steals. There are four members of the 20-20-20-20 club. Ever.

— David Lesky (@DBLesky) May 8, 2019

This sounds like a club Ricky Henderson would be in

I think either Yount or Brett did that in the late '70s.

Nope. Brett came real close in '79: 42/20/23/17--three SB short. Yount was 49/10/23/20 in 1980--he covered three of them but was 10 triples short, which isn't exactly close.

.@JoeyGallo24 is the first player in @MLB history to hit his 100th HR before his 100th single. 👀

h/t: @EliasSports pic.twitter.com/FnwZ44vJBC

— MLB Stats (@MLBStats) May 8, 2019

Holy shit, that’s kind of amazing

not even close

This is my new favorite stat.

Fewest career singles at time of 100th HR
1) Joey Gallo: 93
2) Russell Branyan: 172
3) Ken Phelps: 174
4) Ryan Howard: 176
5) Chris Carter: 179
6) Dave Kingman: 180

Great breakdown from @SlangsOnSports https://t.co/TzebRczUmf

— Matt Meyers (@mtmeyers) May 8, 2019

the blaze it club - four 20s

Mets have now employed 3 of the 4 MLB players in history named Wilmer (only lacking Difo)

name the one who wound up in Congress

Wilmer Cook of the Maltese Falcons.

Wilmer (Vinegar Bend) Mizell was no gunsel

Tuesday: In his MLB debut as a hitter, TOR pitcher Trent Thornton gets two hits at SF.

Wednesday: In his MLB debut, SF pitcher Shaun Anderson gets two hits vs. TOR.

Previously, no pitcher had gotten multiple hits in his MLB hitting debut since Steven Matz in 2015.

— Andrew Simon (@AndrewSimonMLB) May 15, 2019

The Royals have played 48 games. Their pitchers have recorded five saves.

— Brendan Gawlowski (@GawlowskiB) May 22, 2019

One for the ages:

https://i.imgur.com/2aAvLGa.jpg

they wdn't have that record if Johan Santana was still pitching

Pete Alonso passed Mark McGwire and Albert Pujols tonight for most home runs in a player's first 50 games. The list:

1-t. Gary Sanchez, 19
1-t. Cody Bellinger, 19
3-t. Rhys Hoskins, 18
3-t. Wally Berger, 18
5-t. Pete Alonso, 17
5-t. Wally Joyner, 17
5-t. Jose Abreu, 17

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) May 25, 2019

wally joyner!

for some reason, wally joyner is one of my very first baseball memories, one of the very first names i remember being aware of. no idea why, because his angels wouldn't have played in any cardinals games i may have saw on my grandpa's tv in 86-88

looks like wally only hit 5 more HRs in the other 104 games he played in 1986

he was touted!

he always reminded me of matthew broderick. i remember being excited that i had his rookie card. surely one day it would be worth lots of money. see also: kent hrbek

he was good! just never thought of him as a power guy. see also: mark grace

where have you gone, first basemen who hit .300, take more walks than K's, and only hit a dozen homers

paul o'neill in the mid 90s was a little like this

no it's true those guys were good. not mattingly/boggs level but very very good.

I too remember stocking up on Wally Joyner rookie cards

1989 NLCS, Giants over the Cubs in five

Mark Grace: 11-for-17, HR, 3B, 3 2B, 8 RBI, 4 BB, K

Will Clark: 13-for-20, 2 HR, 3B, 3 2B, 8 RBI, 2 BB, 2 K

thank god steve bedrosian didn't win MVP for saving three games

Josh Bell and total bases

https://www.mlb.com/news/josh-bell-finishes-record-breaking-may

A #Brewers note you may have missed yesterday -- according to the Jewish Baseball News, Ryan Braun's 332nd career home run now gives him the most of any Jewish player in MLB history, passing Hank Greenberg. https://t.co/fML4F6eHJW

— JR Radcliffe (@JRRadcliffe) June 8, 2019

truly the Manischewitz of juicing