Same number of homers every year in a career
Posted by Andy on April 1, 2009
While I was writing the post for Scott Coolbaugh's 1989 Topps Major League Debut baseball card over on my other blog, Traded Sets, I noticed that Coolbaugh had exactly 2 homers in every year of his 4-year career.
He's the only guy to have 2 HR in each year of a 4-year career.
These 5 guys all had exactly 1 HR in each of their first 4 years:
From To Ages Seasons Link to Individual Seasons +-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+------------------------------+ Rey Ordonez 1996 1999 24-27 4 Ind. Seasons Carlos Perez 1995 1999 24-28 4 Ind. Seasons Dan Briggs 1975 1978 22-25 4 Ind. Seasons Chris Arnold 1971 1974 23-26 4 Ind. Seasons Johnny Klippstein 1950 1953 22-25 4 Ind. Seasons
However, they all had careers longer than 4 years, so they don't qualify as having hit the same number of homers each year of their career.
I did some searching for guys who hit more than 2 homers (and the same number of homers) in each of their first 4 years and couldn't find anybody.
I also did some searching for guys who hit the same number of homers in their first 3 years.
These guys all hit 3 each of their first 3 years:
+-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+------------------------------+ Robert Fick 1998 2000 24-26 3 Ind. Seasons George Williams 1995 1997 26-28 3 Ind. Seasons Dave Clark 1986 1988 23-25 3 Ind. Seasons
But all had careers longer than 3 years.
Jason Lane had 4 HR each of his first 3 years, but he's still active (although didn't get to the majors last year.)
A guy I'd never heard of, Willie Kamm, had 6 HR each of his first 3 years but played 13 years total. Similar story for Bobby Morgan who started with triple 7's. And Lloyd Moseby with 9's.
Can anybody find a guy to rival Coolbaugh in this stat? How about for something other than HR?
(Of course, I'm not considering guys who hit zero homers each year...there are plenty of those.)
April 1st, 2009 at 9:14 am
Adam Dunn has hit exactly 40 for 4 years running. Not at the start of his career, but still really cool.
April 1st, 2009 at 9:14 am
Yeah, lots of examples of that--Fred Lynn did something similar for example. 40 is a nice round number, though.
April 1st, 2009 at 11:55 am
Another notable repeaters I can remember (in the middle of careers) are Eric Gagne pitching 82.1 IP three straight seasons and Vinny Castilla with the same triple crown stats two straight years. I think we had another thread about that some time ago, but I can't find it.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Al Orth hit 1 HR in each of his first 7 seasons.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Johnny - The thread is called "Jay Gibbons" from June 11, 2008. I'd post a link ,but for some reason it won't let me.
April 1st, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Ordonez hit his lone home run in September for all four years.
April 2nd, 2009 at 6:51 am
Shawn Hare, John Knox, and Byron Houck all had 4 year careers with exactly one double each year.
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:05 am
Some other interesting stuff:
The three guys above all had exactly one TRIPLE in their career. In all three cases, it was during their third year. Hare and Knox never hit a home run, but Houck hit one. Had he not hit that home run, all three would have identical doubles, triples, and home runs for each year of their career.
Jack Harshman finished his career with exactly 1 double for 7 straight seasons.
Chad Moeller, Reid Nichols, and Lew Richie began their career with 6 straight seasons with exactly 1 triple. However, all three of them played a couple seasons past those first 6.
Mickey Doolan had either 1 or 2 home runs in his first 12 seasons.
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:10 am
Ken Griffey Jr had exactly 3 triples, 56 home runs, 76 walks and 121 strike outs in back-to-back seasons (1997-98).
Twins pitcher Ray Corin struck out 83 batters and won 8 games for 3 consecutive seasons (1971-73).
In the 2001 post season Randy Johnson shut down the Braves in game 1 of the NCLS (9 IP, 3 Hits, 0 Runs, 0 Earned Runs 1 Walk, 11 Strike Outs & a 0.00 ERA). Less than 2 weeks later he pitched game 2 of the World Series and posted the same exact numbers against the NY Yankees in every single catagory.
April 4th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Not only did Scott Coolbaugh hit 2 home runs during each of the four years of his career, his brother Mike also hit 2 home runs during his first year. So the Coolbaughs had a family streak of 5 seasons of exactly 2 home runs. Mike hit none during his 2nd season (which was his final season) though.
April 4th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Albert Pujols had between 590 and 592 At Bats each of his first 5 seasons.
April 4th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
cboone 21, the Dunn streak is amazing. Statistically speaking, it's a lot less likely to hit 40 HR four years in a row than 2 HR (or one) four years in a row, basically because the probability distribution is much broader around 40 than around 2.
I estimate the odds against hitting the same number of HR four years in a row are about 8000 to 1 if you average 40 HR per year, but only 80 to 1 if you average 2 HR per year (assuming equal PA each season). And it's only about 25 to 1 against doing it if you average 1 HR per year (that includes a zero HR streak -- if you restrict it to nonzero numbers, it's 50 to 1).
Considering only a little more than 200 players have actually hit 35 or more HR, the Dunn streak is a little spooky. Although if you consider that each player had maybe ten chances at it while in their prime, it's not as far-fetched (but still unlikely).
BTW, the chances of Dunn extending the streak to 5 years are about 1 in 16.
jonnylacomb, I estimate the odds against Pujols' feat (5 years in a row with PA in a range of 2) at more than 125,000 to 1! But of course a lot more players have a chance to do that (2300+ have had 500 or more PA in at least one season).
April 5th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
In both 1996 and 97, Vinny Castilla hit .304 with 40 HR and 113 RBI's
April 11th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Dwight Evans
I always thought it was weird or coincidental that Dwight Evans had three steals nine times in his career - and five consecutive years at one stretch. And Lloyd Moseby began his career with nine HRs for the first three years, and 18 HRs for each of the next three years. The "model of consistency" may go to Eddie Murray or Steve Garvey, though. Or perhaps Pete Rose. Their overall stats stayed basically the same for years on end.