Productive Gardening
Posted by Raphy on June 30, 2009
On Friday night Brett Gardner of the Yankees went 5 for 6 with a triple and a home run. It was the third game this year in which Gardner has both homered and tripled (thanks to Peter Abraham for opening my eyes to this). His third such game occurred in the Yankees' 73rd game of the season and the 106th game of Gardner's career.
Since 1954 only 1 player has had more homer-triple games in his team's first 73 games:
George Altman 1961 5 Ind. Games Harry Simpson 1956 3 Ind. Games Lloyd Moseby 1984 3 Ind. Games Willie Mays 1960 3 Ind. Games Mike Lansing 2000 3 Ind. Games Brett Gardner 2009 3 Ind. Games George Brett 1979 3 Ind. Games Ken Boyer 1964 3 Ind. Games Barry Bonds 1988 3 Ind. Games
In 1961 George Altman hit only 7 triples and 13 home runs in the Cubs' first 72 games. Still he managed to pair-up those homers and triples in 5 different games. Altman would only do it once more that season, but still remains the post-1954 season leader:
Year Games Link to Individual Games +-----------------+----+-----+-------------------------+ George Altman 1961 6 Ind. Games Lou Clinton 1962 5 Ind. Games Harry Simpson 1956 4 Ind. Games Luke Scott 2006 4 Ind. Games Juan Samuel 1987 4 Ind. Games Willie Mays 1957 4 Ind. Games Vladimir Guerrero 2000 4 Ind. Games Brian Giles 2001 4 Ind. Games Cesar Cedeno 1972 4 Ind. Games George Brett 1979 4 Ind. Games Harold Baines 1984 4 Ind. Games
Gardner had his third homer-triple game in his 106th career game. Gardner became the 3rd player since 1954 (and 2006) to accomplish this. In 2006, Luke Scott had 4 such games out of his first 88 career games and Ryan Braun did it 3 times in his first 101 games in 2007. Before Scott, the fastest player to 4 games (post 1954) was Lou Clinton who did it in 155 games in 1962. Clinton would only do it once more in his career and Scott has now played 435 games and with his total still at 4.
The career (post 1954) leader for such games is Barry Bonds, who did it 17 times (only 1 of them post 1998).
Games Link to Individual Games +-----------------+-----+-------------------------+ Barry Bonds 17 Ind. Games Frank Robinson 16 Ind. Games Billy Williams 15 Ind. Games Willie Mays 14 Ind. Games (Mays played 155 games before '54) Steve Finley 14 Ind. Games Willie Stargell 13 Ind. Games Jim Rice 13 Ind. Games George Brett 13 Ind. Games Ernie Banks 13 Ind. Games (Banks played 10 games before '54)
June 30th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Lots of good names on those lists...perhaps this bodes well for Gardener.
June 30th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
[...] some stats on The Magic Gardner that would make Carole and Paula sing their fannies off…click here to see [...]
June 30th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
I tend to think this has no predictive value for Gardner. Still I'm quite pleased with how he's played so far. I thought if he could manage a .350 OBP, with his defense and speed, he'd be a decent regular. He's outdoing that right now. Does anyone have the formula for Bill James's speed score? Not that it's definitive but I really think Gardner might be the fastest guy in the majors.
June 30th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Johnny - Fangraphs has it. (Although they only use a very basic form of it) If you go to their advanced leaderboard page, go to advanced, select all players (instead of qualified) and sort by spd #1 is Brett Gardner at 8.7
July 1st, 2009 at 12:29 am
Thanks Raphy. Fangraphs is a great site which for some reason I'm not in the habit of checking regularly.