25 Responses to “Most hits with no extra-base hits”

1. Tom Engle Says:
   February 26th, 2011 at 9:16 am

   I love seeing Catfish's name on any list since his 5/8/68 game was the best performance by any player, ever. I think it is the winning RBI as a bunt single that does it.

2. Jay Says:
   February 26th, 2011 at 9:51 am

   So Willie Bloomquist would have had the record if he didn't screw up and double on July 10, 2008. Cool.

3. kds Says:
   February 26th, 2011 at 11:32 am

   Tom #1, Catfish gets .491 pitching WPA, (a starter can't really do more.) His batting and base running added another .19 (more than any other player in the game.) Let us look for other pitchers who batted and had plus WPA in both roles. See if anyone can beat Hunter.

4. Morten Jonsson Says:
   February 26th, 2011 at 12:23 pm

   It is an interesting list. Lots of obscure players it's fun to do some digging on. Minooka Mike McNally, for instance, who in 1916 not only never got to second base under his own power, but didn't get to first base much either. But with his 23 singles and 10 walks he was somehow able to score 28 runs. That's an amazing number, until you realize that he must have scored most of them as a pinch runner; in game 4 of the World Series that year, he pinch ran in the bottom of the 14th and scored the winning run for the Red Sox (Babe Ruth went the distance to win that game). Everybody thinks the Yankee dynasty began when Ruth came over from the Sox in 1920. But they didn't win the pennant until Minooka Mike joined them the next year. And he led them to the next two pennants as well. Yankee Stadium--the house that Minooka Mike built!

   Or Lynn Nelson. The Babe was a fine-hitting pitcher, obviously. But Nelson, in 1937, was an even better one. He hit .354 and slugged .549. Why he didn't, like Ruth, become a position player is a mystery; he might have had a much better career that way. (They called him Line Drive Nelson, which applies equally well to his hitting and his pitching.) In any case, his making this list is as big a fluke as any, as he went from 6 doubles, 2 triples, and 4 home runs in 1937 to 0, 0, and 0 in 1938, while still hitting for a good average.

5. Albanate Says:
   February 26th, 2011 at 12:41 pm

   I thought the no-hitter pitched by Rick Wise where he also hit two home-runs might top Catfish, but it looks like his WPA+ "only" adds up to .578

6. flyingelbowsmash Says:
   February 26th, 2011 at 3:15 pm

   How about Mike Gallego, ha. Everyone remembers the famous quote by Rickey Henderson about if the A's wanted to pay him like Mike Gallego he would play like Mike Gallego. I remember at the time, Gallego was asked if that offended him and he said no, he was just amazed that Rickey knew his name.

7. psychUMP Says:
   February 26th, 2011 at 4:26 pm

   Cesar Izturis will do it this year with the Orioles

8. Andy Says:
   February 26th, 2011 at 4:42 pm

   I am going to make a separate post about highest WPA by a pitcher in a game...nice topic guys, thanks.

9. Gerry Says:
   February 26th, 2011 at 5:26 pm

   Are there really no 19th century seasons with more than 20 hits and no extra-base hits? or is this just a qualifier we've neglected to mention?

10. DoubleDiamond Says:
    February 26th, 2011 at 5:55 pm

    Lots of 1's and 2's (battery players) on this list, including Tony Cloninger, who later hit two grand slams in the same game.

    So far in his career, Joe Blanton's only extra base hit in a game that counts is a World Series home run.

11. Chris Says:
    February 26th, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    Apparently nobody knows more how much last year was the "year of the pitcher" than Mark Grudzielanek.

12. dukeofflatbush Says:
    February 26th, 2011 at 8:35 pm

    Tony Cloniger is the only guy with no BB or HBP. A straight line of .241.

13. Doug Says:
    February 26th, 2011 at 8:46 pm

    @11. Perhaps it's the year of the pitcher. Or maybe it's something to do with Father Time. Grudzielanek has always prodcued a reasonable number of doubles, in the 20s or 30s every year. Hey, he even led the league once with 54 of them.

    In 2008 (his most recent year before 2010), Grudzielanek got 24 doubles in just over a half-season of work. For Mark to drop from there to zero XBH in 119 PA, it seems like the clock has just run out for him at 40, and he just can't get it done anymore.

14. dukeofflatbush Says:
    February 27th, 2011 at 1:32 am

    Just stumbled across this, Dean Chance only had 2 XBHs his entire career (759 PA)! But what impressed me even more, his 420 SOs. Almost 2/3 of his ABs were Ks.

15. Rick Says:
    February 27th, 2011 at 1:56 am

    I like that this was posted days after Mr. Grudzielanek retired.

16. Doug Says:
    February 27th, 2011 at 3:17 am

    @14. Those two XBHs (they were doubles) weren't flukes - Dean was hot those two years ('63 and '65). He had 43% of his career hits and 50% of his career RBIs in the two years be drilled those doubles. And, those two years were the only times he posted an OPS above .200, topping out at a nifty .333 OPS in 1963.

    To his credit, Chance did manage a somewhat respectable 62 sacrifice hits and 30 walks (and 5 HBPs) in his 759 career PAs. And, he hit into only two double plays his whole career (of course, having 420 Ks will help limit your GIDPs).

    But, seriously, Dean gets the last laugh. Between his two big power years, he bagged his Cy Young with the first of two 20-win seasons. He had a career 119 ERA+, 7 straight 12+ win seasons (128-115 career W-L), and 6+ Ks/9 innings. Overall, a fairly decent 11-year major league career. Mostly, he succeeded at what he was really being asked to do.

17. dukeofflatbush Says:
    February 27th, 2011 at 3:46 am

    Not busting on the Dean, but I'm trying to put together an extensive history on the strikeout in MLB. Right now, I'm getting all the official and unofficial records, quirks, anomalies and fun facts to compliment the raw numbers I have been tediously compiling. It helps the work seem a little less serious to have Dean's lifetime 420 SOs next to Tony Gwynn's 434 lifetime SOs. Dean may be one of the driving reasons behind the DH being implemented the year after he hung 'em up. People just couldn't stand to see a man look so bad in the box.
    Another interesting and fun(ny) note on the SO from 2010; In the history of the sport, 236 batters SO 145 times or more. Last year the D-backs had 5 of them. Over 2% of the total in major league history played on the same team.
    To look at it another way, only one pitching staff had 5 pitchers SO 145 +, 1998 Braves.

18. Doug Says:
    February 27th, 2011 at 3:48 am

    More on Dean Chance. 44 career hits and 35 career BB+HBP.

    How can that happen? An almost certain out walks almost as much as he hits. In fact, he did have more walks than hits in 3 seasons, including 3 hits, 7 BB and 2 HBP in 1967.

    I'm guessing that most of the time Chance never took the bat off his shoulder, and sometimes the other pitcher just couldn't throw a strike to save his life.

19. Hartvig Says:
    February 27th, 2011 at 7:14 am

    I am amazed that Roy Thomas didn't make the list. In 1900 he led the National League in plate appearances with 675 and managed to get 7 extra base hits the entire season! That's an average of 1 extra base hit every 96 plate appearances. And he accomplished all this while hitting over .300 for the season and stealing 37 bases so it's not like he wasn't putting the ball into play or didn't have any speed.

20. dukeofflatbush Says:
    February 27th, 2011 at 11:51 am

    @Hartvig

    Thanks, never heard of Roy Thomas, so I went to his player page and couldn't believe what I saw. Consistent .420-.450 OBP in the first part of his career with a mid-.350ish SLG.
    He kind of reminds me of a Luis Castillo, except this guy really got on base. So I went on a hunch and checked his TOB vs his TBs, and for batters with more than 6000 PAs he has the largest disparity. His TB/TOB is just 67%, Miller Huggins was next at 70%.

21. DoubleDiamond Says:
    February 27th, 2011 at 10:01 pm

    There have actually been two Roy Thomases that I know of in major league baseball history. Both were under contract to the Phillies at some point in their career, although the position player Roy Thomas that is mentioned here was the only one who ever played for them at the major league level. The other Roy Thomas, a pitcher, played for the Phillies at the minor league level but eventually made it to the majors with other teams. His historical footnote with Philadelphia is that he was their first round draft pick in 1971. They then chose a guy named Mike Schmidt in the second round.

22. Highest WPA by a pitcher in a game » Baseball-Reference Blog » Blog Archive Says:
    February 28th, 2011 at 7:32 am

    [...] another thread, some readers started discussing the best single-game performance by a pitcher as measured by his [...]

23. dukeofflatbush Says:
    February 28th, 2011 at 9:20 am

    @ 7

    Last year, Cesar Izturis became just the 13th player to post a OPS+ of 50 or lower while appearing in 150 + games.
    And for his career, Cesar Izturis is second only to Tommy Thevenow, for lowest OPS+ for players with over 1000 career hits. Not to worry, Itzuris, sitting on 64, would need several under 50 OPS+ seasons to approach Thevenow's 'magical' 51.

24. jiffy Says:
    February 28th, 2011 at 9:34 am

    To paraphrase Harry Caray, "What's Grudzielanek backwards if it isn't already?"

25. John Autin Says:
    February 28th, 2011 at 12:27 pm

    On the flip side of this theme ...

    Most hits in a season with no singles: 5, by two players:
    -- Rick Wrona, 1994: 5 for 10, 1 HR, 4 doubles. In his final MLB game, Wrona went 3 for 4 with 3 doubles, each off a different pitcher.
    -- Dixie Howell [the pitcher], 1957: 5 for 27, 3 HRs, 1 triple, 1 double.

    P.S. Millard "Dixie" Howell (not to be confused with Homer "Dixie" Howell, even though both were born in Kentucky in the first half of 1920, and both played for the 1949 Reds) had an odd MLB career, appearing first in 1940, then again in 1949, and finally in 1955-58 -- a span of 19 seasons, in which he logged just 226 innings in the majors, despite a 106 ERA+. He was also a legitimate hitter, batting .243 and slugging .500 in 74 big-league AB (5 HRs), and .251 with 38 HRs in a long minor-league career. He's also believed to be the last relief pitcher to hit 2 HRs in a game: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA195706162.shtml

    Player page: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/howeldi01.shtml
    Bullpen page: http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Dixie_Howell_%28howeldi01%29