19 Responses to “Slugging In Late 20’s & Not Always Playing”

1. Brian Says:
   April 12th, 2011 at 10:51 pm

   Adrian Gonzalez from 2008-2011? He played 158+ every season.

2. John Q Says:
   April 12th, 2011 at 11:33 pm

   Johnny Mize probably shouldn't be on this list because he was in the Navy during his age 30 season.

3. Neil L. Says:
   April 12th, 2011 at 11:35 pm

   Poor 'ol Josh. And to think he beat out other MVP candidates last year by not playing. (Sorry, residual Bautista bitterness here.)

   Steve, a difficult list to digest and find meaning in! It contains injury-prone X-base hitters?!?

   Why the 26-30 age window?

4. DavidRF Says:
   April 12th, 2011 at 11:54 pm

   Bobby Doerr was also in the military. And the seasons were shorter in the very early 1900s so I think Wagner's another false positive. Lajoie had some weird legal issues surrounding his 1902 season which kept him from playing full time.

5. John Q Says:
   April 12th, 2011 at 11:56 pm

   This search only started in 1901 so it cut off Honus Wagner's age 26 season in 1900. He shouldn't be on this list because he had 2927 plate appearances from age 26-30.

   Matt Williams was a full-time player it's just that his age 28-29 seasons happened during the strike of 94-95.

   Doerr missed all of '44 because of WW2.

   The strike of 94-95 also affected Canseco, Henry Rodriguez, Reggie Sanders, David Justice, Ron Gant, Chris Hoiles, Shane Mack, and Dmitri Young.

   Hundley, Mcgwire and Young probably wouldn't have surpassed 2500 even without the strike.

   It's a little tricky with catchers because of the wear & tear the position puts on their body, Harnett, Lopez, Fisk, Campanella, Hoiles, Lombardi,

   Gorman Thomas was affected by the strike of '81.

   Campanella didn't make it because of racial discrimination, he only played about 1/2 of the '48 season.

   Frank Baker sat out the entire 1915 season because of a contract dispute.

6. DavidRF Says:
   April 13th, 2011 at 12:09 am

   Some other names that didn't make the list which I still expected to see:

   Kevin Mitchell - 2620 PA, but injuries were beginning to set in.
   Charlie Keller - Not enough PA. Was actually in the service somehow but by age 30 his health was keeping him off the field. Still slugged when he could play though.
   Eric Davis - His SLG was too low. He slugged well from 26-28 but was too hurt at 29-30 to keep it on the list.
   Willie Stargell - 2704 PA is too high. He usually missed 3-4 weeks a year. This was the healthiest stretch of his career.
   Roger Maris - 2506 PA just misses the cutoff. The 61 season is age 26 but was banged up a lot from 63-65

7. John Q Says:
   April 13th, 2011 at 12:11 am

   @4 DavidRF, Good Point on Lajoie.

   In 1901 Lajoie went from the Phillies to the Athletics because he was going to be paid more money by the A's. In 1902 the Phillies filed an injunction barring him to play baseball for any other team than the Phillies.

   A lawyer discovered that the injunction only applied to Pennsylvania so Connie Mack traded him to Cleveland in June of the '02 season. For the rest of '02 and part of '03 Lajoie had to avoid playing any games in Pennsylvania for fear of subpoena.

   The leagues finally made peace in Sept of '03 and injunction was dissolved.

8. John Q Says:
   April 13th, 2011 at 12:14 am

   To follow up what Brian said @1 2011 is only about 1 month old so Gonzales shouldn't be on this list.

   Realistically neither should Morneau and Bautista.

9. John Q Says:
   April 13th, 2011 at 12:24 am

   Hafey (2471), Roush (2466), Doerr (2437), Frederick (2418), probably would have surpassed the 2500 plate appearance cut-off had they played in the 162 game schedule.

   Jeff Heath (2364) might have come close in a 162 game schedule.

10. Jimbo Says:
    April 13th, 2011 at 1:16 am

    lol wow so much nitpicking in this thread.

11. mark szymcik Says:
    April 13th, 2011 at 6:00 am

    Ifre #10--whart was the point of the original list? Dealing with injuries or any facto--e.g. war or strikes that lowered the total PAs? The war and the 94-95 schedule affected everyone, not selected players, hence the "nitpicking".

12. DavidRF Says:
    April 13th, 2011 at 6:55 am

    @10
    I wouldn't call it nitpicking. That's half the fun of these lists is to follow up and dig deeper. I suppose 154 vs 162 is quite a minor quibble though. The pre-1961 guys still missed time for some reason or another.

    Like someone pointed out Gorman Thomas was affected by the strike. That's true, but he also spent his entire age 26 season in the minors. I'd keep him on for that reason.

13. Owen23 Says:
    April 13th, 2011 at 8:29 am

    A random observation about Lajoie and Wagner...the list above gives 0 for total strikeouts, but on their player pages those years now have totals for strikeouts in the seasons. I know for years batter K numbers were not listed for the years prior to 1912-ish, but I noticed here last week the numbers are now given. Does anybody have any more info about that ? Are those numbers to be "trusted" ?

14. Frank Clingenpeel Says:
    April 13th, 2011 at 9:01 am

    Don't forget that for Lajoie, his absence for a couple of those years can be at least partly attributed to the fact that he was restrained -- by Pennsylvania courts -- from playing in that state after he "jumped" from the Phillies to the Indians. Because of the order, Larry couldn't travel with Cleveland when they played in Pennsylvania until either '02 or '03.

15. John Q Says:
    April 13th, 2011 at 9:44 am

    @12 David RF,

    You're right, Thomas spent his entire age 26 season in the Minors. However, if you take out 1981, he averaged 665 plate appearances from 1979-1980, 1982-1983. He only had 420 plate appearances in 1981 so it's safe to say he missed about 200 plate appearances because of the strike. He had 2321 plate appearances so he only needed 179 plate appearances to surpass the cut-off.

16. John Q Says:
    April 13th, 2011 at 10:05 am

    @10 Jimbo,

    My comments weren't meant to be snarky, petty or mean-spirted. The spirit of the question was about players from ages 26-30 who had high slugging percentages but missed time because of injury or because they weren't full-time starters.

    There were extenuating circumstances for many of these players such as Strikes, War, Institutional Racism, Shorter Seasons, or early 20th century contract disputes.

    And then there's a situation like Honus Wagner where the search didn't count his age 26 season.

    Then there are unique situations that limit playing time for certain positions like Catchers.

17. Steve Lombardi Says:
    April 13th, 2011 at 10:11 am

    Agreed, 100%, it's not a perfect list. Some lost time to the war, others lost time because of the date cut off, etc.

    It was never meant to be a end-all be-all cut and dried list. More so, it was on the fly, back of the envelope, quick and dirty with loose filters.

    Take it in the spirit in which it was meant. 😉

18. John Says:
    April 13th, 2011 at 11:24 am

    @1 - It includes the current season for Gonzalez, and he's only played like 10 games so far.

19. Jimbo Says:
    April 14th, 2011 at 2:46 am

    I was just joking guys. Everyone was nit-picking little details about why the players missed time.

    I think the point of this list is to show which excellent hitters didn't get their share of PA's during their peak.

    The list should've stopped at 2010 though, don't see the point of including the current young season.