Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Can one player lead both conferences in one season?


The Major Baseball League (MBL) has pretty easy standards for qualifying for leading in an average category.

For batters: 502 plate appearances (PA), even for batting average (BA), which does not use PA as its denominator.  Go figure.

For pitchers: 162 innings.

Jimmy Rollins set the record for PA in 2007: 778.  Only 28 times have batters had at least 750 PA.

For a batter to qualify for BA leadership in each conference in the same season the batter would need at least 502 PA times 2: 1,004.  That's very unlikely.

However, it is possible for a pitcher to qualify.  Many pitchers in modern times have had 162*2 = 324 innings in a season.  Since WWII (for the twitter intelligentsia, that's World War II (2): "since" would be after 1945) it's been done 27 times.  For instance, Sandy Koufax had 335 innings pitched (IP) in 1965 and 323 in 1966, just one short.


Rk Player IP Year Age Tm Lg G GS CG SHO GF W L W-L% SV H R ER BB SO ERA ERA+ HR BF HBP
1 Wilbur Wood 376.2 1972 30 CHW AL 49 49 20 8 0 24 17 .585 0 325 119 105 74 193 2.51 126 28 1490 7
2 Mickey Lolich 376.0 1971 30 DET AL 45 45 29 4 0 25 14 .641 0 336 133 122 92 308 2.92 124 36 1538 7
3 Bob Feller 371.1 1946 27 CLE AL 48 42 36 10 5 26 15 .634 4 277 101 90 153 348 2.18 151 11 1512 3
4 Wilbur Wood 359.1 1973 31 CHW AL 49 48 21 4 1 24 20 .545 0 381 166 138 91 199 3.46 116 25 1531 7
5 Robin Roberts 346.2 1953 26 PHI NL 44 41 33 5 2 23 16 .590 2 324 119 106 61 198 2.75 153 30 1412 2
6 Steve Carlton 346.1 1972 27 PHI NL 41 41 30 8 0 27 10 .730 0 257 84 76 87 310 1.97 182 17 1351 1
7 Gaylord Perry 344.0 1973 34 CLE AL 41 41 29 7 0 19 19 .500 0 315 143 129 115 238 3.38 117 34 1410 5
8 Gaylord Perry 342.2 1972 33 CLE AL 41 40 29 5 1 24 16 .600 1 253 79 73 82 234 1.92 168 17 1345 12
9 Phil Niekro 342.0 1979 40 ATL NL 44 44 23 1 0 21 20 .512 0 311 160 129 113 208 3.39 119 41 1436 11
10 Robin Roberts 336.2 1954 27 PHI NL 45 38 29 4 6 23 15 .605 4 289 116 111 56 185 2.97 136 35 1331 5
11 Denny McLain 336.0 1968 24 DET AL 41 41 28 6 0 31 6 .838 0 241 86 73 63 280 1.96 154 31 1288 6
12 Sandy Koufax 335.2 1965 29 LAD NL 43 41 27 8 2 26 8 .765 2 216 90 76 71 382 2.04 160 26 1297 5
13 Phil Niekro 334.1 1978 39 ATL NL 44 42 22 4 1 19 18 .514 1 295 129 107 102 248 2.88 142 16 1389 13
14 Wilbur Wood 334.0 1971 29 CHW AL 44 42 22 7 2 22 13 .629 1 272 95 71 62 210 1.91 189 21 1316 7
15 Nolan Ryan 332.2 1974 27 CAL AL 42 41 26 3 1 22 16 .579 0 221 127 107 202 367 2.89 118 18 1392 9
16 Phil Niekro 330.1 1977 38 ATL NL 44 43 20 2 1 16 20 .444 0 315 166 148 164 262 4.03 111 26 1428 8
17 Robin Roberts 330.0 1952 25 PHI NL 39 37 30 3 2 28 7 .800 2 292 104 95 45 148 2.59 141 22 1310 5
18 Gaylord Perry 328.2 1970 31 SFG NL 41 41 23 5 0 23 13 .639 0 292 138 117 84 214 3.20 125 27 1336 8
19 Fergie Jenkins 328.1 1974 31 TEX AL 41 41 29 6 0 25 12 .676 0 286 117 103 45 225 2.82 126 27 1305 8
20 Catfish Hunter 328.0 1975 29 NYY AL 39 39 30 7 0 23 14 .622 0 248 107 94 83 177 2.58 144 25 1294 5
21 Mickey Lolich 327.1 1972 31 DET AL 41 41 23 4 0 22 14 .611 0 282 100 91 74 250 2.50 127 29 1321 11
22 Nolan Ryan 326.0 1973 26 CAL AL 41 39 26 4 2 21 16 .568 1 238 113 104 162 383 2.87 123 18 1355 7
23 Juan Marichal 325.2 1968 30 SFG NL 38 38 30 5 0 26 9 .743 0 295 106 88 46 218 2.43 123 21 1307 6
24 Gaylord Perry 325.1 1969 30 SFG NL 40 39 26 3 1 19 14 .576 0 290 115 90 91 233 2.49 142 23 1345 11
25 Bert Blyleven 325.0 1973 22 MIN AL 40 40 25 9 0 20 17 .541 0 296 109 91 67 258 2.52 156 16 1321 9
Rk Player IP Year Age Tm Lg G GS CG SHO GF W L W-L% SV H R ER BB SO ERA ERA+ HR BF HBP
26 Fergie Jenkins 325.0 1971 28 CHC NL 39 39 30 3 0 24 13 .649 0 304 114 100 37 263 2.77 141 29 1299 5
27 Denny McLain 325.0 1969 25 DET AL 42 41 23 9 0 24 9 .727 0 288 105 101 67 181 2.80 134 25 1304 4
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 7/3/2012.

1 comment:

Cliff Blau said...

No one's come close to pitching 324 innings in a season since the AL and NL merged into the MBL, so seems pretty unlikely.