Cycle Madness!!
Posted by Andy on April 22, 2009
Have you noticed that three players have already hit for the cycle this year?
Cnt Player Date Tm Opp GmReslt PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS BOr Positions +----+-----------------+-------------+---+----+-------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+---+--+---+--+---+--+--+---+---+--+--+---+---------+ 1 Orlando Hudson 2009-04-13 LAD SFG W 11-1 5 5 3 4 1 1 1 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2nd 2B 2 Ian Kinsler 2009-04-15 TEX BAL W 19-6 6 6 5 6 2 1 1 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1st 2B 3 Jason Kubel 2009-04-17 MIN LAA W 11-9 5 5 2 4 1 1 1 5 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4th LF
Here are all the times since 1954 that a player has hit for the cycle in his team's first 12 games of the season, grouped by year:
Year Games Link to Individual Games +----+-----+-------------------------+ 2009 3 Ind. Games 2005 1 Ind. Games 2002 1 Ind. Games 1994 1 Ind. Games 1989 1 Ind. Games 1980 1 Ind. Games 1978 1 Ind. Games 1976 1 Ind. Games 1972 1 Ind. Games
So, wow, it's happened only 11 times overall, and this year is the only time it's happened more than once.
Incidentally, the next-fewest number of games to start the season it took for 3 players to hit for the cycle was 54, in 1980. See the list here. That year it was done by Ivan DeJesus, Fred Lynn, and Mike Easler.
And finally, the record for most cycles in any full season since 1954:
Year Games Link to Individual Games +----+-----+-------------------------+ 2004 6 Ind. Games 1976 6 Ind. Games 2008 5 Ind. Games 2006 5 Ind. Games 2001 5 Ind. Games 2000 5 Ind. Games 1980 5 Ind. Games 1970 5 Ind. Games 2003 4 Ind. Games 1991 4 Ind. Games 1989 4 Ind. Games 1987 4 Ind. Games 1985 4 Ind. Games 1984 4 Ind. Games 1979 4 Ind. Games 1972 4 Ind. Games 1964 4 Ind. Games
We've got a decent shot at breaking the record this year.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I heard on Baseball Tonight or Sports Center or somewhere, that 3 cycles have been hit in the span of 5 days at any point in the season only twice before. Can anyone enlighten us on those times? Thanks.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
That could be found using the PI but only manually...I think this is a job for Raphy 🙂
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:41 pm
http://www.bb-ref.com/play-index/shareit/eqvh
According to the list of cycles (which I didn't manually analyze, I just pasted it into a spreadsheet) this had happened only once before since 1954. Last season Christian Guzman hit for the cycle on August 28th and then Stephen Drew and Adrian Beltre did it on September 1st.
The next shortest time period (since 1954) that 3 players hit for the cycle was in 1970. Tony Horton did it on July 1, Tommie Agee on the 6th and Jimmy Ray Hart on the 8th.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:27 am
The shortest time period for four cycles is 15 days, achieved in 1933, the year of the cycle. Mickey Cochrane hit for the cycle on August 2, followed by Pinky Higgins on August 6, Jimmie Foxx on August 14, and Earl Averill on August 17.
Some incidental notes: 1) Cochrane, Higgins, and Foxx were all playing for the Athletics in 1933. That's three cycles for one team within 12 days, another record. 2) Averill played for the Indians in '33, so the four cycles within 15 days is also an AL record. 3) The leagues combined for eight cycles in 1933, four in each league. The highest number of cycles in any other season is six, achieved in 2004, 1976, and 1940.
Baseball Almanac pages for all historical and cycles. (It's my first time logging in here; apologies if I mess up the tags.)
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:31 am
> Yep, I botched it. Not the kid's finest hour.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Thanks for the b-a link, Jed. A few other shortest / longest stretches culled from that data (also after drag-and-dropping into a spreadsheet):
Shortest time between cycles: Same day (2x) - George Burns, NYG & Bobby Veach, DET on 9/17/1920. Repeated by Stephen Drew, ARI & Adrian Beltre, SEA on 9/1/2008. There were also cycles hit on back-to-back days 6/9 & 6/10/1912.
Longest time between cycles: 1869 days (5+ yrs) - between Bill Joyce, WAS 5/30/1896 and Harry Davis, PHA 7/10/1901.
Shortest time for 3 cycles: 5 days (2x) - Christian Guzman, WAS (8/28/2008); Stephen Drew, ARI (9/1/2008); & Adrian Beltre, SEA (9/1/2008). Repeated by Orlando Hudson, LAD (4/13/2009); Ian Kinsler (4/15/2009); & Jason Kubel (4/17/2009). Incidentally, there were no cycles hit between these trifectas (not totally surprising, given the dates.) There were also 3 cycles hit in a span of 7 days in 1970.
Shortest time for 4 cycles: 16 days - In 1933, as listed by Jed in comment #4. (Though 8/2 - 8/17 is 16 days by my counting). The next shortest was 19 days, beginning with Mark Kotsay, ATL (8/14/2008) and ending with the trifecta from 8/28 to 9/1/2008 listed above.
Shortest time for 5 cycles: 55 days - Also in 1933. Add Arky Vaughan, PIT (6/24/1933) to the four listed above.
Shortest time for 6 cycles: 84 days - Again 1933. Add Chuck Klein, PHI (5/26/1933) to the five listed above.
The longest spans for 3, 4, 5, and 6 cycles were all between 1912 - 1920, since there were only 2 cycles hit between September 1912 and July 1920.
Incidentally, my algorithm counted calendar days between cycles, not MLB schedule days. Since the last three cycles hit in 2008 and the first three hit in 2009 were done within ~2 schedule months (last 4 days of August 2008, September, 4 scheduled regular season days in October, plus 13 scheduled days in April 2009 = ~51 schedule days by my count), I'd be very surprised if that were not a record as well. If you include Kotsay's cycle (8/14/2008), that's 7 cycles in ~65 schedule days!
April 24th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I was also going to add that the records for shortest spans for 5 and 6 cycles were just missed in 1940. Harry Craft, CIN (6/8); Harry Danning, NYG (6/15); Johnny Mize, STL (7/13); Buddy Rosar, NYY (7/19); & Joe Cronin, BOS (8/2) hit five cycles in 56 days, and Joe Gordon, NYY (9/8) made it six cycles in 93 days.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:55 am
The prevalence of cycles is fruitful ground for thought. In the most basic sense, I'd expect to see more cycles during eras of more offense...more hits, more extra-base hits--these increase the likelihood of one player getting all 4 varieties of hit in one game. However, while hits and extra-base hits in general are going through a boom right now, triples are much less frequent now than they used to be. I've posted on this blog previously about how triples are quite obviously the most often missing ingredient for a cycle.
Cycles seem more prevalent these days, I think because do many homers and doubles are being hit. But the ballparks have become so small that triples are really hard to hit.