3+ HR seasons for a pitcher
Posted by Andy on July 6, 2009
On Saturday, Micah Owings set off some fireworks, hitting his 3rd homer of the season. That gave him 2 seasons with at least 3 homers (inlcuing 2007 in which he hit 4.)
After the jump, see the full list of all pitchers with at least 2 different 3-HR seasons.
From To Ages Seasons Link to Individual Seasons +-----------------+----+----+-----+-------+------------------------------+ Earl Wilson 1962 1968 27-33 6 Ind. Seasons Bob Lemon 1948 1956 27-35 5 Ind. Seasons Red Ruffing 1930 1938 25-33 5 Ind. Seasons Don Drysdale 1958 1965 21-28 4 Ind. Seasons Warren Spahn 1955 1961 34-40 4 Ind. Seasons Wes Ferrell 1931 1936 23-28 4 Ind. Seasons Gary Peters 1963 1971 26-34 3 Ind. Seasons Pedro Ramos 1961 1963 26-28 3 Ind. Seasons Bob Gibson 1963 1972 27-36 3 Ind. Seasons Dick Donovan 1956 1962 28-34 3 Ind. Seasons Johnny Antonelli 1955 1957 25-27 3 Ind. Seasons Joe Nuxhall 1953 1955 24-26 3 Ind. Seasons Clint Hartung 1947 1950 24-27 3 Ind. Seasons Dizzy Trout 1944 1947 29-32 3 Ind. Seasons Micah Owings 2007 2009 24-26 2 Ind. Seasons Carlos Zambrano 2006 2008 25-27 2 Ind. Seasons Mike Hampton 2001 2002 28-29 2 Ind. Seasons Tim Lollar 1982 1984 26-28 2 Ind. Seasons Rick Rhoden 1977 1982 24-29 2 Ind. Seasons Tom Seaver 1972 1977 27-32 2 Ind. Seasons Rick Wise 1971 1973 25-27 2 Ind. Seasons Fergie Jenkins 1970 1971 27-28 2 Ind. Seasons Blue Moon Odom 1969 1970 24-25 2 Ind. Seasons Milt Pappas 1961 1962 22-23 2 Ind. Seasons Don Cardwell 1960 1961 24-25 2 Ind. Seasons Don Larsen 1953 1958 23-28 2 Ind. Seasons Jack Harshman 1956 1958 28-30 2 Ind. Seasons Lew Burdette 1958 1961 31-34 2 Ind. Seasons Tommy Byrne 1956 1957 36-37 2 Ind. Seasons Jim Hearn 1952 1955 31-34 2 Ind. Seasons Jim Tobin 1942 1945 29-32 2 Ind. Seasons Claude Passeau 1941 1946 32-37 2 Ind. Seasons Erv Brame 1929 1930 27-28 2 Ind. Seasons Ernie Wingard 1924 1927 23-26 2 Ind. Seasons Ted Blankenship 1923 1927 22-26 2 Ind. Seasons Babe Ruth 1915 1916 20-21 2 Ind. Seasons Claude Hendrix 1915 1918 26-29 2 Ind. Seasons
Scanning down the list, you can see that the only players do to it in the last 30 years are Owings, Zambrano, Hampton, Lollar, plus we'll add in Rick Rhoden whose two years came in 1977 and 1982.
So far, Owings has been a fairly average pitcher in 2009. He'll probably need to improve at least a little to have hopes of hitting lots more major-league homers.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Where's Don Newcombe (7 HRs in '55; 3 in '59)?
July 6th, 2009 at 9:20 am
THAT is an excellent question. I actually noticed that myself and then forgot about it when I wrote the post. Let me ask Sean about it.
July 6th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Did you set a minimum % of time played at pitcher? Newcombe pitched in 28 games and pinch hit in 31 games(!), so if you had a 50% threshold he wouldn't show up. (But all his HR were hit as a pitcher.)
July 6th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Oh yeah, that's the problem. Nice catch, JT.
July 6th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Ok here is the updated list:
http://www.bb-ref.com/play-index/shareit/SkVk
I dropped the requirement to pitching in 20% of games. Newcombe appears now, as does Babe Ruth.
July 6th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I was surprised to see that Ruth did not play any OF in 1915 or 1916. However, he did have a lot more games played than pitched, so he was probably pinch hitting a lot. He had only 4 and 3 HR in those seasons, and it is possible he did not have 3 as a P. By 1918, he still pitching a fair amount but playing more often in the OF. He had 11 HR and again it is possible he did not hit 3 as a pitcher. Unfortunately the PI is not currently capable of showing exactly what stats were compiled while at a specific position. So any time you run a search like this, you cannot take the results as gospel, you will have to dig a little deeper to be sure.
Unsurprisingly there were a lot more seasons like this in the 19th century. (Andy's search only starts in 1901.)
July 7th, 2009 at 1:01 am
You can go to Ruth's page at bbref and click on HR Log and see all his home runs. In 1915, all 4 came in games he pitched. In 1916, 2 were pitching, 1 pinch-hitting. In 1918, only 2 were pitching. Same for 1919. He also had one as a pitcher in 1933 - he'd occasionally pitch a game late in the season as a kind of a stunt. In any event, he doesn't make the list.
July 8th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
ok, now how about the inverse? 3+ K seasons for a position player? Paul Janish now had 3 Ks in 2 outings on the mound this season. In spite of his 49.50 ERA (and 9 ERA+), he did strike out J.J. Hardy, Chris Duffy and Pedro Feliz - that's 3 in 2 innings.
Can we get a list of 3+ K seasons for a position player? And (if the list isn't too big), 2+ Games Pitched in a season for a position player?
July 8th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
No way to get that using the PI. Somewhere on this site I believe there is a list of position players who pitched.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
It's under Frivolities, but I can't post the direct link (WHEN WILL THIS BE FIXED??!?!?!?!)