Trivia time: super difficult trivia
Posted by Andy on September 18, 2007
Here's a very difficult trivia question.
I generated the following batting line using the PI Batting Season Finder:
**HR** PA AB R H 2B 3B RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 25 776 701 95 175 42 5 105 51 0 131 1 23 0 5 2 0 .250 .301 .431 .732
Your job is to identify the player.
Assuming nobody gets it, I'll post some clues on following days.
September 18th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Hmmm. The record for most PAs in a season is 773, so color me confused.
September 18th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Juan Samuel had 701 AB, but nowhere near the other stats. Ichiro and Willie Wilson have also broken 700 AB, but neither had 131 SO.
September 18th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
According to PI-
no one has ever had this combination of BA, OBP, and SLG in a season or in a career.
September 18th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
So we know it spans multiple seasons, but not an entire career.
September 18th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
statboy and Oscar are on the right track.
September 18th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Bob Lemon: 1948-1953
September 18th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Well, Oscar got it...I didn't think anybody would get it so quickly. That man could hit. (Bob Lemon, that is, not Oscar Azocar...heh)
September 18th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
I thought it would be impossible, but here's what I did.
The number of SH and SO suggested it was a pitcher.
Only 3 pitchers have at least 25 career homers and 2 career stolen bases.
Then it was just a matter of visually matching up the triples seasons to equal 5 and checking the home run totals for those years.
September 18th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Is there a significance to those years?
September 18th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
No, other than that they were Lemon's peak years, and together they make a nice full season for a batter (granted he rarely walked and struck out a ton.)
The sacrifice hits total was going to be my first clue.
By the way, I generated this line just by setting the Batting Season Finder to years 1948 to 1953, choosing pitcher as the position, clicking the bubble to sum over the years, and then ranking by homers.
How did I come to look at Bob Lemon's hitting stats? Check out Kevin Maas...Lemon is the 10th most similar batter to Maas!! (That doesn't say great things about Maas as a hitter...)
September 18th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
My initial thought was a Joe Carter season, given the low OBP and SLG, and 105 RBIs. I keep arguing that Joe Carter was really a lemon of a ballplayer. Now I have proof.
September 18th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Here's your proof, Sky:
Lowest career OPS among players with at least 361 career homers:
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/u2ay
September 19th, 2007 at 8:07 am
He also has the worst 100 and 115 RBI seasons ever, according to OPS+.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Predictably, Joe Carter was the highest paid player in baseball in the early 90's. Haha.
September 19th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Well, look. Carter was overrated, for sure, but it's not as if he wasn't a great baseball player. Firstly, he had a great smile and tons of charisma. Secondly, he had a 30/30 season in 1987 that helped put the Indians back on the map as a real baseball franchise (although admittedly 1987 was a screwy year, given that 4 players--Carter, Strawberry, HoJo, and Eric Davis--had 30/30 seasons.) Thirdly he was on 2 championship teams, played extremely well in the 1993 World Series, and hit one of the most memorable post-season homers. And fourth, he finished in the top 10 in major offensive categories (HR, RBI, total bases, etc) many times. He's got 103 points of gray ink, after all. (See here if you don't know what I mean.)
Overall, compared to players with similar power numbers, he wasn't terribly productive. He was paid like a more productive player, and that's why Sky calls him a "lemon", since he was treated like something much better than he was. But that's not to say he was a poor ballplayer. He wasn't.
September 19th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Yeah, I think you have to be somewhat productive in certain ways to always reach 100 RBI like he did. And of course he had some speed with his 300 or so career SB. In the 80's, he was great to watch and/or have on your ball club. Kind of like a poor man's Andre Dawson. Which isn't to say he was great, but he was memorable and special.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:35 am
I posted a new piece looking at the lowest OPS+ in a 100-RBI season here:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/sotd/archives/300