Part Time Bangers
Posted by Steve Lombardi on November 29, 2007
Today, I found myself looking at the seasons that Jim Spencer and Oscar Gamble had for the 1979 Yankees...and that got me wondering about which teams had the most batters with great offensive seasons where they had 300 or less PA that year. So, I went to Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Batting Season Finder and set it for "From 1901 to 2007, Played games at C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF, DH, and OF, (requiring OPSp>=150 and PA<=300), sorted by greatest number of players matching criteria" - and this is what I found:
Year Lg Team Number Players Matching
+----+--+---------------------------------+------+-----------------------------------------+
1977 AL New York Yankees 5 Cliff Johnson / Dave Kingman / Mickey Klutts / Gene Locklear / Marty Perez
1975 AL Boston Red Sox 5 Carlton Fisk / Tim McCarver / Deron Johnson / Kim Andrew / Andy Merchant
2007 AL Seattle Mariners 4 Charlton Jimerson / Mike Morse / Jeff Clement / Wladimir Balentien
1999 NL Arizona Diamondbacks 4 Erubiel Durazo / Turner Ward / Edwin Diaz / Danny Klassen
1993 NL Atlanta Braves 4 Fred McGriff / Ryan Klesko / Javy Lopez / Chipper Jones
1967 AL New York Yankees 4 Billy Bryan / Frank Tepedino / Tom Shopay / Lou Clinton
1955 AL Chicago White Sox 4 Clint Courtney / Ron Northey / Stan Jok / Ed White
1935 NL Brooklyn Dodgers 4 Babe Phelps / Vince Sherlock / Frank Skaff / Ralph Onis
1934 AL St. Louis Browns 4 Rogers Hornsby / Grover Hartley / Art Scharein / Charley O'Leary
Year Lg Team Number Players Matching +----+--+---------------------------------+------+-----------------------------------------+ 1977 AL New York Yankees 5 Cliff Johnson / Dave Kingman / Mickey Klutts / Gene Locklear / Marty Perez 1975 AL Boston Red Sox 5 Carlton Fisk / Tim McCarver / Deron Johnson / Kim Andrew / Andy Merchant 2007 AL Seattle Mariners 4 Charlton Jimerson / Mike Morse / Jeff Clement / Wladimir Balentien 1999 NL Arizona Diamondbacks 4 Erubiel Durazo / Turner Ward / Edwin Diaz / Danny Klassen 1993 NL Atlanta Braves 4 Fred McGriff / Ryan Klesko / Javy Lopez / Chipper Jones 1967 AL New York Yankees 4 Billy Bryan / Frank Tepedino / Tom Shopay / Lou Clinton 1955 AL Chicago White Sox 4 Clint Courtney / Ron Northey / Stan Jok / Ed White 1935 NL Brooklyn Dodgers 4 Babe Phelps / Vince Sherlock / Frank Skaff / Ralph Onis 1934 AL St. Louis Browns 4 Rogers Hornsby / Grover Hartley / Art Scharein / Charley O'Leary
There's some interesting names on these lists. Enjoy.
November 29th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Great topic to show the capabilities of Play Index!
A great bench year may help create a pennant winner. Walt Judnich had an ob% of .411 in 274 plate appearances for the 1948 Cleveland Indians.
Gates Brown's OPS+ for the 1968 Tigers was 234, in a pitcher's year!
November 29th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
How about having a minimum for PA?
November 29th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
I would love to see this list with a minimum number of AB or PA as well. On the 77 Yankees, Cliff Johnson had 168 PA had 27,18,5, and 4 PA respectivly.
As for the 75 Red Sox, I never heard of Kim Andrew and Andy Merchant; not a suprise since as Andrew's career spanned 2 games, while Merchant played a single game in 1975, and had a grand total of 3 in his career.
I realize Steve's interest don't parallel mine, but I think if you lowered the qualifying OPS to 130 or so, and made sure eveyone had at least 75 or 100 PA
November 29th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
What did you accomplish by setting the positions the way you did?
November 29th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Spartanbill you're criteria don't return anything all that interesting.
PA between 100 and 300 and OPS+ yields 5 teams with 3 players from 1922 or before and the 1984 NL Philadelphia Phillies (Sixto Lezcano / Tim Corcoran / Jeff Stone)
There are a slew of teams with 2 players.
Lowering the minimum to 75 lets in some more modern teams with 3
2006 NL Washington Nationals Daryle Ward / Ryan Church / Alex Escobar
1996 AL Cleveland Indians Jeromy Burnitz / Brian Giles / Kevin Seitzer
1984 NL Philadelphia Phillies Sixto Lezcano / Tim Corcoran / Jeff Stone
1973 AL Texas Rangers Bill Sudakis / Tom Grieve / Bill Madlock
1953 AL New York Yankees Don Bollweg / Bill Renna / Andy Carey
as well as some more preWWII teams
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/468K
November 30th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Thanks for looking into thaty Oscar. I was expecting a more interesting list, but you are right it is kind of blah.