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Shall Not Pass Or Make Much Contact

Posted by Steve Lombardi on December 15, 2009

A strange list via Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Season Finder - players with 502+ PA in a season where their whiffs were greater than 7 times their walks:

Rk     SO BB PA Year Age Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI IBB HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Pos
1 Charley Smith   123 17 531 1965 27 NYM NL 135 499 49 122 20 3 16 62 3 4 7 4 13 2 1 .244 .273 .393 .666 *5/64
2 Ivan Rodriguez   93 11 525 2005 33 DET AL 129 504 71 139 33 5 14 50 2 2 1 7 19 7 3 .276 .290 .444 .735 *2/D
3 Ivan Rodriguez   96 9 515 2007 35 DET AL 129 502 50 141 31 3 11 63 1 1 1 2 16 2 2 .281 .294 .420 .714 *2/D
4 Tony Pena   78 10 536 2007 26 KCR AL 152 509 58 136 25 7 2 47 0 4 8 5 13 5 6 .267 .284 .356 .640 *6/4
5 Corey Patterson   142 19 628 2002 22 CHC NL 153 592 71 150 30 5 14 54 1 8 4 5 8 18 3 .253 .284 .392 .676 *8
6 John Leary   71 10 552 1914 23 SLB AL 144 533 35 141 28 7 0 45 0 3 6 0 0 9 15 .265 .282 .343 .625 *32
7 Alex Gonzalez   113 15 591 1999 22 FLA NL 136 560 81 155 28 8 14 59 0 12 1 3 13 3 5 .277 .308 .430 .739 *6
8 Juan Encarnacion   113 14 538 1999 23 DET AL 132 509 62 130 30 6 19 74 1 9 4 2 12 33 12 .255 .287 .450 .736 *78/9
9 Shawon Dunston   75 10 503 1995 32 CHC NL 127 477 58 141 30 6 14 69 3 6 7 3 8 10 5 .296 .317 .472 .788 *6
10 Shawon Dunston   75 8 511 1997 34 TOT NL 132 490 71 147 22 5 14 57 0 3 5 5 9 32 8 .300 .312 .451 .763 *6/7
11 Mariano Duncan   88 12 518 1993 30 PHI NL 124 496 68 140 26 4 11 73 0 4 4 2 13 6 5 .282 .304 .417 .721 *46
12 Todd Cruz   95 12 519 1982 26 SEA AL 136 492 44 113 20 2 16 57 1 0 11 4 18 2 10 .230 .246 .376 .622 *6
13 Billy Cowan   128 18 520 1964 25 CHC NL 139 497 52 120 16 4 19 50 5 1 2 2 6 12 3 .241 .268 .404 .673 *8
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 12/15/2009.
 

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It's only been done 13 times in baseball history and 7 of those times its been done by someone playing for the Tigers or the Cubs. And, how 'bout John Leary? He was the first to do it, ever, and then had to wait 50 years for someone else to join the club.

Related posts:

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    RIP: The Extreme Contact Starting Pitcher
    They don’t make ’em like they used to
    Can Moose Make It 8?
    What to make of Mark Reynolds

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 8:21 pm and is filed under Season Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 Responses to “Shall Not Pass Or Make Much Contact”

  1. ImAShark3 Says:
    December 15th, 2009 at 9:30 pm

    Actually Jerry Denny, Billy O'Brien, and Bill Kuehne all did this in 1888, so they had to wait 26 years for someone to join them and then those guys had to wait another 50 years. Also, why don't you ever include pre-1901 seasons on your blogs?

  2. Steve Lombardi Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 10:03 am

    My undertstanding of professional baseball circa 1876-1900 - meaning the National League, American Association (1882-91), Union Association (1884) and Players League (1890) - was that foul balls were not strikes during this period. A base on balls once required three balls, then nine, then eight, then seven. then six, then back to seven before finally landing at four. Pitching distances were moved from 45 feet to 50 feet to 60.5 feet. And, for a while, pitchers were prohibited to throw over the shoulder and batters were permitted to call for high or low strikes to be thrown to them. Lastly, until 1893, batters were allowed to use a bat that was flat on one side.

    It was a totally different game from what we know know - that's generally why I like my clock to start at 1901.

  3. JohnnyTwisto Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 10:33 am

    All fair points Steve. I usually like to search from 1893, when the mound went back to 60 feet, but depending on what you're looking for, different starting points can be appropriate. One might argue that baseball after 1900 still looked very different from what we know, with a dirty wet ball made of mush, all the bunting, tiny gloves, etc. But I suppose most of the modern rules were in place, it was just a matter of strategy and equipment changing over time.

    Just be wary of saying "in baseball history" when baseball did have a lot of history prior to the 20th century.

  4. JDV Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 1:21 pm

    The 502 PA threshhold came into being with the advent of the 162-game season. If the equivalent 154-game standard (477 PA) and 140-game standard (prior to 1904) (434 PA) were used, we probably did not go 50 years without a qualifying season.

  5. Raphy Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 3:19 pm

    No dice JDV - The built in "qualified for the batting title" option, which uses the requirements of the time (usually way more lenient than 3.1 PA/g) returns no extra players.

  6. JDV Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 5:10 pm

    Good enough.

  7. ImAShark3 Says:
    December 16th, 2009 at 6:27 pm

    Yeah but there were rules changes in later years too, so I think you should just go from 1871-2009, maybe 1876-2009.

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