Most game starts with no PAs
Posted by Andy on May 6, 2008
Interesting posts over on the suggestions thread:
- I was trying to find the most career games by a pitcher (Starts or Games) who never came to the plate to bat (without a PA). I thought Jack Morris would make the starter answer easy, but he batted once.
Comment by fabio — May 6, 2008 @ 8:51 pm
- Fabio, there’s no easy way to search for that since the batting and pitching searches are on different engines. But here’s a place to start. Obviously any pitcher who pitched before 1973 will have batted at least once, especially if he appears on a leaderboard for games.
So here are the leaders for game starts since 1973:
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/ME46
The first guy I noticed was Frank Tanana, but he had an at-bat for the Tigers in 1991, and then a bunch for the Mets at the tail end of his career.
The next guy I noticed was Mike Mussina, who has been in the AL his entire career. But, thanks to interleague play, he’s had a bunch of ABs.
Next I saw Mike Moore. He was in the AL his entire career, and played before interleague play. But, alas, he had 1 AB in 1987 for some odd reason.
Dave Stieb had 2 ABs…one in 1980 and one in 1998. (I wonder if that’s the biggest break in history between ABs.)
Looks like the answer is Mike Flanagan with 404 starts.
Something similar could be done for relievers, although it’s harder since it’s possible that relievers prior to 1973 could go without PAs.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Looks like Brad Radke is next at 377.
this list, limiting to just AL starts, is helpful too:
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/mk5x
May 6th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Actually, after grabbing the Lahman database and doing some searching of my own I found the following:
# Last First GS W L PA AB
1 Flanagan Mike 404 167 143 0 0
2 Gubicza Mark 329 132 136 0 0
3 Guidry Ron 323 170 91 0 0
4 Boddicker Mike 309 134 116 0 0
5 McGregor Scott 309 138 108 0 0
6 Leonard Dennis 302 144 106 0 0
7 Witt Mike 299 117 116 0 0
8 Dotson Richard 295 111 113 0 0
9 McDowell Jack 275 127 87 0 0
10 Haas Moose 252 100 83 0 0
11 Bosio Chris 246 94 93 0 0
12 McCaskill Kirk 242 106 108 0 0
13 Wegman Bill 216 81 90 0 0
14 Abbott Glenn 206 62 83 0 0
15 Higuera Teddy 205 94 64 0 0
16 Smithson Mike 204 76 86 0 0
17 Perez Melido 201 78 85 0 0
18 Beattie Jim 182 52 87 0 0
19 Figueroa Ed 179 80 67 0 0
20 Burns Britt 161 70 60 0 0
Brad Radke isn't next! He has a ton of plate appearances!
The other near misses:
Jack Morris (527 GS, 1 AB)
Mike Moore (440 GS, 1 AB)
Dave Stieb (412 GS, 2 AB)
Jimmy Key (389 GS, 3 PA, 2 AB)
Tom Gordon (203 GS, 2 AB)
Ben McDonald (198 GS, 1 AB)
Rick Waits (190 GS, 1 AB)
Bill Travers (168 GS, 1 PA, 0 AB)
Matt Young (163 GS, 3 AB)
Curt Young (162 GS, 1 AB)
May 7th, 2008 at 7:34 am
i'm sure many of these other guys could have the following argument too but Tom Gordon's two pa's came well after his starting days were over... so he would have managed to stay on the first list for awhile...
it's kinda a shame when you think about it... did morris' one ab have any effect at all? hahah
May 7th, 2008 at 7:38 am
off topic:
and speaking of morris i'm confused by his page. how did he have 7 dh appearances? also, am i reading correctly the batting section.. where in 1983 he made 7 appearances as a pinch runner.. or something other then batter?
May 7th, 2008 at 10:04 am
"it’s possible that relievers prior to 1973 could go without PAs."
Relievers usually pitched longer stints in those days, so it's probable that any with a substantial career had at least several AB. For instance, look at how many AB Hoyt Wilhelm had, even in the seasons when he was strictly a reliever. (Maybe his managers were all waiting for the return of that 1st AB homerun swing...)
"and speaking of morris i’m confused by his page. how did he have 7 dh appearances? also, am i reading correctly the batting section.. where in 1983 he made 7 appearances as a pinch runner.. or something other then batter?"
Those DH appearance are when he pinch ran for the DH. He did it quite a bit apparently. Creative use of the roster...what a concept.
May 7th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Am I missing something? Searching for the most games without any career PAs is easy, no?...
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/4dkT
Buddy Groom is the all-time leader with 786 games, and 0 PAs.
May 7th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
statboy: you are missing something, the Games Started criterion was the one stated and not Games
But yes, for just using Games, Groom is indeed the all time leader at 786. Flanagan only comes in at #5 on that list, and there are some cool near-misses there as well.
# last first G GS W L PA AB
1 Groom Buddy 786 15 31 32 0 0
3 Stanley Bob 637 85 115 97 0 0
2 Fetters Mike 620 6 31 41 0 0
4 Martinez Tippy 546 2 55 42 0 0
5 Flanagan Mike 526 404 167 143 0 0
Near-misses:
Roberto Hernandez (1010 G, 2 PA)
Jose Mesa (1006 G, 4 PA, 2 AB)
Tom Gordon (853 G, 203 GS, 2 PA)
Bob Wickman (835 G, 2 PA)
Eddie Guardado (796 G, 1 PA)
Mariano Rivera (787 G, 1 PA)
All the stats are as of 2007 season-end, courtesy Lahman DB.