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J. P. Arencibia and great early games for a catcher

Posted by Andy on April 22, 2011

Through Wednesday, J. P. Arencibia had played 23 games in the big leagues.

In his 12th career game (Opening Day of this past season) he hit a triple and two homers. Check out the catchers since 1919 to triple and homer in any of their first 23 career games:

Rk Gcar Player Date Tm Opp Rslt PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS WPA RE24 aLI BOP Pos. Summary
1 12 J. P. Arencibia 2011-04-01 TOR MIN W 13-3 4 4 2 3 0 1 2 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.050 4.410 .190 9 C
2 16 Josh Paul 2000-04-24 CHW BAL W 8-2 4 4 2 2 0 1 1 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.131 2.247 .422 9 C
3 18 Eli Marrero 1998-04-13 STL SFG L 2-8 4 4 1 2 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0.055 0.613 .992 7 C
4 6 Dan Walters 1992-06-09 SDP HOU W 5-4 4 4 2 2 0 1 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.430 1.948 2.557 7 C
5 16 Bill Freehan 1963-05-07 DET NYY W 6-2 3 3 3 3 1 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.265 3.072 .670 6 C
6 7 Merritt Ranew 1962-04-25 HOU STL T 5-5 8 8 2 4 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.307 1.848 1.568 6 C
7 21 Ray Lamanno 1942-05-20 CIN PHI W 10-3 4 3 3 3 0 1 1 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 8 C
8 6 Sammy Holbrook 1935-06-15 WSH SLB W 11-3 5 4 2 3 0 1 2 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 7 C
9 21 Bill DeLancey 1934-05-30 (1) STL CIN W 9-6 5 5 1 4 0 1 1 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 6 C
10 5 Frank Reiber 1933-04-28 DET SLB W 5-3 2 2 1 2 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 8 C
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/21/2011.

It hasn't happened at all since Josh Paul in 2000, and not with 2 homers since Sammy Holbrook in 1935.

In Arencibia's first career game, he also hit 2 homers. Here are the catchers to do that in their first 23 career games:

Rk Gcar Player Date Tm Opp Rslt PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS WPA RE24 aLI BOP Pos. Summary
1 12 J. P. Arencibia 2011-04-01 TOR MIN W 13-3 4 4 2 3 0 1 2 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.050 4.410 .190 9 C
2 1 J. P. Arencibia 2010-08-07 TOR TBR W 17-11 5 5 3 4 1 0 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.141 2.863 .328 9 C
3 4 Brandon Harper 2006-08-20 WSN PHI L 10-12 3 3 2 2 0 0 2 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.109 2.717 .440 7 C
4 23 Eliezer Alfonzo 2006-07-05 SFG COL L 3-5 4 4 2 3 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.071 2.130 .645 8 C
5 13 Chris Snyder 2004-09-08 ARI LAD L 5-6 4 3 2 2 0 0 2 3 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.192 2.434 1.477 6 C
6 13 Corky Miller 2001-10-03 CIN CHC L 7-13 4 3 2 2 0 0 2 4 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.336 2.871 1.055 8 C
7
 14 Ben Petrick 1999-09-22 COL ARI L 3-11 3 3 2 2 0 0 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.152 2.344 .703 8 C
8 10 Bobby Estalella 1997-09-04 PHI MON W 6-4 4 4 3 3 0 0 3 4 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.498 3.710 .785 7 C
9 9 Raul Casanova 1996-06-06 DET BAL L 6-13 5 5 2 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.025 0.741 .750 6 C
10 23 Jayhawk Owens 1993-07-25 COL STL L 4-5 5 4 2 2 0 0 2 2 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.163 1.443 2.172 8 C
11 19 Greg Olson 1990-05-17 ATL PIT W 6-1 4 4 2 2 0 0 2 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.200 3.632 .695 8 C
12 13 John Marzano 1987-08-16 BOS TEX W 12-2 5 4 3 3 1 0 2 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.198 3.885 .298 9 C
13 14 Bill Bathe 1986-05-07 OAK MIL W 7-6 4 4 2
 2 0 0 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.280 1.864 .742 9 C
14 20 Darren Daulton 1985-08-17 PHI CHC W 10-4 5 5 4 4 1 0 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0.252 3.256 .412 6 C
15 13 Jerry Willard 1984-05-21 CLE BOS L 3-6 4 3 2 2 0 0 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.077 1.885 .315 6 C
16 22 Dale Murphy 1977-09-15 ATL SDP W 8-7 5 5 2 3 0 0 2 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.485 3.046 1.450 6 C
17 12 Tim Hosley 1971-09-25 DET NYY W 10-7 4 4 2 2 0 0 2 5 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.318 2.736 1.075 5 C
18 16 Larry Howard 1970-09-07 (1) HOU SDP W 10-5 4 4 3 3 1 0 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.214 3.060 .393 8 C
19 2 Mike Ryan 1965-05-02 (2) BOS DET W 10-3 5 4 2 2 0 0 2 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.089 2.563 .264 8 C
20 14 Bill Freehan 1963-05-05 DET BAL W 12-4 4 3 2 3 1 0 2 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.370 4.681 .988 7 C
21 14 Bob Tillman 1962-05-29 BOS MIN W 8-5 4 3 3 3 0 0 2 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.325 3.209 .958 6 C
22 18 Norm Sherry 1960-06-10 LAD CIN L 3-4 4 4 2 3 0 0 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.116 2.736 .798 7 C
23 15 Ray Noble 1951-05-09 NYG STL W 17-3 6 6 3 4 0 0 2 5 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.136 4.308 .275 4 C
24 6 Roy Campanella 1948-07-04 BRO NYG W 13-12 5 5 2 3 0 0 2 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 8 C
25 6 Sammy Holbrook 1935-06-15 WSH SLB W 11-3 5 4 2 3 0 1 2 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 7 C
Rk Gcar Player Date Tm Opp Rslt PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS WPA RE24 aLI BOP Pos. Summary
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/21/2011.

Arencibia's the only guy since 1919 to do it in his first career game and the only guy to do it twice in his first 23 career games (not to mention first 12 career games.)

Related posts:

    Consecutive 3-Hit Games at Catcher
    Quick recap – Early games of 9/7/11, etc.
    Catcher Alex Avila has a 2-Triple Game
    Ramon Hernandez and a catcher leading the way in WPA
    Best season by a 29-year-old catcher (Hello, Mike Napoli!)

This entry was posted on Friday, April 22nd, 2011 at 11:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

14 Responses to “J. P. Arencibia and great early games for a catcher”

  1. Neil L. Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    Yes Arencibia has had two big offensive days at the plate in his career, but day-to-day Jays watchers will tell you he has a lot of learning to do.

    Arguably he cost the Jays a game on April 7th in the top of the 8th when he turned a swinging strike 3 into a wild pitch charged to his pitcher. With Toronto up 1-0, LaRoche scores on the play, Crisp makes it to first. Next batter strikes out with what should have been the third out.

    Oakland scores another run in the inning and wins 2-1. What irritated Toronto fans was the ball was clearly catchable or at least blockable. He was lazy and stood up too soon and the ball got through him and was called a WP on Jason Frasor.

    ttp://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR201104070.shtml

    On Wednesday, in the bottom of the 7th, Jays trailing to Yankees 5-1, JP draws a walk to put runners on 2B and 1B with one out. Travis Snider hits a single to shallow right. Encarnacion is held at 3B by Brian Butterfield but JP, head down, chugs around 2nd and ends up being the second runner at 3B. He is tagged out for the second out of the inning. Snider at 1B.

    Next batter Jason Nix singles to RF, scoring only one run, the only one Jays get in the inning. So due to the baserunning gaffe, instead of bases loaded, one out, when Nix singled, still two outs left in the inning, we get runners 1st and 3rd, 2 outs. Yankees win the game 6-2 and the chance for a big inning was gone.

    http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR201104200.shtml

    Maybe just a fan crying in his beer, but those mistakes fall through the boxscores. I'm not sure how he only gets a -0.073 WPA- for the game

  2. Paul Drye Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 1:12 pm

    And the first person to do it hit only those two homers in his career.

    Holbrook was a 24-year old catcher with an OPS+ of 100 and he never played another game. He must have got on someone's &%$# list to be sure.

  3. Evil Squirrel Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 1:35 pm

    No surprise Arencibia is the only catcher to homer twice in his first career game... he was only the fourth player at any position in baseball's modern era to homer twice in their debut.

    Interestingly enough, Joe Maddon was the opposing manager the last two times it was accomplished (Arencibia and Mark Quinn)

  4. Don Mattingly's Missing Moustache Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 1:56 pm

    Does every uncommon occurrence have to be analyzed with the annals of baseball history? Being Don Mattingly's former moustache, I would like to do an analysis on the effect of a player's game (batting avg., run production, wins for a pitcher, etc) for those players that have shaved their moustaches. I hope to make a definitive determination whether a player performs better with a moutache or a hairless lip. Stay tuned y'all!

  5. Andy Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    Laf #4.
    No, not everything has to be analyzed, nor do you need to read it if it doesn't interest you!

  6. John Autin Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 2:09 pm

    It's always nice to see the name of Bill Freehan in any of these lists. [Prepare blogcraft for tangential takeoff....]

    The Tigers sure seem to have a lot of alumni who rank in the very first tier of non-HOF players. Bill Freehan:
    -- was an All-Star 11 times in a 12-year stretch;
    -- won 5 straight Gold Gloves;
    -- placed 2nd, 3rd and 7th in MVP votes (Bill James wrote that he rates Freehan as more valuable than McLain in '68); and
    -- ranks in the top 25 in career games at catcher.

    Yet, when his name first appeared on a HOF ballot, Freehan got less than 1% of the vote and was thus banished forever from BBWAA consideration -- much like what happened to Lou Whitaker.

    I don't claim that either Freehan or Whitaker should have been a "no-brainer" HOF selection. But it's clear that their HOF chances were hurt by a brainless failure to consider each player in the context of his time. Both players came up for HOF consideration soon after a great paradigm shift in offensive context, both overall and positional -- but most voters seem to have made no adjustment for this fact.

    Freehan's career, 1963-76, almost perfectly coincided with the lowest-scoring era since the Ruth revolution. His 1968 season, converted to neutral offensive levels, equates to .305 / .415 / .527, with 31 HRs and 105 RBI; his '67 season equates to .314 / .425 / .495.

    But by the time Freehan came up for a vote in 1982, the context of the '60s and early '70s was apparently but a dim memory in the writers' minds. In an even more unfortunate bit of timing, Freehan's peak years were immediately followed by those of the greatest catcher in baseball history, Johnny Bench, plus another excellent offensive catcher in Ted Simmons.

    The BBWAA should have taken Sparky Anderson's advice: "Don't never embarrass nobody by comparing him to Johnny Bench." Instead, it seems that Bench's glare blinded them to virtually all other catchers. In the 30 years from 1970 (Bench's first MVP) to 1999, the BBWAA elected only 2 catchers: Bench himself, and the 3-time MVP, 10-time WS champion, Yogi Berra.

  7. John Autin Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    @4 -- Don't forget to adjust for the surrounding moustachical context!

    (Oh, and by the way -- for the last time, get rid of those sideburns!)

  8. eorns Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    These were also in his debut game of each year. Since there's no "Player's first X games" criterion, we know that there are at least 7 others who have hit two homers on two different Opening Days, which I think has been covered here before. Joe Torre is the only one of the 7 who did it in consecutive openers. So Arencibia's has sparse company here has well. (never mind the triple 🙂

  9. Andy Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 2:21 pm

    2 homers in 2 different opening day games:

    Rk Player #Matching PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS SH SF IBB HBP GDP
    1 Joe Torre 2 Ind. Games 10 8 4 0 0 4 4 1 0 .500 .556 2.000 2.556 1 0 0 0 2
    2 Albert Pujols 2 Ind. Games 10 7 6 0 0 4 7 2 0 .857 .800 2.571 3.371 0 1 0 0 0
    3 Xavier Nady 2 Ind. Games 12 11 6 1 0 4 8 1 2 .545 .583 1.727 2.311 0 0 0 0 1
    4 Raul Mondesi 2 Ind. Games 11 9 7 1 0 4 10 2 1 .778 .818 2.222 3.040 0 0 0 0 0
    5 Eddie Mathews 2 Ind. Games 11 11 4 0 0 4 4 0 2 .364 .364 1.455 1.818 0 0 0 0

    		0
    6 Juan Gonzalez 2 Ind. Games 8 7 4 0 0 4 5 1 2 .571 .625 2.286 2.911 0 0 0 0 0
    7 Adam Dunn 2 Ind. Games 9 8 4 0 0 4 8 1 3 .500 .556 2.000 2.556 0 0 0 0 0
    Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
    Generated 4/22/2011.
  10. Detroit Michael Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 4:39 pm

    I'm surprised that hitting two homers early in one's career isn't a better marker for success for those catchers. I see Freehan, Murphy, and Campanella there, but a lot of flotsam and jetsam too.

  11. Don Mattingly's Missing Moustache Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 6:24 pm

    Andy, bro...just trying to add some levity to the discussion. One of the great things about this wonderful country of ours is freedom of speech...not only can I disagree with you, but I am allowed to voice my opinion. A sense of humor is a terrible thing not to have, Andy. Let's hug it off, man...I would be extremely excited to discuss WAR or UZR with you, if that would brighten your day!!

    John Autin--Luv ya man...I'll think about removing the sideburns...just for you!!!

  12. Andy Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 6:36 pm

    I actually meant to connote much more levity than I apparently did.

  13. Don Mattingly's Missing Moustache Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    sorry, Andy! I apologize then...but I think that we owe it to baseball fans everywhere to see how shaving one's moustache affects one's performance...let's do a case study, bro...

  14. John Autin Says:
    April 22nd, 2011 at 7:58 pm

    For some reason, the existence of a talking, disembodied moustache reminds me of a line attributed to Satchel Paige, when a House of David batsman was awarded first base after Satchel nicked his beard with an inside pitch.

    "Empire, if you will kindly observe here, you will see that these whiskers can't rightly be called no part of a man. They is air."

    History has not recorded whether the whiskers themselves offered a contrarian view.

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