looking into hack wilson's 1930, it's interesting. he spent the entire year batting cleanup. he probably would've had even more RBI if mccarthy hadn't spent the first ~1/3 of the season batting cliff heathcote and footsie blair in the 2 hole. it took heathcote BABIPing himself out of a job and hornsby getting injured to create the english-cuyler-wilson 2-3-4 which that lasted the rest of the season. it especially helps that cuyler had 50 doubles and 17 triples and only 13 home runs.
hornsby was also a factor though... wilson batted directly behind him 23 times that year. and he still had a .385 OBP in those games but for some reason he only managed 2 HR after hitting 39 the year before. and this was (mostly) before he broke his ankle. if hornsby had stayed healthy and had a fairly normal season power-wise, wilson might not have come close to 191. though if he'd also had a fairly normal season OBP-wise wilson and cuyler (pushed to the 5 hole) might have both broken 200. if hornsby were healthy and mccarthy committed to an english-cuyler-hornsby-wilson 1-2-3-4 instead of insisting on the dreaded footsie as a leadoff hitter for some reason, then hack wilson would've had approximately 500 RBIs. and they might have won the pennant.
― ✖, Sunday, 2 October 2022 21:26 (one year ago) link