Trivia time
Posted by Andy on January 19, 2010
What is the significance of this list and how did I generate it?
(Note that it is 1901-present, excludes active players, and involved some manual figuring so it might contain errors.)
1. Ray Pepper 2. Phil Plantier 3. Bill Brubaker 4. Jeffrey Hammonds 5. Bill Sweeney T6. Buster Adams T6. Jim Hickman T8. Austin McHenry T8. Harry Simpson 10. Nick Esasky T11. Johnny Lindell T11. Terry Steinbach T13. Frank Schulte T13. Ron Northey T13. Wes Parker T16. Billy Rogell T16. Floyd Robinson T16. Corey Koskie
Make your guesses below.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:05 am
Eighteen people who have not been in my kitchen?
January 19th, 2010 at 11:09 am
All had only one 100+ RBI season?
January 19th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Each of these guys (at least in my cursory check) had only one 100+ RBI season. Still, there must be more linking them together.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Wow.... none of those guys have ever been in my kitchen either. And I've had several kitchens!
In addition to having one and only one 100-RBI season, none of these guys were "RBI men". For each of them, it was their only season above 75 RBI.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:28 am
It's something close to "fewest RBI in second best season for hitters with 100+ RBI in a season". But not exactly. Or the errors in the list are numerous... 🙂
January 19th, 2010 at 11:46 am
OK, I didn't realize that Fernando Tatis hasn't retired, and Morgan Ensberg maybe hasn't either. If so, that only leaves two discrepancies between my list and the original: Johnny Rizzo and Earl Webb.
Also, "100+ RBI in a season" should of course read "100+ RBI in exactly one season".
SQL, using a slightly old lahman DB:
select m.namefirst + ' ' + m.namelast, max(rbi)
from batting b
join master m on b.playerid = m.playerid
where b.playerid in (
select playerid
from batting
where rbi >= 100
group by playerid
having count(*) = 1 and max(yearid) = 1901)
and rbi < 100
group by m.namefirst + ' ' + m.namelast, b.playerid
having max(rbi) < 70
order by max(rbi)
As can be seen, I didn't bother checking for players who reached 100+ RBI only once playing for multiple teams that season. That could be another great trivia question, if there are any.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:54 am
You guys got it...among players with only 1 100+ RBI season, fewest RBI in the second-best season. Good job.
January 19th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
I'm pretty sure it's that the fewest second-most RBIs in a season amoung players that once had 100+.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Just noticed that Carlos Pena this past season broke Plantier's record for fewest hits in a 100+ RBI season.
January 19th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Oh yeah, I just noticed that too (without you saying it).
January 20th, 2010 at 5:28 am
I had to do this for runs as well. The record holder is Ike Davis, with an incredible figure of 5! He scored 5 runs in 1924, 105 runs in 1925, then never played another game in the majors. Surely there must be an interesting story here. Anyone knows?
January 20th, 2010 at 7:27 am
@Micke - that's amazing. It would be really interesting to run this same process through the other stats as well.
@ImAShark4 - yeah right. 🙂
January 20th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
@Micke - Yeah, I noticed that too before you posted it.
@Patrick - May I call you NPP?
January 22nd, 2010 at 8:51 pm
This must not be the Ike Davis I saw play occasionally at ASU a few years ago. He has been away for a few years so should be prepared to make MLB debut.
January 23rd, 2010 at 10:18 am
Nope, this is the Ike Davis:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/davisik01.shtml