Most Seasons With 150+ Games & .390+ OBA
Posted by Steve Lombardi on April 7, 2011
Who are the leaders, since 1901, for the most seasons with 150+ games played in a season with an On-Base Average of .390 or better?
Here's the list -
.
Can Bobby Abreu catch the Iron Horse here? Maybe...
And, can Albert catch Bobby? Perhaps...
April 7th, 2011 at 12:46 am
Of course, Babe Ruth only had 6 seasons with 150+ games played - they only played 154 a season back then - and his worst OBA in those 6 seasons was .463, well clear of the qualifying line. But I guess part of the point of this list is stamina. Ted Williams only had 4 seasons of 150+ games - but an OBA of .490 or better in each of those 4 seasons. Hornsby only had 4 seasons of 150+.
April 7th, 2011 at 1:26 am
Off topic, but the Giants hit for the cycle today in their first four at bats of the game (3B, 2B, HR, 1B). Would be a great post idea.
April 7th, 2011 at 1:42 am
At first glance I thought choosing .390 as your cutoff seemed arbitrary or cherry picked to get someone one the list to prove a point, but when i saw Keith Hernandez on the list I totally understand .390.
We get so caught up in Baseball's "magic" #s, (.300, 100, 30 etc) we forget that the difference of a .295 hitter and a .301 hitter is so insignificant.
Keith, to me, deserves to be in the Hall. And if it weren't for our fascination with abstract cutoff #s designating what a good season is, I think Keith would of got a much longer look.
He hit > .290 < than .300 4 times, with one .289 season in there. So given a few hits, he would of had 10 or 11 .300 seasons. He also had five 90 + RBI seasons, also with one 89. Also in a low scoring environment. Given a few extra century RBI seasons would of cast him in a much different light to voters.
April 7th, 2011 at 2:25 am
It does seem like maybe you should have done one list as 150+ during the 162 game era, and maybe, I don't know, 142+ for the 154 game era. That said, I think this list helps prove Richie Ashburn might be one of the more underrated Hall-of-Famers as some don't even think he deserves to be in there.
He had ZERO power, but clearly it seems that he knew this and made up for it by not only being a high average contact hitter but one with an incredible eye.
April 7th, 2011 at 3:49 am
@1 Don't forget that Williams, Dimaggio and maybe a few others missed a few seasons due to service in the military. I think Williams might have missed at least 4 years of his prime.
April 7th, 2011 at 3:57 am
Love seeing a list with OBP machine John Olerud on there! He's not hall worthy, but i think deserved a little more credit than he got last year..
April 7th, 2011 at 8:23 am
Has there been an Abreu Hall of Fame debate? He's a fantastic hitter (as this list shows) but he seems like one of those guys who won't have enough support.
And @6, I love seeing Olerud's name too. While I'm hesitant to call him a hall of famer, I was upset with how support he actually got as well. There's no reason he gets under 1% of the vote while someone like Dave Parker gets close to 20 and Jack Morris is bordering on the fence of actually getting in.
April 7th, 2011 at 9:44 am
Its interesting seeing Ken Singleton's name. I knew he was a good OBP guy, but the 150+ for 6 seasons is interesting.
April 7th, 2011 at 9:46 am
@#7, I was just going to post the same question when I saw your post. I think it's a tough call, you don't think of him as a "elite" hitter, even in his prime. He's numbers were never gaudy, "just" 20 homers, 100 RBI, 20 SBs, .300/.400/.500 every year. Without checking I doubt he was ever considered the best hitter on any team he played for, not sure.
April 7th, 2011 at 9:50 am
I'll support my own theory I posited in #9...in the early 2000's with Philly, they also had Rolen and Burrell who could be considered as good or more of a threat than Abreu, then Thome came along, and then Howard, Utley, et al showed up...so, yes, I don't think Abreu could be considered the best hitter on any team he played for...no HoF for you!
April 7th, 2011 at 10:02 am
After seeing this list, I had to look up Rickey Henderson's career stats, and I would never have guessed he had only two such seasons.
April 7th, 2011 at 10:24 am
Nice list, but I would like to see this list presented as a percentage of league games played in a given year. It would be a way to include the 154 game seasons, the strike shortened seasons and any other shortened seasons such as 1918 and 1919.
April 7th, 2011 at 10:34 am
If you switch it to 600 PAs and a .390 OBP, you get this list:
13 times
Lou Gehrig
12 times
Barry Bonds
Stan Musial
Eddie Collins
11 times
Mel Ott
Paul Waner
10 times
Albert Pujols
Todd Helton
Jimmie Foxx
Charlie Gehringer
Tris Speaker
9 times
Bobby Abreu
Mickey Mantle
Ted Williams
Babe Ruth
Ty Cobb
8 times
Jim Thome
Alex Rodriguez
Chipper Jones
Frank Thomas
Edgar Martinez
Wade Boggs
Rickey Henderson
Rod Carew
Luke Appling
Joe Cronin
Rogers Hornsby
Abreu loses a year in which he had 151 games and "only" 589 PAs. Still, he's there with Mantle, Ruth, Williams, and Cobb ... though Abreu's high of .446 would have been Cobb's 6th best season, Williams' 7th, Ruth's worst season, and Mantle's 4th best season.
To me Luke Appling is the one who stands out on this list - never realized his career OBP was just shy of .400. Was wondering why his OPS+ was so low and then realized his SLG was lower than his OBP.
April 7th, 2011 at 1:16 pm
@ 10
Abreu was first in WAR on the Phillies in 99, 00, 02, and 03
In 1998, he was second only to Rolen, in 01, he was 2nd to Rolen again but first in oWAR. In 04, he was second only to Rollins 4.9 to 4.8 but he had by far the best oWAR 6.4 to 3.8 and in 05 he was second only to Utley.
April 7th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
@ 11
Despite Rickey playing over 3000 games, he only played 150 or over 4 times.
You could argue that taking as much time off as Rickey did is what gave him his longevity (a lead leading 66 SB and 118 BBs @ age 39, & .315/.423 BA&OB @ 40) but he did average only 123 games a season, which does include two strikes ('81 & '94) and the '95 short season. But he missed nearly 1000 of his teams games.
Conservatively, if he played only half of those games at his 162 game average, he might of reached base 6,000 times, scored 2700 runs, had 350 HRs playing mostly in the 80's, and add another 250 SBs to his already ridiculous 1400.
Pretty impressive.
April 7th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
he did average only 123 games a season, which does include two strikes ('81 & '94) and the '95 short season.
It also includes his rookie year and seasons at the end when he was not intended to be a fulltime player (and wasn't even signed for the entire season).
April 7th, 2011 at 2:18 pm
it's all in how you phrase the parameters.
change it to 140+G and .425 or better OBP and Frank Thomas jumps from 4 to 7 seasons while Abreu tumbles from 10 to 2 seasons.
April 7th, 2011 at 3:24 pm
@16 JT
Yeah, but my point is, Rickey missed more games than your average super star. He also still put up great #'s later in his career, which made me wonder if missing games gave him his longevity.
So subtract his first and last season & the two strike years, and that's 21 years with only 4 150 game seasons. Since the 162 game format, how many other guys, in his caliber, have 21 seasons with so few games?
A near contemporary, Eddie Murray, averaged 144 games a season, 20 more a year.
April 7th, 2011 at 5:12 pm
[...] Lombardi of B-R lists the players w/ the most seasons of 150+ GP & and OBP of .390 or better. Link Posted on Thursday, April 7th, 2011 at 5:12 pm, Category: Baseball, Tags: bref, history, obp, [...]
April 7th, 2011 at 10:33 pm
@12, StephenH -- Yeah, it would be nice to have the data presented as you described. Unfortunately, as wonderful and powerful as the Play Index is, it won't do that -- and the amount of manual work necessary to convert the simple search results into a percentage basis is something that few people would bother to do unless the subject felt really important.
Bottom line, everyone here knows that the 150-game threshold will skew the results towards those who played a 162-game schedule. Still, that schedule has been in force for 46 of the last 50 years now, so that's a pretty big pool of players on a level playing field.
And the fact that 6 of the top 12 on the list played entirely in the 154-game schedule says that much more about them.