17 Responses to “Paul Konerko & RBIs in each of the first 7 games”

1. Thomas Says:
   April 9th, 2011 at 6:26 pm

   Is this a list of the first 7 games or 'at least' the first 7 games?

2. Pageup Says:
   April 9th, 2011 at 7:04 pm

   I see Burrell had 17 ribbies in the 7 games, it would be interesting to see who had the most in say the first 10 games or so (actually, who had the most ribbies over a 10 games span?)? just wondering...

3. Gerry Says:
   April 9th, 2011 at 7:30 pm

   Juan Gone had the worst OBP of the lot, .344, in fact his OBP was lower than his batting average.

4. Paul Says:
   April 9th, 2011 at 7:59 pm

   Hanley Ramirez had 24 RBI in 10 games in 2009, that's the most in a ten game streak I can find going back to 1945. Went .475/.523/.975 with 5 HR

5. John Autin Says:
   April 10th, 2011 at 12:31 am

   Looking at Dale Murphy's 1985 season, I noticed that:
   (a) He tied for the NL lead in offensive WAR with 7.8;
   (b) He won a Gold Glove in CF; but
   (c) His defensive WAR was minus-2.5.

   Anyone have a sense of the worst dWAR in a gold glove season?
   I checked Jeter, of course, but the worst of his gold gloves scored -0.9 dWAR.

6. Neil L. Says:
   April 10th, 2011 at 9:54 am

   I'm trying to think (in vain) of some common thread to these players batting style that would have them make the list. Mostly pretty good hitters with an occasional flash in the pan.

   Two small observations:
   First, Juan Gonzalez producing in the seven-game stretch despite striking out almost one third of the time.
   Second, the average number of RBI is 11.4. These guys didn't just scrape over the one-RBI per game barrier, they produced in bunches. But I guess when you're hot you're hot....

   Wonder how badly those hitters playing way over their head in the first 7 games crashed back to earth in the remainder of the season?

7. Neil L. Says:
   April 10th, 2011 at 11:00 am

   Looking at the individual games on the list and doing a little arithmetic it is interesting to put these players' acheivements over the seven-game period in their teams' context.

   Dale Murphy tops out at 14 RBI out of his teams 34 runs for 41.1%, Jorge Cantu next at 12/32 for 37.5%, followed by Pat Burrell at 17/47 for 36.2%.

   Additionally, during Murphy's streak the Braves did not score double-digit runs in any of the games, unlike many of the others on the list, suggesting, perhaps a higher degree of pressure. The only blowout was a 6-0 win over the Phillies. The Braves had two one-run losses during the stretch. Talk about carrying your team!

   If you consider Murphy's 8 runs scored during the 7 games (although 5 were by his own hand) the percentage of his teams runs he was involved in climbs to 22/34 = 64.7%, an even wider margin over Cantu's 16/32 for 50.0%.

   Hot start in that year!

8. John Autin Says:
   April 10th, 2011 at 4:02 pm

   Update: Make it 8 straight for Konerko, with a pair of 2-out solo HRs halfway through today's game.

9. Andy Says:
   April 10th, 2011 at 4:08 pm

   FINALLY! John Autin says something that's wrong. Konerko didn't have an RBI yesterday. 🙂

10. John Autin Says:
    April 10th, 2011 at 5:14 pm

    Crikey! Couldn't we back-date one of those HRs to yesterday???

    BTW, I can't decide if Andy is flattering me, or ribbing me for always thinking I'm right. I guess he's right either way.... 🙂

11. John Autin Says:
    April 10th, 2011 at 5:19 pm

    P.S. If Konerko gets an RBI in 7 straight games after today, I'm taking full credit for it. 🙂

    He did have a 9-game RBI streak back in July 2000, including a PH ribbie.

12. Andy Says:
    April 10th, 2011 at 6:16 pm

    JA, I'm intending to neither rib nor flatter, although I guess flatter is a lot closer. You do seem to always be correct and I can't think of another example of just being flat-out wrong. For someone who posts so many comments (about 20 this weekend, I think?) that's quite impressive.

    Any more-than-casual reader of this blog knows that I make a lot of mistakes. I sacrifice accuracy, good writing, and depth of research in exchange for timeliness and frequency of posting...if I made fewer mistakes, I'd post a lot less often and miss out on my personal mission for this blog.

13. Neil L. Says:
    April 10th, 2011 at 6:21 pm

    John A. & Andy, in this context you both rock. There, only flattery.

    But Konerko's performance today definitely ups the ante on season starts, although not consecutive.

14. DavidRF Says:
    April 10th, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    @13
    It doesn't really up the ante. It was all about the streak. His start has been excellent but not historically so. Sort the chart by OPS and you'll see what I mean. Murphy also went RBI-less in game 8 but still had two hits. Then he had two hits (2B & HR) and four RBI in game 9.

    That's a different post though... most HR/RBI/OPS/whatever through first ten games. That's a post we'll likely see actually. 🙂

15. Neil L. Says:
    April 10th, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    Yeah, David, you're right 2 solo HR's only brings him to 11 RBI in 9 games. Not a particularly compelling stat, even at the start of a season. .

16. Johnny Twisto Says:
    April 10th, 2011 at 11:42 pm

    Anyone have a sense of the worst dWAR in a gold glove season?

    Good find John. That is the worst season by Total Zone for any Gold Glove winner (I had previously charted the defensive ratings of every GG winner to see how they rate on average).

    Other bad performances:

    T. Gwynn 1989: -23 runs (-2.1 WAR)
    E. Davis 1989: -21 runs (-2.2 WAR)
    S. Finley 1995: -21 runs (-2.1 WAR)
    D. Winfield 1983: -18 runs (-1.7 WAR)
    D. Murphy 1986: -17 runs (-1.6 WAR)
    K. Reitz 1975: -16 runs (-1.8 WAR)
    B. Williams 1999: -16 runs (-1.7 WAR)
    T. Hunter 2007: -15 runs (-1.6 WAR)
    M. Mantle 1962: -15 runs (-1.4 WAR)

    Why are most of them outfielders? Specifically CF (of course, most OF GG winners are CF, especially recently).

17. John Autin Says:
    April 11th, 2011 at 4:49 pm

    Thanks for the info, JT.

    "Why are most of them outfielders?"
    I can think of a couple of things that would contribute to such a trend:

    1. Gold Gloves are traditionally voted on the basis of visual observation of a relatively few games. The positions that are involved in the fewest plays are more subject to randomness and viewer bias. Outfielders, in general, make fewer plays than infielders. Pitchers make fewer plays than anyone, which is why the voters like to settle on a pitcher and give him the award every year no matter how he fielded.

    2. For a viewer, it may be inherently harder to judge an outfielder's range than to make the same judgment about an IF. The area of the infield is small enough that an experienced viewer has a pretty good sense of which balls an infielder "should" get to. It's harder for a viewer to have good judgment about that when watching outfield play; basically, any catch the OF makes while running registers as a good play. Once you're used to seeing Torii Hunter make running catches, and you know he's been a Gold Glover, every time you see him make a running catch just confirms what you already "know" about his defense.

    3. Aging OFs can conceal their loss of range, to some extent, by playing deeper. Thus, they may be able to make just as many spectactular catches at and above the wall as they ever did, and the balls they can no longer get to are generally singles, which draw less attention than extra-base hits. There's not much an infielder can do in terms of positioning that will disguise his loss of range.

    All these things would tend to make eyewitness impressions of OF fielding performance even less accurate than they are for IF defense.