Miles's blog

One of my fascinations with baseball is the statistical analysis and recordkeeping unique to the game.  Because the game has changed very little in the past 120 years or so (I mean the basic rules and structure of the game, not necessarily the way it is played or the size of the players), it is easy and fun to compare players across the decades.  Statistics are the way of doing that.

Babe Ruth’s 60 home runs can be lined up against Roger Maris’s 61 and Ken Griffey’s 56.  (I will not compare Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, or Sammy Sosa to anyone as I do not consider their statistic to be valid.)  The advent of Bill James and the statistical revolution has brought us wonderful tools for measuring players.  The internet allows armchair analysts like me to revel in masses of statistics not even imagined a generation ago.  My favorite website for this is baseball-reference.com. 

One of my favorite sections of the website is it leaders list.  Instead of keeping lists of a mere top 10 or even top 100, it is possible to view the top 1000 of many stats.  I love to look way down these lists to see how players of today stack up.  If you don’t like baseball stop reading now, the rest of this blog is a look at stats.

Of the more than 17,000 players who have played in the majors, only 1002 have hit as many as 80 home runs.  Eighty is not a huge number, considering the record approaches ten times that.  And yet, only about five percent of the players in history reached that.  Mostly the bottom of the home run list is populated by guys who hung around for a while and homered every so often.  Former Rockie Clint Barmes is on there, as is grizzled veteran Omar Vizquel who manged to put 80 over the fence in 24 years. 

But I am more interested in how young guys stack up.  Giancarlo Stanton has not yet celebrated his 23^rd birthday, but he has 90 homers, putting him in a tie for 875^th  with people like Sid Bream, Daryle Ward and Wally Pipp.  At that level he can move up quickly.  His next homer will raise him into a tie for 862d.  A 30 homer season at age 23 will get him into the top 630 or so.  Jay Bruce of the Reds is the same age as my daughter (25), but he has hit 133 career home runs, ranking him 541^st.  He needs only seven more to crack the top 500.  An impressive feat should he do it soon.

Of course, these lists are populated with guys who put up big numbers early then saw their careers derailed by injuries or who just stopped hitting.  Wily Mo Pena hit 56 homers before his 25^th birthday and ended up with only 84.  Ken Harrelson had 125 big flies by age 27 but only hit six more.

Sometimes a guy’s accomplishments slip by me.  Mark Reynolds, now of Baltimore, is known more for striking out more often than anyone else in history (more than one third of his outs made are by strikeout), and yet there is he tied for 356^th with 179 home runs.  Justin Morneau’s career has fallen on hard times following his concussion a couple of years ago, but he has hit 204 home runs to get into the top 300 all time.  Jason Bay has been a flop with the Mets, but only 273 players have hit more home runs.  Derek Jeter is not really a home run hitter, but he has outhomered all but 191 players (he is 11^th all-time in hits).

Pitchers today, of course, don’t secure near as many wins as they did in the past, but looking at the all-time victories leaders still is interesting.  Our old friend Jeff Francis has gained five wins this year, despite the Rockies unusual pitching usage.  He is now tied for 978^th all time with 66.  He might catch Ubaldo Jimenez, whose total of 69 victories has taken him into the top 915.  I doubt he will get many more.  At 878 sits the sad case of Dontrelle Willis—46 victories before turning 24, 26 wins in the seven years since.  Tim Lincecum at age 28 has won 79 times, good for 795^th, but he too seems to be on the downswing.  His teammate Matt Cain is a year younger and has 83 wins, putting him in 746^th place.

King Felix Hernandez is stuck playing for Seattle, which is too bad.  If he can engineer a trade to a better team he might stand a chance to really move up this last.  As it is, he is already in the top 600 pitchers with 98 wins.  Jered Weaver’s 18^th win last night was the 100^th of his career.  That might not seem like a lot, but only 586 pitchers have gotten that many.  Old Jason Marquis has never won more than 15 in a season, but he has hung around long enough to taste victory 112 times, good for 475^th.   Justin Verlander doesn’t turn 30 until February, but he has moved up to 409^th all time with 121 wins (against only 65 losses).   How high is his ceiling?  Forty-five more puts him in the top 200.  CC Sabathia went to the Yankees, perhaps the best place to rack up wins.  He now has 189, is only 32, and finds himself tied for 140^th all time with Yankee Hall of Famer Lefty Gomez.  Then there is Arvada native Roy Halladay.  The veteran has 198 wins.  Probably not enough to get him to the iconic level of 300, but still enough to put him in the top 112 all time.  Nine more puts him in the top 100. 

Anyway, this is what I do when I am bored.  There could be a lot more of this, but I am sure no one cares.