Monday, August 20, 2007

Stats Gone Wild

I know a lot of people are really into stats and stuff, especially with baseball, but I was recently checking out baseballreference.com and ran across some interesting information. I'm sure none of this is new to some of you.

Hitting and Home Runs
- Placido Polanco and Mark Loretta are currently tied for the 992nd spot on the all time home runs list.
- Current Cubs players on the top 1000 all time list: Jason Kendall (982), Daryl Ward (841), Jacque Jones (364), Aramis Ramirez (246), Cliff Floyd (240), Alfonso Soriano (227), Derrek Lee (220),
- Pete Rose leads all of baseball with 15,861 career plate appearances. His lead is by more than 2,000.
- The active triples leader is Steve Finley with 142. He is 42.
- They may call Adam Dunn "country strong" because of his swing but when it comes to plate discipline he seems to be "country stupid". He holds the #1 and #2 spots for most strikeouts in a season with 195 in 2004 and 194 in 2006.

Pitching
- Wade Miller, just released by the Cubs, is actually tied for spot 993 on the 1000 all time wins list. He has 62 wins, the same amount as Mariano Rivera.
- Nolan Ryan will be remembered for his wicked fastball. But that same fastball got him in some trouble. Ryan is #1 in wild pitches, with 277 in his career.
- Among active pitchers, the top 10 in career loses are no younger than 40. That makes sense because they have been around for a long time, but it is like looking at a Hall of Fame ballot. Maddux, Glavine, Clemens, Moyer, Wells, Johnson, Trachsel, Wakefield, Schilling, and Smoltz.

Other
- Jim Rice grounded in to 36 double plays in 1984. In 1985 he grounded into 35. Ouch.
- Base stealing is interesting. The all time best base stealer also leads in getting caught. Ricky Henderson is considered the greatest base stealer to play the game with 1,406 stolen bases in his career and 130 in a single season. He also has been caught the most times in a single season with 42 and in his career with 335. That is likely a result of him trying to steal more bases than most players, but I still got a kick out of it.