Fewest homers 1990 to 1995
Posted by Andy on January 30, 2009
I'm reading "Birth of a Dynasty" by Joel Sherman right now, a book about the rise of the Yankees to eventually win 4 World Series titles in 5 years from 1996 to 2000. Much of the early part of the book is about the 1995 Yankees, Buck Showalter, and the decline of Don Mattingly.
Sherman points out that among players with as many AB as Mattingly over 1990 to 1995, only 8 players (including Mattingly) had as few as 58 HR. I found that stat shocking, until I looked at the list:
Cnt Player **HR** AB From To Ages G PA R H 2B 3B RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF GDP SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS Positions Teams +----+-----------------+-------+-----+----+----+-----+----+-----+----+----+---+---+----+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+----+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+---------+-----------+ 1 Lance Johnson 17 3255 1990 1995 26-31 862 3489 444 941 94 74 305 187 16 223 6 23 18 71 204 66 .289 .327 .379 .706 *8/79D CHW 2 Brett Butler 18 3327 1990 1995 33-38 874 3946 543 1011 99 53 234 514 10 380 17 66 22 23 228 103 .304 .397 .382 .779 *8 SFG-LAD-TOT 3 Jody Reed 21 3055 1990 1995 27-32 822 3497 375 829 175 6 259 351 20 274 16 56 19 84 29 28 .271 .348 .353 .701 *4/6D BOS-LAD-MIL-SDP 4 Tony Fernandez 30 3091 1990 1995 28-33 815 3490 421 841 147 45 300 324 23 331 21 33 21 70 108 65 .272 .343 .378 .721 *6/54 TOR-SDP-TOT-CIN-NYY 5 Wade Boggs 39 3065 1990 1995 32-37 808 3571 464 944 175 17 341 459 75 259 6 3 38 73 5 8 .308 .395 .414 .809 *5/D3 BOS-NYY 6 Tony Gwynn 42 3066 1990 1995 30-35 770 3353 456 1047 192 29 388 243 77 111 5 9 30 95 64 28 .341 .387 .464 .851 *9/8 SDP 7 Steve Finley 45 3147 1990 1995 25-30 838 3487 451 881 127 53 267 247 20 360 15 59 19 45 168 61 .280 .333 .397 .730 *89/7 BAL-HOU-SDP 8 Don Mattingly 58 2981 1990 1995 29-34 770 3299 392 853 170 5 382 274 54 206 11 0 33 90 6 2 .286 .345 .405 .750 *3/D7 NYY
Right away I realized that these are all full-time players and most of them are leadoff guys. Mattingly makes the list because he didn't walk very much. The complete list is here and only 35 guys had at least Mattingly's 2,981 AB over that span. Correct reporting by Sherman, if a bit misleading.
Lowering the bar to 2000 AB over that span yields this list, with Mattingly having the 51st fewest homers among a field of 138, a much more intuitive measure of his relative performance.
I'm going to feature some other stats gleaned from Sherman's book. Incidentally I think the book is quite good and reveals a lot of interesting info about Buck Showalter, Joe Torre, Lou Piniella, and numerous others.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:55 am
I haven't read this, but I did read the book by Buster Olney from a few years ago about the death of the dynasty. Pretty interesting.
January 30th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I heard somebody..........i won't name names.....(cough hank).......is trying to resurrect the dynasty, but somethings going wrong and it's gonna be a flesh eating zombie that raises salaries by large amounts and results in the death of a few unlucky teams.
January 30th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I've read the Olney book too, and it was also good.
Incidentally, Sherman's book is not a Yankee-loving book. It points out many problems with the organization, starting with G Steinbrenner and going down the list of many personnel, including players. I think many baseball fans would enjoy it, including Yankee fans, Yankee-haters, and Yankee-neutrals, if such a category even exists.
January 30th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
If only all organizations could be so flawed to win 4 titles in 5 years.
January 30th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
For the preceding 6 years (1984-1989) Mattingly was first in HR of 4 players with as many AB, and 6th of 156 in HR among players with 2000 AB. Quite a decline. He went from great to ordinary.
January 31st, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Here's another way to look at it. In those years ('90-'95) there were 29 players who played at least 720 games (120 per year) with at least 50% of their games at either left , right or first. Only Luis Polonia and Joe Orsolak had a worse OPS+.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/8env
From 1984-1989 there were 36 players who met that criteria. Nobody was better than Mattingly.
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/QkwV
February 1st, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Many years ago, in another forum, I pointed out the similarities in the career shapes of Mattingly and Joe Medwick.